-Financial Express While wheat prices may firm up once the official procurement begins in all the producing states, the government will have to implement a robust procurement system for other crops to support the prices fetched by farmers. Mandi prices of most rabi crops ruled below their minimum support prices (MSPs) during the last month, even as more than half of the winter crop has been harvested (see chart). While wheat prices...

-The Hindu Suggests underground cables to prevent bird deaths due to collision with power lines The Supreme Court on Monday swooped-in to intervene on behalf of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustards over the birds falling dead after colliding with power lines running through their dwindling natural habitats in Gujarat and Rajasthan. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde will examine on a priority basis whether overhead power cables...

Preliminary findings of a survey among 3,994 respondents from 11 states reveal that most vulnerable households and communities, such as SCs, STs, OBCs, PVTGs, slum dwellers, daily wage labourers, farmers, single women headed households, etc. continue to witness depressed incomes during September-October in comparison to their income levels prior to the lockdown. The face-to-face survey conducted by the Right to Food Campaign and Center for Equity Studies (instead of telephonic...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com When millions of workers literally burst on to the scene during the sudden lockdown in India, the entire country was shocked by how vulnerable they seemed. They didn’t have housing, savings, healthcare and rights as employees. In their large numbers, they accounted for the majority of the workforce and yet there was no one to speak for them. The lockdown was expected to be a watershed moment because of this unsettling...

-TheWire.in In 2018, farmers, who had been denied insurance claims after the Agriculture Insurance Company of India refunded their premiums, filed a PIL before the Rajasthan High Court. Jaipur: After almost three years of legal battle against a public sector insurance company and a state-run co-operative bank that arbitrarily denied them insurance claims under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), farmers in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur have finally received their share of claims...