-Livemint.com Global Hunger Index 2017 is a grim reminder of the huge disconnect between India’s relatively high levels of growth and its low ranks on human development It took the death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari from Jharkhand’s Simdega district to remind the country that hunger and starvation of young children is still a reality in India. This was not the FIRst such incident. Last month, three brothers in Karnataka also died under...

-The Hindu Business Line The dilution of government intervention in the form of minimum support prices, procurement and public distribution is undermining agricultural production in the country Farmer movements and farm loan waivers in different States have driven home the fact that the viability of agriculture is under challenge. This is surprising, since the comprehensive framework for reviving agricultural production, introduced in response to the agricultural crisis in mid-1960s, is in principle...

-Livemint.com The simplification process may result in some readjustment of GST rates, including a possible reduction in tax of some items that are in the highest tax slab of 28% New Delhi: Policymakers are considering steps to ease the compliance burden related to the goods and services tax (GST) on small businesses and to make product classification for taxation less complicated, said revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia. The simplification process may result in some...

-The Hindu Business Line AIBOC questions legality of mandating UID linking of accounts Coimbatore: The All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) wants Aadhaar seeding of accounts put on hold till the Supreme Court comes out with a clear directive. “The government should make it clear to the people that the seeding of Aadhaar is voluntary and not mandatory,” said D Thomas Franco, General Secretary, AIBOC. He said the Aadhaar Act of 2016 was meant...

-Livemint.com IFPRI’s latest Global Hunger Index shows that under-nutrition has decreased rather than increased in India The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has ranked India at the 100th position among 119 countries in its 2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI) rankings. India has had a higher rank in previous versions of these rankings. These findings have created an impression that the prevalence of hunger has increased in India in recent years. A...