-The Hindu The UP govt will also settle around Rs. 6,000 crore of NPAs of 7 lakh small and marginalised farmers. Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, at its first Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, announced its decision to waive farmers’ loans worth Rs. 30,729 crore, writing off all farm loans up to Rs. 1 lakh. The government will also settle around Rs. 6,000 crore of NPAs of seven lakh...

-The Hindu It also suggested that the Centre come forward to extend financial help to Tamil Nadu “during this difficult situation”. Chennai: Asserting that there is no rationale behind the classification of farmers into three groups for the purpose of granting farm loan waiver, and that there is no intelligible differentia taken note of by the State government, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court headed by Justice S. Nagamuthu has...

-Down to Earth The study establishes relation between litchi consumption and encephalitis after conducting a hospital-based surveillance on 390 patients A recent study has linked occurrence of neurological disease—commonly known as encephalitis—to consumption of litchi in Muzaffarpur district in Bihar. Published in Lancet on March 31, the study recommends minimising Litchi consumption and also ensuring that the evening meal is not skipped as the latter modifies the effect of eating litchis on...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A clutch of legal amendments the Narendra Modi government has introduced to allow corporate political donors to mask their contributions drags the world's largest democracy against global currents of rising transparency in electoral funding, analysts and activists have warned. From Brazil to Bangladesh, and Croatia to Cyprus, countries of diverse sizes and varied histories with democracy have over the past decade adopted laws and rules aimed at making...

-The Hindu Officials want security features changed every 3-4 years That the new Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 500 notes have the same security features as the old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 ones has the security agencies worried. At a high-level meeting last week to discuss the presence of fake currency notes, officials at North Block were informed that the “covert security features” had not been changed since 2005. The Hindu had reported on...