-The Hindu Business Line CAI asks officials to take "immediate steps to avoid distortions in cotton prices." Cotton trade body Cotton Association of India (CAI) has raised concerns about alleged speculative trades taking place on the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX) platform. Citing a sharply lower open interest (OI) in MCX Cotton Futures for the May 2022 contract, CAI has flagged serious distortions in cotton prices causing speculative movements and asked the Exchange to...

-The Hindu Business Line Experts attribute it to higher cost of providing goods and services and more money under schemes Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rural areas is higher than urban areas for four successive months with West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Haryana recording double-digit rural retail inflation in April. These are among the 17 States that witnessed higher retail inflation in rural areas. However, in Karnataka, Kerala,...

-Hindustan Times According to the revised norms, coal mines with environmental clearances to expand by 40%, can now expand by up to 50% without any environment impact assessment or public consultation The Union environment ministry has relaxed the mandatory compliance norms for coal mining expansion projects citing higher demand for coal amid an ongoing power crisis -- a move that has been criticised by environmentalists, especially since the coal ministry has said...

-The Hindu International Food Policy Research Institute projects scenario for 2030 India’s food production could drop 16% and the number of those at risk for hunger could increase 23% by 2030 due to climate change, says a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on climate change and food systems. These projections are part of a model that was used to evaluate the impact of climate change on aggregate food production,...

-TheWire.in * According to the Union health ministry’s new Rural Health Statistics report, for 2020-2021, primary health centres have a surplus of doctors. * This could be true – although there are doubts about whether the report included the number of doctors on transitory, ad hoc appointments as well. * The report fails to capture the qualitative aspects of doctors’ availability at PHCs, including a hidden problem motivated by the absence of sufficient...