-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With back to back drought years putting farmers under tremendous stress, the Centre believes it's effort to bolster irrigation infrastructure and disburse relief to farmers after extreme weather events are falling short thanks to some states dragging their feet. Union agriculture ministry in its periodic review of these schemes found many states not up to the mark with minister Radha Mohan Singh asking them to pull...

-Economic and Political Weekly The platform known as the JAM Trinity (an acronym for Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile numbers) may enable a shift from the current Public Distribution System, based on price subsidies, to the direct transfer of benefits. However, it is incorrect to argue that JAM technologies will necessarily lead to the demise of the PDS. State-level experiences of computerisation, recounted here, reveal that the same technologies can...

-Hindustan Times Chandigarh/Patiala: After a bumper paddy crop, the fields are on fire in Punjab and Haryana, polluting the air with hazardous particles. Strangely, there wasn’t much hue and cry till a thick blanket of smog — a mixture of smoke and fog — enveloped Delhi, making city residents breathless. It’s the farmers of the two food-bowl states who are being blamed for the sudden deterioration in air quality and smog in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: It will be a 'do or die' situation for India's Basmati, which occupies pride of place in the country's agricultural trade, when the Chennai-based Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) next week takes a call on granting 'GI' (geographical indicator) tag to the world famous long grain aromatic variety of rice. Chances of it getting the tag depends on whether India joins hands with Pakistan to...

-IPSNews.net NEW DELHI: India’s stance on sustainable development goals is evolving as there are differing voices on what should be done. Over the next 15 years, the global development agenda will be preoccupied with the ambitious challenge of achieving 17 SDGs and 169 targets. The SDGs follow the Millennium Development Goals which were conceptualized as a set of eight goals on diverse development dimensions including poverty alleviation, gender equality, health and...