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.
Sources in the Delhi government said the ministry of home affairs has stopped the Kejriwal government's budget and it will not be tabled in the assembly on Tuesday.
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.
He also said that infrastructure development in the country in the last eight years has been done with a human touch.
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.
Among the most widely used packages have been treatment of cataract, dental root canal and normal delivery of babies.
He said the government was committed to protecting their rights. It was committed to working on the path of development and asked them to educate their children.
Vote bank politics cannot be above protecting the sanctity of girls and women, he said virtually launching the campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha election at Chaibasa, about 150 km from in Chaibasa.
Though COVID-19 will wreak more damage to the finances of the Indian population, the insurance sector is unlikely to get hurt.
It also assured that the amount of medical insurance coverage under the Ayushman Bharat scheme would be doubled from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated 11 government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu and said the future will belong to societies that invest in healthcare.
"In the last four years, the government has made serious efforts to provide proper houses to the poor living in shanties."
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.
"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.
Railway hospitals will offer postgraduate courses for medical students.
In a letter to all the zonal general managers on Monday, the board has said that initially 5,000 coaches will be converted.
Adhiraj Parthasarathy, a professional from Telangana, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
States are now gearing up to implement the scheme, integrating it with their own public health insurance plans and tying up the loose ends.
The Parliament on Tuesday unanimously passed the bill to restore the power of states and union territories to prepare and maintain their own list of socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs).
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.
Shah attacked Banerjee over the alleged culture of political violence in the state, saying the only industry that was flourishing in Bengal was that of "crude bombs and illegal weapons".
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.
Jaitley said the Congress has given to the people many slogans but very little resources to implement its election promises.
As India gears up to vaccinate people above 60 years of age and those over 45 years with comorbidities against COVID-19 from March 1, the Union health ministry on Friday said the facility of on-site registrations will be available so that eligible beneficiaries can walk into identified vaccination centres, get themselves registered and get inoculated.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
He said though the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to expand its influence in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, its goal is to rid West Bengal of the 'environment of terror'. "Bengal is the only state in the entire country where the culture of political violence is flourishing," he told the BJP's virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally.
Besides criticising CM Arvind Kejriwal on scores of issues, Shah alleged the AAP government made only promises throughout its tenure and now in the last three months, public money was being spent on advertisements for its announcements.
Ahead of India's annual budget presentation next week, IMF's chief economist Gita Gopinath has favoured the extension of the pandemic support measures, thrust on investment in infrastructure and expanding health sectors programmes like Ayushman Bharat, and a very credible divestment path for commercially viable companies. The Indian government has provided a lot of schemes for small and medium enterprises, most of which is in the form of liquidity support, Gopinath told PTI on Tuesday. "And you want to revisit it and see how effectively that is working and see whether additional support may need to be provided," she said while responding to a question on her recommendations to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ahead of her presentation of the annual Union Budget on February 1. It would be a good time for banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) to raise capital given the attractiveness of financing conditions at this point, she said.
'From March 2020 to November 2021, the combined wealth of the billionaires of this country has doubled.'
According to a senior government official, the plan is to do "collective bargaining" for certain medical devices and implants by assuring a bulk requirement to the manufacturers. "The requirement for these devices runs into millions. We assure them that the requirement is going to be in bulk. In return, they should offer us better rates," he said.
Terming coronavirus as a big health crisis before humanity, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday said the only way to break the chain of transmission and contain COVID-19 cases is for people to 'close down everything' till May 15.
'While intensification of fuel prices and broad-based domestic cost pass-through pressures is a downside risk, core inflation is expected to strengthen further as demand recovers to pre-Covid levels,' the ministry said on Friday.
"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its implementation got delayed. But as the situation is slowly improving, the work has started. The rules are now being framed and CAA will be implemented very soon. Under this act all the eligible people will definitely get Indian citizenship," Nadda told the social groups, who included Dalits, Gorkhas, Rajbanshis and other tribes.
The Congress chief, however, said he was not expecting any cooperation from the prime minister and the BJP-led central government for the development of Wayanad and Kerala.
"The death knell of Mamata Banerjee's regime has rung. We will form the next government in Bengal with a two-third majority," he added.
The PM will make a six-day visit to the United States from September 21 to 27 to attend various events including the annual United Nations General Assembly session in New York and a diaspora event in Houston in Texas in which US President Donald Trump is also participating.
An official of the Jammu and Kashmir administration said, "Broadband high-speed internet connectivity was restored at 80 government hospitals, including health centres and offices linked to the department of health, across Kashmir." The internet services were to start at the government-run hospitals from midnight of December 31 as a New Year gift to the people in the Valley but it could not resume due to some technical issues, officials said.
The NPR data will be used for schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ujjvala and Saubhagya for identifying the intended beneficiaries.
Labour ministry guidelines say workers returning to cities must get housing, health insurance, facemasks. The Centre has also asked states to issue guidelines to employers to take care of the needs of migrant workers.
"What I said was if we had Rafale at the time (of aerial dogfight), then none of our fighter jets would have gone down and none of theirs saved," he added.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances