-PTI Ahmedabad: Torrential rains pounded parts of Gujarat today, leading to a deluge-like situation at several places, even as the state’s disaster management authority has been put on alert to tackle any emergency situation. Tankara gauged a massive 280 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours. Teams of the disaster management department with the help of National Disaster Response Force personnel rescued around 14 people stranded in floodwaters in the district. “Tankara...

-The Hindu The long-term benefits of GST are clear — the challenge is to quickly address the short-term obstacles The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is in force from today. The reform, touted as a “game changer” and the “reform of the century”, was deemed worthy of a launch on the midnight of June 30 in the Central Hall of the Parliament. Indeed, one is reminded of the famous speech by Pandit...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's drug pricing rules allow companies to inflate the maximum retail prices of medicines, including life-saving drugs, costing patients thousands of additional rupees while offering slices of the profits to stockists, chemists, and hospitals. Quotations received by hospitals from drug companies' representatives offering discounts on maximum retail prices (MRPs) of medicines provide what some doctors and patients' rights advocates say is fresh evidence for excessive profiteering in India's...

-The Indian Express First, it was demonetisation and crop price crash; now it is the collapse of cooperative credit that is hurting farmers during peak kharif operations. For most Maharashtra farmers, drying up of institutional finance for kharif farming operations is what’s really hurting. Nashik (Maharashtra): Last kharif, the Nashik District Central Cooperative Bank (NDCCB) disbursed  Rs 1,608.55 crore of crop loans during April-June, exceeding its target of Rs 1,257.18 crore. This...

-The Indian Express Six people died during the farmer protests in Mandsaur, MP, after which the government announced Rs 1 crore to each of the families. The Indian Express visits their homes to hear their stories — from a new-born who will never see her father to an aunt who asks: “Will we get the money? When?” How money reached them When five protesters died on June 6 in alleged police firing...