-The Hindu The Central government’s decision this week to extend the interest subvention scheme on bank loans given to land-owning farmers at 7 per cent is essentially a welcome move. This is especially so in a context where there is no real clarity on how the current monsoon will turn out to be, running at a deficit of 7 per cent as it does currently. With an additional subvention component of...

-Tehelka To avail the scheme's benefits, a 60-year-old woman in Bahraich was shown to have delivered a baby five times in 10 months, while another who never conceived in 12 years was paid Rs 1,400 as honorarium by the health department. An audit of Janani Suraksha Yojna beneficiaries in Uttar Pradesh has come up with some startling facts. To avail the scheme’s benefits, a 60-year-old woman in Bahraich was shown to have...

-Deccan Herald Children to get foodgrain, cooking cost as per FSA New Delhi: Schoolchildren may soon be entitled to supply of foodgrain along with cooking cost in case the midday meal is not served, with the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry finalising modalities for giving them food security allowance, mandatory under the Food Security Act. At a national level consultation held by the ministry in Meghalaya recently on preparation of rules for granting...

-DNA What is worse is that just the top 30 cases of default account for a Rs 1.21 lakh crore, which is almost 40% of the Non Performing Assets (NPAs) in banks. The upper middle class, who usually takes loans of over Rs 1 crore, accounts for 33% of the total NPAs.  It's not the poor farmers or the middle class who are defaulting on their loans. It's the country's super rich,...

-The Hindu Business Line Not the RBI, going by the revised priority sector lending norms, which will further reduce credit to the marginalised Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often expressed his sense of anguish at the plight of farmers. In a recent statement in the Lok Sabha, he noted that the agriculture community’s problems were “old, deep-rooted and widespread”, and stated that farmers cannot be left to fend for themselves. Implicit in that...