-The Indian Express In 2014-15, the government spent Rs 5,721 crore under nine schemes formulated by the Government of India to provide social security cover to the unorganised workers. Ahmedabad: During the ten-year period between 2001-11 when the number of landless agricultural workers decreased in states like Kerala and Goa, it rose in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. As per the Census 2011, there are about 14.43 crore landless...

-Livemint.com Revision of drought management manual among slew of directions made by Supreme Court New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday hit the reset button on drought management, directing the government to abandon the existing system and evolve a transparent, rules-based framework. The new policy will prescribe a standard methodology and time-frame for declaring drought. The court also directed the Union government to set up a National Disaster Mitigation Fund within three...

-Business Standard/ PTI Directs Centre to constitute a national disaster response force within the next six months In a strong indictment of Centre and states' handling of the drought situation, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said if state governments maintain an "ostrich-like attitude", Centre cannot wash its hands of constitutional responsibility, since the "buck stops" with it. The apex court, giving its judgment on a public interest litigation by Swaraj Abhiyan on drought,...

-The Hindu For jobs to grow, consumer demand has to improve consistently. This can only happen with an industrial policy, which India has not had since 1991 There will be no demographic dividend without growth in industrial and service sector jobs. The underlying logic behind a dividend is that as jobs grow, incomes rise and so do savings. Based on higher savings, the investment rate to GDP grows, resulting in faster GDP...

-Livemint.com New Delhi: Despite widespread drought in 11 states across the country, India’s foodgrain production is actually set to grow marginally, the third advance estimates released by the Agriculture ministry on Monday showed. Total foodgrain production in 2015-16 is estimated at 252.23 million tonnes, marginally higher than 252.02 million tonnes produced in 2014-15, the data shows. If the estimates hold up, it would imply that the damage to the agrarian economy is less...