Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced a number of welfare measures for children who lost their parents to COVID-19, including ensuring a corpus of Rs 10 lakh when they turn 18 and providing for their education.
What started as a mere payment delay seems to have grown into a tussle between the government and leading private hospitals, empanelled under the Central Government Health Scheme.
'BJP has lot of money. Even a rich person like me is scared of taking on the financial muscle of the BJP.' 'What is the point of throwing money? Result toh aane wala nahi hai.'
Nagrale, an avid golfer and a tennis player, is a recipient of the President's Police Medal, Vishesh Seva Padak and Antarik Suraksha Padak.
'We like certain stocks from banking, insurance, retail, hospitals and capital goods.' 'Though some of these stocks may seem expensive, they will compound well over the long term, thus justifying their current multiples.'
The CBI after registering the FIRs carried out searches on Thursday morning at 14 locations in Jammu, Srinagar, Delhi, Mumbai, Noida in Uttar Pradesh, Trivandrum in Kerala and Darbhanga in Bihar, they 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.
The government on Thursday announced a 27 per cent quota for OBCs and 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections in the all-India quota scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from the current academic year, 2021-22.
'The tragedy with Indian Muslims is that they do politics from the heart, not from the head.'
Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad attacked the government for creating fear, alleging that it was just renaming the earlier policies without delivering their benefits to the poor and the needy.
There was an environment of "indifference" towards the use of technology in governance before 2014 due to which the poor and the middle class suffered the most, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday. He asserted the current government has ensured last-mile delivery of services with the help of technology, including drones. Addressing a gathering after inaugurating India's biggest drone festival in Delhi, he said, "At a time when we are celebrating Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, it is my dream that everyone in India should have a smartphone in his or her hand, every farm should have a drone and every house should have prosperity." The enthusiasm being seen in India about drone technology is amazing and indicates possibilities of an emerging sector of employment generation, the prime minister said.
Dismissing his Assam counterpart's claim, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday asserted in the assembly that Mukroh village on the disputed inter-state border, where a violent clash claimed six lives last year, is a part of the hill state.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said the government was aiming to bring down India's Covid-19 mortality rate to less than 1 per cent from the current 1.64 per cent, which is still the lowest in the world.
'The government should act proactively to instil confidence in the private investors, and also boost the purchasing power of people directly or indirectly by ensuring minimum wages.'
To make possible discretionary spending including capex and that on welfare, the government decided to borrow more than planned in FY21 -- Rs 12.7 trillion.
'Dear PM, INC supports the salary cut for MPs. Please note that MPLAD is meant to execute developmental works in the constituency. Suspending it is a huge disservice to the constituents and will undermine the role and functions of MP,' Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter.
Vardhan said the ICMR is actively researching on reports of COVID-19 reinfection and although the number of such cases is negligible at this moment, the government is fully seized of the importance of the matter, the health ministry said in a statement.
The number of terror incidents in Jammu and Kashmir has shown significant decline since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
According to state officials, the project envisages lifting of 17.40 thousand million cubic feet of water from river Thunga to Bhadra reservoir and 29.90 TMC from Bhadra reservoir.
Ushering in a big wave of reforms by implementing the four labour codes, setting up the national social security fund to cover over 38 crore informal sector workers and improving the ease of doing business will top the agenda of the labour ministry in the New Year. In a major move, the ministry launched the e-Shram portal on August 26, 2021 for creating a national database of over 38 crore informal sector workers. It will help the government to ensure last-mile delivery of benefits of various social security schemes to the informal-sector workers.
Replying to the notice issued, the Central government said that ex-gratia amount cannot be paid due to financial constraints and other factors.
Former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, who was on Sunday elected the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislative party in Himachal Pradesh, hit out at the Congress, alleging its government was failing to deliver on poll promises and leaders were moving in different directions.
Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar wanted to raise the issue of financial security for national level athletes in his maiden Rajya Sabha speech, which could not take place due to protests in the Upper House.
4,000 dialysis units to be set up across India, government working on providing free basic healthcare to BPL families.
Under the Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, an initiative of the government, more than 40,000 Nikshay Mitra are supporting over 10.45 lakh TB patients all over the country presently, the Union health ministry said.
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.
A fresh scheme is likely to be released in the upcoming Budget
To help the country emerge as a true welfare State, political parties must put the country's interests first before strategising to win elections and short-term goals, argues Ramesh Menon.
India has a huge untapped population which doesn't have facilities for financial aid and insurance, and it is perhaps plausible to look at the option of having niche players catering to smaller sectors akin to non-banks and microfinance institutions in lending, said Rakesh Joshi, member (Finance & Investment), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit, Joshi said, "Today, most of our insurance companies operate at a national level. There is arguably a case for having differentiated operations, which cater to niche sectors the same way we have non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and microfinance institutions in lending." "The capital requirement for niche players may not be as large as those having national ambitions. "Enabling these niche players, which require lower capital, will enhance the penetration in areas which hitherto had not seen traction from large players," he said.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Budget outlay for health and well being is Rs 2.23 lakh crore in 2021-22 as against BE of Rs 94,452 crore and marks an increase of 137 per cent," she said while presenting 2021-22 Budget in the Lok Sabha.
As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
After staging a strong recovery from COVID-induced slowdown in 2021, India's exports are likely to extend the growth story to the New Year also on increased demand in the global markets, boost in domestic manufacturing due to production-linked incentive schemes and implementation of some interim trade pacts. Expectations of positive growth in the country's exports are also backed up by the outlook of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which predicts a 4.7 per cent expansion in the global merchandise trade volume in 2022. Exporters believe that the outbound shipments would cross $400 billion mark in this fiscal going by the current momentum and may reach $475 billion in 2022-23.
According to NHFS-5, over 75 per cent women justified men beating their wives in three states -- Telangana (84 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (84 per cent) and Karnataka (77 per cent).
Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday exchanged jibes over the red diary that a sacked state minister claims records financial misdeeds of the CM and his colleagues.
Farmers with land sizes less than 0.01 hectare have an average annual income of Rs 54732 and annual consumption of Rs 61296, thereby, a debt of Rs 6564 each year. Compare this with the minimum pay for a government employee, says Devanik Saha.
West Bengal signed an MoU with the Centre for jointly implementing Ayushman Bharat but so far officials have received no word about how it will be done and the deadline is almost here.
All the poor people identified by the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 will be eligible for the scheme, officials said, adding that it will be linked to Aadhar but will not be a mandatory condition for availing the benefit.
India might be heading towards a "serious livelihood crisis" as the situation seems to be worse this time for the working class amid the COVID crisis and local restrictions by states already add up to something close to a nationwide lockdown, according to noted economist Jean Dreze. In an interview to PTI, he also said the government's target to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 was never a "feasible target" and was just to pander to the "super-power ambitions" of the Indian elite. About the impact of the second wave of COVID on the Indian economy, the eminent economist said the situation today is not very different from what it was around this time last year as far as working people are concerned.