News and Views

Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday approved the details of the total healthcare project (Sampoorna Arogya Keralam) announced in the Budget for the current year.

All healthcare programmes of the government will be brought under this project. Around 42 lakh families with annual income of less than Rs. 3 lakh will be covered.

A trust with Chief Minister as chairman will be formed to oversee the project. It will have a corpus of Rs. 20 crore.

KPCC president V. M. Sudheeran began his ‘Jana Raksha March’ from Kumbala near here on Monday.

The march, being organised as a prelude to Congress party’s election campaign, will cover all the 140 Assembly constituencies in the State. It will conclude in Thiruvananthapuram on February 9.

New Delhi: The Union government is considering adopting a law to formalise tenancy in agriculture. After the Task Force on Agricultural Development set up by the NITI Aayog identified the absence of formal recognition of tenancy in many states as a major hurdle in consolidating landholding,

Government sources say that process to draft a model law to formalise tenancy will soon start.

Households in southern states are most indebted; 40 per cent agricultural-households take loan from informal sources like money lenders.

Kerala has the lowest percentage of agriculture households in the country— 61per cent of the agricultural households in the State reported to have received maximum income from sources other than agricultural activities.

Constituents of United Democratic Front called for better unity in the Front during their discussions with Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Kottayam on Wednesday.

The Muslim League called for intervention of the Congress high command to settle faction fight in the Congress. This was a must for victory in the coming Assembly elections. Similar sentiments were expressed by other constituents such as RSP and JSS also.