-PTI The government has formed a committee in its bid to make drugs more affordable in the country, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. “Government has constituted a committee of joint secretaries for ensuring enhanced affordability, availability and accessibility of drugs for the citizens,” Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Mansukh L. Mandaviya said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. Elaborating on the terms of reference of the committee, the minister said...

-IANS The total world beef exports in 2016 was 10.95 million tonnes and was expected to increase to 12.43 million tonnes by 2026, according to the FAO. United Nations: India is the world’s third-biggest exporter of beef and is projected to hold on to that position over the next decade, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD). OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2017-2026...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Demonetisation and the subsequent push for digitisation has escalated risks relating to cyber crime and India needs to urgently upgrade its defences by setting up a cyber security commission on the lines of the Atomic Energy and Space Commissions, according to an IIT Kanpur study shared with Parliament's committee on finance. Noting that the government has initiated a number of programmes to enhance the participation of...

-Livemint.com The Aadhaar project is a textbook example of how not to design and execute a public policy initiative in India When it was first launched in 2009, Aadhaar signalled a promise to repair the corroded plumbing of India’s leaky public delivery systems. The unique biometric identity would help reduce duplicate and ghost entries in the list of beneficiaries of government schemes, and pave the way for direct benefit transfers to them...

-Business Standard Farmers are not getting enough protection as states mostly do not pay the premium they should With the rains falling in abundance and tomatoes refusing to do so, agriculture economy experts have a lot to say on what both mean for the sector.   Both pose a risk to farmers — of floods and of lack of pricing power. Yet the farmers don't have much to fend those off since agricultural insurance...