-The Financial Express A new crop insurance scheme the Modi government is set to roll out shortly seeks to cap the premium paid by farmers at about 3% of the insured value. A new crop insurance scheme the Modi government is set to roll out shortly seeks to cap the premium paid by farmers at about 3% of the insured value, cover a substantial part of the country’s farmland and crop output...

-FirstPost.com Even as the Narendra Modi government has been making claims that India’s rural economy has gained pace under his rule, empirical evidence suggests that the health of country’s rural economy may not have improved much on account of declining or stagnant income levels. The situation, experts say, is unlikely to change in the near future as there are low chances of a revival in rural income generation. A survey by brokerage...

-Livemint.com Supply constraints due to lower output, higher demand on increasing incomes behind spike in prices, says report New Delhi: Inflation has come down sharply this year alongside a softening in food prices, but the rise in the prices of pulses—the second most important part of the Indian diet after cereals—has been the sharpest in a decade, Crisil Research said in a report on Monday. Retail and wholesale inflation were at 42%...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Over 200 cancer drugs, 186 medicines to treat cardiovascular diseases and 148 stents and cardiac implants will now be available at central government hospitals at prices 50-60% lower than the open market. The health ministry has launched a programme called AMRIT (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment), under which the government will run pharmacy retail stores to sell medicines in hospitals like All India Institute...

-Reuters India's villages face a sharp spike in food prices in 2016, as a second year of drought drives up the cost of ingredients such as sugar and milk, and poor transport infrastructure stops falling Global Prices from reaching rural areas.  India's first back-to-back drought in three decades also complicates government spending calculations as Prime Minister Narendra Modi tries to prune a subsidy regime that has long propped up the rural economy,...