-Livemint.com The money came from the Centre, which in April revised the amount farmers get as relief for Crop Damage New Delhi: Two weeks before 2015 ended, 50-year-old Sukhrani received a new year’s gift from the Uttar Pradesh government. The local revenue officer visited her village in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh to hand out cheques to families whose winter crop was damaged due to unseasonal rains between February and April...

-The Hindu Business Line The proposed crop insurance overhaul is a welcome step The Centre’s move to come out with a new crop insurance policy has not come a moment too soon. The initiative seems keen to address two main impediments to enhance the coverage of crop insurance — high rates of premium under the Modified National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (MNAIS), particularly in relation to the sum insured, and inaccuracies in estimating...

-The New Indian Express BHAWANIPATNA:  Hundreds of Dongria Kondhs of Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district resolved not to accept PDS rice at a meeting at Parsali under Kalyansinghpur block of Rayagada district on Saturday. The Dongria Kondhs of Lanjigarh, who attended a meeting chaired by convenor of Niyamgiri Surakhya Manch Lada Sikoka at Rayagada, refused to the accept rice under National Food Security Act (NFSA). The meeting was also attended by senior members Dadhi...

-Livemint.com The most glaring implication of the proposed deficiency payments is that it makes the state give up its responsibility of intervening in markets During the past few months, there has been a highly contested debate on the merits, viability and feasibility of crop insurance in India given the large number of small farmers and the large amount of subsidy involved that is not being effectively used as the coverage of...

-Business Standard Evidence on increasing risk should be tipping scale for the government New Delhi: At the COP21 talks in Paris, Chennai had been brought up as an unfortunate exhibit of the perfect storm triggered by climate change and indiscriminate urban planning. While India is already driving the conversation about the global effort to climate-proofing, hopefully the impact of this latest flood will also force its leadership to sit up and take...