-The Indian Express Also seek higher allocation for Price Stabilisation Fund in a pre-Budget meet Farmers’ organisations, food and fertiliser companies and agriculture experts on Monday urged finance minister Arun Jaitely to ensure that farmers get  remunerative prices for their produce and make sufficient Budget outlay to create  irrigation facilities in the remaining rain-fed areas. They also sought increase in the outlay for expanding the number of agriculture market yards and higher allocation...

-The Indian Express The seeming revival over the last two quarters reverses the trend of declining employment under MGNREGA seen during the FIRst year of the Modi government. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship welfare programme of the previous UPA government, appears to be staging a revival of sorts. And this turnaround is being attributed mainly to better monitoring by the Centre and timely release of funds. The July-September...

-The Hindu The climate models will be prepared by the Pune-based Centre for Climate Change Research Mysuru: India will have its own climate change models to project the impact of global warming over the decades and these will form part of the forthcoming Sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports that is expected to be available in 2020. The IPCC reports — there have been five so far since 1988 — are coordinated by the United Nations...

-PTI Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday said the “unprecedented” northeast monsoon has killed 470 people and nearly a lakh livestock besides damaging crops in over 3.83 lakh hectares in the State. Detailing the large-scale destruction caused by heavy rains in four phases during October-December 2015, Ms. Jayalalithaa recalled her demand for a central assistance of Rs 25,912.45 crore for the relief and restoration works. Noting that the Central team of...

-The Hindu In the pipeline are visits by Mr.Modi to African countries starting with Kenya likely next month Starting with a proposed visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Africa in February, India plans to play a leadership role at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations to boost the trade prospects of the developing and poor nations. To forge strong alliances on the “development agenda” of the WTO’s ongoing Doha Round of...