-TheWire.in When the data tells us insurance-based health schemes have not reduced out-of-pocket expenditure for the poor, Jaitley’s budgetary focus should have been on boosting public provision of health care. Despite sustained economic growth for over two decades, improvements in health indicators in India have not kept pace. By 2015, India was able to meet only four out of the ten health targets set under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for that...

-Hindustan Times Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The contrast could not have been starker. At Hanuwantiya village of Khandwa district, the Madhya Pradesh government is celebrating Jal Mahotsav and developing the biggest water sports destination of the country in the backwaters of Indira Sagar dam. And barely 35-40 km away, farmers in several villages are facing a famine-like situation and staring at crop failure. Most of the farmland in the area has turned brown...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has alerted the government about importers of pulses resorting to cartels to make a killing this year on red lentils (masoor). The report has named companies that are buying masoor in large quantities and cornering stocks in Canada, which is the largest exporter of red lentils to India. According to rough estimates, last year dal importers had reportedly made around Rs 3,500...

-Nezine.com A progressive farmer in Assam’s Goalpara district is leading a mission to grow black rice in the State A farmer from Assam‘s Goalpara district has created history of sort by not only successfully cultivating a black rice variety called Oryza Sativa but has also initiated more than 200 othersinto it. This year, the progressive farmer, Upendra Rabha, of the district’s Amguripara area, helped grow black rice in 500 bighasof land along...

-Business Standard In November, the government decides to transfer Rs 4.5 a Quintal production incentive to bank accounts of sugarcane farmers Two months ago, the Centre after much deliberation decided to transfer Rs 4.50 a Quintal directly into the bank accounts of sugarcane growers. The government called this a production incentive, but it is seen by many as an attempt to kill several birds with one stone. An incentive directly transferred into the...