-Livemint.com At some 200-plus tur procurement centres in Maharashtra, where Nafed had agreed to purchase the crop till 31 May, the desperation of thousands of farmers represent all that is wrong with government intervention in the agriculture market Wardha, Hinganghat (Vidarbha): Santosh Borkute, a cotton and tur cultivator in Amla village of Wardha district in Vidarbha region, has learned from Marathi newspapers that the Narendra Modi government has completed three years in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today directly linked the slowdown in growth to demonetisation, pointed out that private investments had almost dried up and expressed deep concern over a jobs crunch. The most authoritative Opposition voice on the economy was speaking at the Congress Working Committee meeting, five months after describing demonetisation as "organised loot and legalised plunder" and warning that growth would be severely affected. "India's GDP numbers...

-The Hindu While sanitation schemes in India date back to the British Raj, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is the latest and by far most ambitious iteration. Launched by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the end of 2014, the Rs.9,000-crore scheme aims to achieve an Open Defecation-Free (ODF) India by constructing 12 million rural household toilets across the country before October 2, 2019 — to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday. But...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India is no longer the fastest-growing major economy in the world: it has lost its bragging rights to China. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) today put out its provisional estimates on national income that showed real GDP growth had tumbled to 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter (January-March). That is considerably slower than the 6.9 per cent growth that the resurgent Chinese economy racked up during the same...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An umbrella organisation of publishers of educational books has pointed out that a 12 per cent tax has been levied on children's colouring books whereas "semi-pornography" books have been exempt under the goods and services tax, drawing attention to the perceived contradictions in the new levy regime. "Semi-porn for free, but pay for colouring books," the Federation of Educational Publishers in India (FEPI) has titled its short media...