-The Hindu Swaraj Abhiyan is seeking to create awareness of the SC judgment and citizen’s entitlements. Latur: It’s a quarter past seven in the morning in the small village of Khandapur in Latur district. In the small window of time before the pleasant morning sun turns into unforgiving heat, a small group of people are gathered in a street next to the gram panchayat office. A group of volunteers from the Yogendra Yadav-led...

-The Hindu States asked to exempt pulses from Value Added Tax and other local levies to control prices The government is considering banning futures trading in chana dal (brown chickpeas) and reducing import duty on sugar as part of its efforts to rein in inflation, according to a top official. Higher food prices, led by pulses and sugar, pushed wholesale price inflation into positive territory in April after 17 months of decline while...

-The Financial Express In a bid to curb pilferage of foodgrains in the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), the Centre on Saturday asked the states to opt for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) under which the subsidy component is credited to bank accounts and allows the beneficiaries to buy foodgrains from the market. However, for implementing DBT, the states must complete digitisation of beneficiary list and seed bank account details for fund transfer....

-The Hindu Business Line Affected states to undertake construction of farm ponds, adopt micro-irrigation New Delhi: The Centre has asked drought-affected States to prepare action plans on a weekly basis to tide over challenges such as shortage and scarcity of drinking water, promote conservation efforts and prudent usage of existing water resources. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his recent meetings with the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat,...

-The Times of India Ranchi: Jharkhand government is yet to act on a Supreme Court order of May 13 that had asked drought-hit states to ensure midday meal in schools even during summer vacation. Local activists of the right to food campaign claimed that of the 10 drought-hit states - Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh - Jharkhand is the only state that has...