-Scroll.in The census says 7 of 17 crore rural households face no 'deprivation' despite living in extreme poverty. If the government follows this definition, all these people will be left out of country’s social safety net. The findings of the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 have been long awaited by academics and politicians alike. Now that they are out, there is a fear that they could end up being used to...

-IPS News LUDHIANA: Long-term agricultural growth in India is slowing down. The lands that saw remarkable increases in productivity in the 1970s and 80s, thanks to the technology rolled out as part of the first “Green Revolution”, are not yielding the same results today. India still has the second highest number of undernourished people in the world. To confront this problem, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a Second Green Revolution on Indian...

-The Hindu Banks continue denying loans to low-income groups, insisting on sticking to a standard EMI route even though they are dealing with a complex social issue. In July 2012, Pradeep Kumar, a 36-year-old resident of Ladpur, a shanty town that sits on the north-western periphery of Delhi, applied for an employment loan at the magistrate’s office in Kanjawala district. Under the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana or PMRY — a funding policy...

-Business Standard Export to Iran might hit a record high Lifting of global economic sanctions on Iran could, it is hoped in the trade, enable a new record for basmati rice export to that country from here in 2015-16. Iran is also expected to cut import duty on Indian basmati from 40 per cent now to 20 per cent from the new season, starting October. Our basmati export was a record 1.44 million...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Manik Garg, second-year commerce student at Shri Ram College of Commerce, knows nearly as much about cattle and dairy-farming as he does about business. He knows, for instance, that there are three types of feed ("Green fodder, hay and high-nutrition feed"), that a high-yielding animal (delivering at least 15 litres of milk per day) costs Rs 60,000—70,000 and that some pedigreed bovines need air-conditioned rooms. He,...