-The Hindu Business Line Indian digital economy set to reach $ one trillion in another 5-7 years: Ravi Shankar Prasad Kolkata: Around 1.5 lakh Gram panchayats will be connected via optical fibre under the national optical fibre network proGramme of the Centre by mid-2018, the Union Minister for Electronics & IT and Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said today. Of the targeted 2.5 lakh Gram panchayats are to be connected under this...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Parliamentarians, even those from the BJP, have been dragging their feet for the second year in a row over adopting villages in their constituencies (or states) under the Pradhan Mantri Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. Over a quarter into this fiscal, only 40 of the 788 MPs have identified Gram panchayats for adoption under the proGramme, which mandates them to develop these villages into "model villages" for others to...

-The Tribune Online public distribution system does not recognise beneficiary Karnal: The online public distribution system has become a hurdle for 65 leprosy-affected families in Indra Chakravarti Gram on the outskirts of Karnal as they are unable to get ration through this system. Most of them have lost their fingers due to the disease while the fingers of others have no prints. The affected families have raised the issue with the District Food...

-The Telegraph. Lucknow: Around 5,500 of the nearly 8,000 panchayat chiefs in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand have resigned to protest an alleged reduction in the budget for rural development. The panchayat chiefs are also protesting the Trivendra Singh Rawat government's refusal to increase their monthly honorarium from Rs 750 to Rs 5,000. The panchayat chiefs have been agitating for the past three days. Girveer Parmar, the state president of the Uttarakhand Gram Pradhan Sangathan, said 5,500...

-VillageSquare.in Farmer producer companies have started to play an important role in procurement from smallholders, which guards against price crashes that has been plaguing marginalized farmers across the country despite record harvests The agricultural seasons of 2016-17 (Kharif and Rabi) have not been favorable for farmers across the country. In spite of the near-normal monsoon rainfall in India in 2016 coupled with record farm production, wholesale and retail prices for agricultural commodities...