This, said Sitharaman, would remove the possibility of unauthorised communication "and consequent harassment", which was a cause of concern for bankers.
With the attrition rate continuing well above 20 per cent, one of the highest in the segment, Infosys is on a drive to reimagine the way it engages with employees starting from the time of recruitment itself. The company is using digital technologies in order to simplify recruitment, provide faster career track to employees, and incentivise people with top skills. The company is looking at doubling the number of recruits from tier-I engineering colleges such as IITs and NITs to enrich its talent base. These candidates who are offered twice the salary as compared to regular campus recruits, join as 'power programmers', a term that has been internally coined by the company to recognise the top coders.
Banks will also consider requests from MSMEs for restructuring their stressed standard assets. So far, only 25 per cent of the around 1 million eligible MSMEs have taken benefit of the RBI's special dispensation.
Gig workers are usually spoken of in the context of the sharing economy, like Uber, Ola drivers, delivery persons for Zomato and Swiggy and so on. This is the first time such workers will be covered under India's social security law.
The hotels in the pipeline will include a range of Marriott brand portfolios such as JW Marriott, Tribute Portfolio and Sheraton.
Only 48.3 per cent of the rural households used LPG, while the figures were much higher in urban areas at 86.6 per cent, according to a NSO report.
Titan is investing heavily on research and development, which will do things beyond a smart watch can do today such as switching off lights, locking, and unlocking doors and making payments. Titan is also working closely with start-ups, too, to develop such futuristic features.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
Experts said a dip in consumption expenditure indicated an increasing prevalence of poverty in the country.
Sitharaman said the Bill has proposed giving a legal framework for fixed-term employment through which contract workers serving a fixed-tenure will get equal statutory social security benefits as regular workers in the same unit.
The findings of the report showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18. The government has, however, termed it a "draft" report, reports Somesh Jha.
In the draft rules, among 681 listed professions, armed security guards, supervisors, surveyors, and carpenters (class I) are proposed to be treated as highly skilled professionals; electricians, tailors and drivers are skilled; cooks and cobblers as semi-skilled and dairy coolies, office peons and sweepers as unskilled.
After taking benefit of the scheme, jobs increased by around 11 mn in establishments that took loans.
Part of the dues has been pending since 1995-96 - the inception year of the Employees' Pension Scheme administered by the EPFO. The Centre also owes the EPFO more than Rs 1,000 crore towards the minimum pension scheme it had notified in September 2014.
The government would be ironing out issues related to the controversial 'bail-in' clause in the earlier Bill, explore hiking the deposit insurance cover of customers, and decide whether the resolution framework should apply to public sector banks.
PSBs have been requested to reach out to MSMEs to provide bill discounting to them against their dues since they suffer the most from shortage of cash.
According to draft Code on Social Security, 2019, gig and platform workers will be entitled to life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits, among others.
GSK is continuing with investigations into the potential source of the NDMA, which is a known environmental contaminant and found in water and foods, including meats, dairy products, and vegetables.
Riding on this change in aspirations, V-Mart a value retail chain is growing close to 22 per cent year-on-year, and is aggressively looking to expand its footprint, with 60 new stores this year.
PSB chiefs tried to argue that liquidity is in surplus in the system and the problem was related to lack of demand in the economy, instead of banks' reluctance to lend, but 'the FM said it is a perception issue that loan is not available, which we need to dispel,', reports Somesh Jha.