The government also announced that healthcare cover under the Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme will be extended to all ASHA and anganwadi workers and helpers.
Modi also virtually flagged off a new train between Antagarh in Kanker district and Raipur and kickstarted the distribution of cards of the Centre's Ayushman Bharat scheme to beneficiaries in the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said India has become the fifth largest economy in the world and this is not an ordinary achievement. "Every Indian is feeling proud of it. We need to maintain this enthusiasm," Modi said. He was virtually addressing beneficiaries of various government schemes and those present at a mega medical camp organised in Olpad area of Surat city in Gujarat, where the Assembly polls are due later this year.
"In the last four years, the government has made serious efforts to provide proper houses to the poor living in shanties."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver on Tuesday his 10th consecutive Independence Day address which will also be his last before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as a mood of anticipation builds around the annual showpiece event that he has used to present his government's report card, unveil flagship schemes and lay down his vision for the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the world has seen the power of India's indigenous weapons during Operation Sindoor, which is 'not over yet'.
'There is no immediate threat to the government, and they would prefer the growth agenda.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the interim Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman offers the "guarantee" of strengthening the foundation of a developed India and carries the "confidence of continuity".
In his address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget Session, Kovind said the Rs 64,000 crore PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission will prepare the country for a health crisis in the future.
Launching the Ayushman Bharat scheme via a video-conference to extend health insurance benefits to all residents of Jammu and Kashmir, he said the three-tier panchayat system has fully taken shape in the UT, describing it as a realisation of Mahatma Gandhi's dream of 'gram swaraj' (village self-rule).
Addressing a public rally in his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, Modi said the schemes earlier were meant for a select few and the past governments did not get seek feedback from the ground.
Railway hospitals will offer postgraduate courses for medical students.
States are now gearing up to implement the scheme, integrating it with their own public health insurance plans and tying up the loose ends.
Taking a dig at Pakistan without naming it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said a country which was a supplier of aatank (terror) is struggling for aata (flour) these days.
Shah, while releasing the saffron party's manifesto 'Sankalp Patra' for the upcoming assembly elections in Jharkhand, announced that a Displacement Commission would be formed to ensure rehabilitation of people displaced by industries and mines in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday unveiled its manifesto for the West Bengal elections, promising to build a 'Sonar Bangla' by providing employment, strengthening social security schemes and vowing to clear the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in the first cabinet meeting of the new government.
Tamil Nadu plans parallel programme with unique user IDs
Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus on Friday said though COVID-19 is no longer a health emergency for the world, it is still a 'global health threat' and a new variant of coronavirus is already under the scanner.
More than two weeks after the AIIMS cyber attack, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin informed the Lok Sabha on Friday that all the data has been retrieved from an unaffected backup server with most of its services also being restored.
Inaugurating the Grameen Bharat Mahotsav, the Prime Minister exuded confidence that villages will play a key role in pushing forward the dream of Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The World Bank has approved loans totalling $1.75 billion (about Rs 13,834.54 crore) to fund India's PM Ayushman Bharat scheme and private investment to boost the economic growth. Of the total loan, $1 billion will go towards the health sector, while the rest $750 million will be in the form of development policy loan (DPL) to fill the financing gaps through private sector investment in the economy. The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved two complementary loans of $500 million each to support and enhance India's health sector.
Deloitte India on Friday said it estimates India's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent in the current fiscal helped by consumption expenditure, exports rebound and capital flows. In its India's economic outlook report, Deloitte said the rapid growth of the middle-income class has led to rising purchasing power and even created demand for premium luxury products and services. With the expectation that the number of middle-to-high-income segments will be one in two households by 2030/31, up from one in four currently, we believe this trend will likely become further amplified, driving overall private consumer expenditure growth, it said.
The AAP chief said the BJP had tried to polarise the assembly polls and that they hadn't cleared the Shaheen Bagh road because of the elections.
Atishi will have a brief tenure in office as assembly elections in the national capital are due in February.
The share of total health expenditure as part of the gross domestic product (GDP) went down to 3.3 per cent in 2017-18 from 3.8 per cent in the previous two years, according to the national health account data released on Monday by the health ministry. The share of government expenditure as part of total expenditure as well as GDP has gone up from from 3.78 per cent to 5.12 per cent between 2013-14 and 2017-18, which could also explain a decline seen in out of pocket expenditure in 2017-18. Health ministry also emphasised the increase in the government health expenditure as part of the total GDP from 1.15 per cent in 2013-14 to 1.35 per cent in 2017-18.
A photo of the prime minister hugging Indian Space Research Organisation chief K Sivan after a last-minute setback that led to the loss of lander Vikram, was also put on display for visitors.
The Indian Council of Medical Research is conducting three different studies to ascertain the facts regarding rising cases of cardiac arrest after the pandemic, Mandaviya said in response to a question in the Lok Sabha.
A second wave of Covid driven by the Delta variant engulfed the country in May-June bringing the health system to its knees and leaving people gasping for help.
In a letter to all the zonal general managers on Monday, the board has said that initially 5,000 coaches will be converted.
An initiative of Nandan Nilekani's EkStep Foundation, people+ai on Tuesday unveiled its vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, dubbed 'Adbhut India' (Amazing India). It aims to harness AI as a powerful tool to enhance the lives of all Indians. The event marked the rollout of several initiatives by people+ai that are focused on discovering, demonstrating, and disseminating population-scale AI use cases for India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a pitch for electing a strong and stable government in an uncertain world beset by geopolitical tensions as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday released its manifesto, prioritising development and welfare while shunning populist measures and contentious issues like the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Jaitley said the Congress has given to the people many slogans but very little resources to implement its election promises.
For the past five months, ever since he was appointed the Ayushman CEO, Indu Bhushan, a former bureaucrat, has made Nirman Bhawan his second home, working nine to nine with his "dedicated team" on the Modi government's biggest initiative after the Goods and Services Tax, says Nivedita Mookerji.
Though COVID-19 will wreak more damage to the finances of the Indian population, the insurance sector is unlikely to get hurt.
Rajasthan is reeling under a huge financial burden with the state's debt having gone beyond Rs 5.59 lakh crores. Rajasthan has increased expenditure on education by 203.4 percent, by 105.4 percent on health, by 227.14 percent on housing. Its expenditure on social welfare schemes has increased by almost 2,475 per cent.
In the Union budget, Rs 65,011.8 crore has been allocated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, up from Rs 62,659.12 crore in 2019-20.
'They were very vocal on the defence of the Constitution, reservation, SC/ST Act and democratic rights.'
"I used to say 'jab tak davai nahi dhilai nahi' but now our mantra for 2021 should be: Davai bhi, kadaai bhi (yes to medicine and yes to caution)," Modi said.
Indian billionaires saw their combined fortunes more than double during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their count shot up by 39 per cent to 142, while the wealth of the ten richest is enough to fund school and higher education of children in the country for 25 years, a new study showed on Monday. In its annual inequality survey released on the first day of the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda summit, Oxfam India further said that an additional one per cent tax on the richest 10 per cent can provide the country with nearly 17.7 lakh extra oxygen cylinders, while a similar wealth tax on the 98 richest billionaire families would finance Ayushman Bharat, the world's largest health insurance scheme, for more than seven years. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge rush for oxygen cylinders and insurance claims during the second wave last year.
Addressing an election rally in Dwarka three days before the February 8 assembly elections, the prime minister said the national capital also needs a government that will give direction and not resort to blame games.
