-Livemint.com The UPA delivered the highest decadal growth (8.13% at factor cost) since India acquired independence and handed over an Indian economy on the upswing in 2014, says former finance minister P. Chidambaram New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday defended the record of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on the basis of recently published back series data on gross domestic product (GDP). At a press conference today, former finance minister P. Chidambaram...

-TheWire.in The Ayushman Bharat scheme provides support to the most deprived portion of India’s population and engages private insurance players, positive steps that must be welcomed. In his speech on the 72nd Independence Day this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remarked that India’s economy, once a sleeping elephant is now running. The same cannot, however be said about the healthcare system of India. This elephant is malnourished, weak, diseased and lumbering at...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Raising farm income could well be the agenda for 2019 general elections and well aware of this is the Narendra Modi government, which is leaving no stone unturned to lure this vote bank. Navigating this agenda for the government is Radha Mohan Singh, Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. Aware of the challenges of the price sensitive market, Singh said, “agriculture markets cannot be...

-The Hindu Business Line By converting a necessity into a virtue, the government has decided to release the large inventory of procured pulses to different States at a discounted rate for utilisation in various welfare programs. Necessity because the stocks continue to occupy scarce warehousing space and incur huge carrying costs. Also, the Centre thinks, warehousing space may be needed during the upcoming kharif harvest less than six weeks away; and of course,...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...