-The Telegraph New Delhi: Prices of farm produce remained high and stocks of vegetables and milk precarious in cities across northern and central India as the ongoing farmers' strike across several states entered its fourth day. The June 1-10 boycott of wholesale markets - called "Gaon Bandh" or "Kisan Avkaash" - has been called by 172 farmer organisations in eight states to demand minimum support prices at one-and-a-half times the cost of...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Schoolchildren who engage more enthusiastically in classroom discussions and read stuff beyond textbooks are likelier to learn better than others, an analysis of the results of a survey has revealed. "Asking questions and participating in classroom discussions enhances the chances of better performance by 14.5 points," Indrani Bhaduri, head of the education survey division at the NCERT, said. (See chart)   "Reading newspapers, magazines, novels and other literature apart...

-The Telegraph Results bring under stress perception of pre-eminence New Delhi: Students from private schools have continued to fare worse than their peers from government and government-aided schools in the Central Board of Secondary Education's Class XII exams, whose results were announced on Saturday. The results appear to belie the popular perception that private schools impart a higher quality of education than government and aided schools. Some 83.01 per cent of the students passed,...

-TheWire.in The Modi government is pushing insurance schemes in both health and agriculture. But are they really making a difference? How successful, effective and equitable is insurance as a state policy? Does it address what it is meant to address in the first place, be it in health or agriculture? How does it handle systemic risk, which is essentially uninsurable? Does it also present a lost opportunity for improving the delivery of...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The agriculture ministry on Tuesday released the Model Contract Farming Act, 2018, which lays emphasis on protecting the interests of farmers, considering them as weaker of the two parties entering into a contract. The ministry says that it is a promotional and facilitative Act and not regulatory in its structure. In addition to contract farming, services contracts all along the value chain, including pre-production, production and post-production,...