-Hindustan Times Prioritise universal access of food grains since those dying of starvation are mainly the marginalised Forty-four-year-old mother, Amir Jahan, epitomised gallantry this Republic Day. There was not a morsel of food at home. So, while the nation celebrated, she quietly borrowed six rotis from a neighbour and distributed them equally among her three daughters, though she hadn’t eaten for four days. That night Amir died of starvation. In the first month...

-Livemint.com The positions of two non-official members representing farming community and one official member have been vacant for 2 years New Delhi: Following years of low crop prices and protests by farmers, the centre in its budget for 2018-19 promised to ensure remunerative prices for farmers through higher minimum support prices (MSPs). However, in the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, or CACP— an office of the agriculture ministry mandated to recommend...

-PTI The Punjab government had earlier faced the wrath of the tribunal for not taking effective steps to provide financial assistance and infrastructure facility to the farmers to encourage them not to burn agricultural residue. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed Delhi and four northern states to formulate a comprehensive policy for providing incentives and infrastructural assistance to farmers to stop them from burning crop residue to prevent air pollution. The...

-Livemint.com Latest data as per the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana and the Saubhagya scheme shows inconsistencies in the number of rural households in the country The opposition has increasingly questioned the government’s record in rural electrification and alleged frequent shifting of goalposts. For example, the deadline for electrifying all villages now stands at May 2018, after missing the May 2017 target. While available data shows that the Narendra Modi government...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD: A recently published study on the causes of 1,325 suicide cases reported at the 1,000-bed Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Warangal over a span of six years (2010-15) raises many questions as 519 cases (58.3 per cent of total) were due to consumption of pesticide and another 174 cases (17.4 per cent), were due to consumption of herbicides and fungicides. The study titled “Trends and determinants of...