-The Hindu Medicines remain overpriced and unaffordable in India. In a country mired in poverty, medical debt remains the second biggest factor for keeping millions in poverty. The international pharmaceutical industry has found its cash cow in India’s beleaguered consumers. With a minimum wage of Rs.250/day for a government worker, a basic wage worker afflicted with a chronic disease like multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis faces penury. His treatment, with drug combinations, which works out...

-TheHansIndia.com Warangal: The Kazipet based Bala Vikasa Social Service Society has come up with a unique initiative called “Bala Vikasa Sujal ATW (Any Time Water)” offering one litre of purified chilled water for just one rupee. The initiative was aimed to benefit the travellers, labourers and all the citizens in the tri-cities of Warangal-Hanamkonda-Kazipet, said the Bala Vikasa executive director S Shoury Reddy. Speaking to the media in the Kazipet town on...

-Frontline.in Even though the country is in the grip of an unprecedented agrarian crisis and many parts are experiencing severe drought conditions, Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh says there is nothing to worry. “The government is fully geared to meet the challenges. All precautionary measures have been taken to help farmers deal with the crisis. They need not fear anything,” he said in a telephonic interview from...

-Business Standard Many good ideas for agricultural reform should be in the Budget Shoring up the rural economy that has been crippled because of two successive droughts is clearly a major focus of the upcoming Budget. This is imperative also to revive rural demand for goods and services to stimulate overall economic growth. But how Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will seek to achieve this feat is hard to predict, though what he...

-Livemint.com Spending on irrigation, crop insurance to be doubled; e-platform to be developed for farm produce New Delhi: The government is set to double annual spending on irrigation and crop insurance, and develop a national digital platform for farm produce in order to ensure better prices for farmers, as part of a push to reduce rural distress following the first back-to-back drought in India in three decades. “We’re expecting that the new...