-Business Standard In last one month, chana futures prices have risen 17.37 per cent and on Thursday it closed at Rs. 6812 per quintal on NCDEX New Delhi: The government has launched a multi-pronged drive against price rise of essential commodities with different agencies doing their bit to ensure smooth supply and action against hoarders as well as profiteers. Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday barred launch of...

-The Hindu Once slotted as vermin, these animals are "open season" and could become easy game for hunters as well as traders in meat. Since 2015, the Union Environment Ministry has acceded to requests from Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Bihar to declare wild boar, rhesus macaque, and nilgai as vermin within specified territories of these States, and outside forests and protected areas. This reprieve means that those who kill these animals here...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com For the past decade state governments have launched a series of Internet-based initiatives to deliver services more efficiently. Technology has been seen as the best way of bypassing red tape and corruption in the system to reach the poor directly with benefits. Beneficiaries are identified through biometrics and a series of tech solutions like smart cards, micro ATMs and so on. The result of these efforts is that India is...

Situation alarming: More than one-third population hit by drought   The country is facing severe drought for the second consecutive year. Conservative estimates from official sources show that over a quarter of rural habitations are facing drinking water scarcity. Although both India Meteorological Department and Skymet have predicted a more than normal rainfall during June-September, 2016, the water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country has declined from 22 percent...

-The Hindu India’s first IPR policy trots out the worn western fairy tale that more IP means innovation, and encourages the pointless privatisation of indigenous knowledge India’s National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy, released in mid-May, is a bewildering document. There are two ways to read this policy. The first is as a gigantic exercise in dissimulation, with a terse declaration — India is not changing its IPR laws — tucked inside...