In its appeal, the doctors' body said the government should promote universal free vaccination to all above 18 years of age without leaving the vaccines to the extent of 50 per cent to the states and private hospitals.
WhatsApp has drawn massive criticism from users globally, including India over concerns that data was being shared with its parent company, Facebook. WhatsApp, on its part, has maintained that messages on the platform are end-to-end encrypted and that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see the private messages on WhatsApp's platform.
Government think tank Niti Aayog has suggested 100 per cent income tax exemption for donations and provision of working capital loans with lower interest rates for not-for-profit hospitals to strengthen healthcare services in India. In a report titled 'Not-for-Profit Hospital Model in India', the Aayog also pitched for involving high performing hospitals in public private partnership (PPP) models for managing primary health care (PHCs), operations of government facilities and PSU hospitals. "Income-tax exemption could be increased from the current 50 per cent exemption to 100 per cent exemption for philanthropy toward the identified not-for-profit hospitals.
From April 1 next year, over 600 state-run Madrassas will be converted into upper primary, high and higher secondary schools with no change of status, pay, allowances and service conditions of the teaching and non-teaching staff.
Terming the attempts by war veterans to burn medals as an insult to the nation and armed forces, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday said it was for protesting ex-service personnel to prove there was no political motive behind the OROP stir.
Terming investment in infrastructure "quintessential" to boost growth, the Economic Survey on Friday said post unlocking of the economy, infra sectors are poised for growth and construction of roads is expected to return to the high pace attained before COVID-19. The infrastructure sector will be the key to overall economic growth and macroeconomic stability, the Survey said emphasising that the year after the crisis (2021-22) will require sustained and calibrated measures to facilitate the process of economic recovery and enable the economy to get back on its long-term growth trajectory. "Basic infrastructure facilities in the country provide the foundation of growth. In the absence of adequate infrastructure, the economy operates at a suboptimal level and remains distant from its potential and frontier growth trajectory.
The idea is to monitor centrally sponsored schemes, partly funded schemes, loans, programmes and any other endeavour into which funds are pumped.
As a multi-agency probe into the NSE case gathers pace, the grant of preferential server and data access to select brokers and their suspected misuse are being investigated threadbare to unveil all quid pro quo arrangements in a highly-sophisticated scheme that worked like a cricket betting scandal, officials said on Monday. While the bourse has said it has taken several steps over the years to strengthen its technology infrastructure, including as per regulatory orders, the officials said certain fresh disclosures call for a detailed probe into whether a select group of individuals in high positions had banded together to make illicit gains by facilitating the preferential trading slots, beginning over a decade ago. Even a split-second faster access is said to result in huge gains for a trader.
Under a new British-Irish visa scheme announced by Ireland's minister for justice Frances Fitzgerald, tourists and business visitors from India and China will be allowed to travel freely in the 'common travel area' of Britain and Ireland with either an Irish or a British visa.
Knight, who returned from Australia after leading England to the semi-finals of the Women's T20 World Cup recently, is now living under the UK's lockdown rules.
The government has created a comprehensive budget with sharp focus on sustaining economic activity and investment but more clarity is needed on areas like taxation framework for adopting remote working on a long-term basis, IT body Nasscom said on Monday. The industry association noted that the IT/ITeS (Information Technology-enabled Services) industry has been a key driver of growth and jobs in 2020 and there is an opportunity to significantly accelerate it further. "For the IT sector, one of the biggest needs ahead of us is the development of future business models, with hybrid working becoming a reality. "We look forward for the government to provide clarity on providing a framework in direct taxes and indirect taxes for the industry to adopt WFH/remote working on a long-term basis," Nasscom said in a statement.
While she primed up spending on infrastructure to create jobs and boost economic activity, Sitharaman did not tinker with income tax slabs or tax rates. Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 proposed a massive 35 per cent jump in capital expenditure to Rs 7.5 lakh crore, coupled with rationalisation of customs duty, an extension of time for setting up new manufacturing companies and plans for starting a digital currency and tax crypto assets.
Delhi BJP chief Tiwari said each poor family will be provided good quality, subsidised 'atta' (wheat flour) at a rate of Rs 2 per kilogram. The BJP will bring an ambitious 'Samridh Delhi Infrastructure Scheme', with a provision of Rs 10,000 crore, to ensure "focussed and priority" development of roads, flyovers, foot over-bridges and other key infrastructure projects, the manifesto stated. The manifesto promises to set up a 'Colonies Development Board' for undertaking development of various civic amenities.
