-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has asked its state and local units to raise funds from member doctors to organise conferences and functions instead of seeking sponsorship. According to IMA office-bearers, the decision was taken at a meeting on Wednesday in view of allegations about pharmaceutical companies and the device industry shaping the content and style of medical conferences. "If doctors want to meet at a...

-The Hindu Business Line While the idea is reasonable, the issue is so political that it will automatically ring in negative points for the implementer The subject of taxation on farm income has once again taken centre stage not just because there have been some distinguished opinions voiced on this subject but also that this has been recognised as one area where money is channelled to avoid paying taxes. As the focus...

-Livemint.com Abject poverty, high levels of debt, and crop failures among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to a study commissioned by agriculture ministry New Delhi: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness, crop failures and pressure to repay loans are among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to the preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the Union agriculture ministry. The broad findings of the study conducted by the Institute for...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...

-Livemint.com Farmers are already refusing to repay loans in Maharashtra, expecting a waiver in the works on the lines of that in Uttar Pradesh Mumbai: Would you bother to repay a loan if it was going to be written off anyway? Probably not. There’s no farm loan waiver in Maharashtra yet, but farmers are already refusing to repay loans as they expect a waiver in the works, officials in the state’s co-operative banking...