-The Hindu Business Line Meet Jaitley for pre-Budget discussion New Delhi: Experts from the agriculture sector have sought measures to offset the impact of inflation on crops and income security for farmers and also debated the farm loan waiver at a pre-Budget meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday. This was the FIRst such meeting and the Finance Minister will meet more sectoral groups this week to get their proposals for the...

-Livemint.com Maharashtra minister for cooperation Subhash Deshmukh admits to delays and problems in the implementation of farm loan waiver in the state Mumbai: When Maharashtra’s mega farm loan waiver was announced in June, it was initially planned to help 8.9 million indebted farmers. This was later wound down to cover 5.6 million farmers. Five months on, it has managed to reach just 1.7 million. State minister for co-operation Subhash Deshmukh said on Tuesday...

-The Hindu Deregulating bamboo production does not address the issue of building a transparently governed forest sector Governments everywhere tend to look for quick-fixes, overlooking complexities and ignoring the big picture. The move by the Centre to “de-regulate” bamboo production by amending the definition of “trees” under the Indian Forest Act (IFA), 1927, is a great example of this tendency. In November 2017, the Central government issued an ordinance whereby “bamboo” was...

-TheWire.in Discrepancies between Election Commission and Electronics Corporation of India Limited data on number of ballot units and control units manufactured have also been revealed. New Delhi: The response by the Election Commission (EC) and two electronic voting machine (EVM) manufacturers – Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited – to an Right to Information (RTI) query relating to a petition filed following the Uttarakhand polls has revealed administrative and...

-The Indian Express There is no definite data available on inter-caste marriages, since the Centre did not release the caste data from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census. Removing the income ceiling of Rs 5 lakh per annum, the Centre has opened its scheme meant to encourage inter-caste marriages to all couples where either the bride or the bridegroom is a Dalit. The ‘Dr Ambedkar scheme for social Integration through inter caste marriage’ was...