The national budget 2019-20 had an outlay of Rs 10,000 crore for Phase-II of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles scheme to boost electric mobility and increase the number of EVs in commercial fleets.
Nearly 45 per cent of this value is likely to be delivered by 3 sectors - consumer goods and retail, agriculture and banking and insurance, the Nasscom report said.
Past experience shows loan waivers benefited only 30% of India's farmers; here again, the richer cultivator skimmed the cream, leaving very little for his poorer brethren.
'The government is abdicating its responsibility on healthcare.' 'Just to start this scheme, it will take a minimum till October 2018 and elections are coming in 2019, so before that this can go into the dustbin.'
Modi said UP's population of 24 crore is same as that of four European countries put together but, in UP the death toll is 600 due to coronavirus and lauded the efforts of Adityanath in tackling the pandemic.
'We waited patiently for 17 months, which is enough time for any government to implement a policy. If they can't do it in 17 months, they are either incompetent or they simply don't want to do it.'
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bihar government has sacked 110 officials of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme from service for corruption.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is learnt to have approached Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for additional funds to carry out schemes committed under Universal Services Obligation fund scheme.
The Delhi government said that it is not ready "to compromise with the safety of women".
Since its launch in September, Ayushman Bharat has issued 20 million cards and has set an ambitious target to hit another 30 million within the next three months.
India's tax pie seems to have undergone a subtle change with a sharp drop in direct tax collections resulting from a disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 carnage on incomes. The share of indirect taxes, which mainly comprise of levy on goods and services as well as import duty, has risen while that of direct taxes - made up of corporate and personal income tax - has gone down in 2020. In an interview with PTI, finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said in a pandemic like this where the economy has been impacted, any large scale changes impact direct taxes more severely, whereas indirect tax collection is mostly proportional to business turnover and compliance.
The going is not going to be easy for the DMK and its allies in Elections 2024. Despite the seats sweepstake in the 2021 assembly polls, the vote-share difference of 5.6% (DMK's 45.38% versus AIADMK-BJP's 39.72%) is not insurmountable on a bad day, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Reserve Bank on Friday retained the GDP forecast for the current financial year at 9.5 per cent and flagged global semiconductor shortages, elevated commodity prices and potential global financial market volatility as downside risks to economic growth. In his address after the three-day meeting of the rate-setting panel, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said recovery in aggregate demand gathered pace in August-September, and it is reflected in high-frequency indicators, like railway freight traffic; port cargo; cement production; electricity demand; e-way bills; GST and toll collections. "The ebbing of infections, together with improving consumer confidence, has been supporting private consumption," he said, and added the pent-up demand and the festival season should give further fillip to urban demand in the second half of the financial year.
These measures are part of initiatives by these nations to attract Indian tourists, says Aneesh Phadnis.
The heavy industries ministersaid that the proposal for the auto scrappage policy was ready and all stakeholders have provided inputs, therefore its announcement was likely very soon.
While some CMs suggested reopening economic activity in phases, others pitched for the extension of the coronavirus lockdown, but with a carefully crafted exit strategy
'Our intentions were, and still are, to ensure the entire workforce is given as much protection as possible from redundancy and/or loss of earnings during this unprecedented period'
Budget for women and children welfare increased from Rs 1,56,528 crores to Rs 1,84,632 crores for 2017-18
Insurance companies are seeking a separate deduction limit of Rs 1 lakh for insurance premium payment under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act in the upcoming Union Budget to bring in more people under the ambit of insurance. The insurers also want reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) rate of 18 per cent currently applied on health insurance products to 5 per cent to make such products more affordable to common people. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for 2022-23 on February 1.
"In India, the sector will grow to $10 billion by 2018," predicts Vishal Bali, co-founder, Medwell Ventures, in an interview with Apurva Venkat.
Stalin's personal intervention in the Adheenam row may have contained the avoidable political damage and social tensions at least for now, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
100-day agenda: Commerce ministry pushes for separate logistics department
The cook is seen mixing a litre of milk in a bucket full of water in the video clip.
Here are highlights of the 68th Republic Day parade.
Sanjib Jha, CEO, Coverfox Insurance Broking, answers your health insurance related queries.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday attacked Union Home Minister Amit Shah over violent protests against the new citizenship law, saying his job is not to set the country on fire but to put it out. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' slogan, she said the BJP government has brought "satyanaash" (disaster) for everyone in the country.