-The Times of India NAGPUR (Maharashtra): Though untimely, delayed, erratic, insufficient or excess rains have been ruining crops in the region for the last few years, farmers claim this year will see the worst crop failures in recent times. All three major Vidarbha crops, cotton, soyabean and orange, have suffered huge losses due to the truant rains. Generally, at least one crop survives nature's vagaries so farmers get some income. But this...

-Livemint NHAM aims to provide all citizens with free drugs and diagnostic treatment, as well as insurance cover to treat serious ailments New Delhi: India's universal health plan that aims to offer guaranteed benefits to a sixth of the world's population will cost an estimated Rs1.6 trillion ($26 billion) over the next four years, a senior health ministry official said. Under the National Health Assurance Mission (NHAM), Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government...

-BBC Most parents would love to get their teenagers away from computers. But not in one poor suburb on the outskirts of Delhi, where youngsters are sent to learn. Sharing a few laptops between them, they're being taught some basic online skills - how to search for information, how to send money to their families in the villages and how to book train tickets. None of the children have access to computers in school....

-The Economic Times LONDON: Large areas of rich irrigated and fertile land in the Indo-Gangetic basin is being lost daily to salt damage, confirms the UN. Crop yield losses on salt-affected lands for wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton grown on salt-affected lands could be 40%, 45%, 48%, and 63%, respectively. Employment losses could be 50-80 man-days per hectare, with an estimate 20-40% increase in human health problems and 15-50% increase in animal health...

-The Hindustan Times To kick-start stalled development projects and remove investment bottlenecks, the government is expected to make changes to the land acquisition act during the winter session that opens on November 24. Dilution of the consent clause, restricting social impact assessment to large projects and giving states the powers to define "emergency" under "urgency clause" for acquiring land are some of the major amendments -- demanded by various states -- that...