MGNREGA scheme: A significant Rs 17,370.58 crore has been carried forward over to the next financial year as unpaid dues as demand for work continued unabated for the scheme in rural areas.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
India has declined assistance offered by the United Nations of its integrated supply chain for COVID19-related material, saying the country has a "robust system" to deal with the required logistics, a spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.
Modi said his government has taken 'historic' decisions and the nation progressed rapidly in the last one year, even as he acknowledged that there is a lot that needs to be done and many challenges and problems face the country.
If pandemic (mis)management threatened to dominate Goa's electoral discourse, the BJP is up against a deeper structural issue in its organisation, created by the fact that a majority of the legislature party and the ministerial council is made up of Congress defectors, disparagingly referred to by the Opposition as "imports". Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
The panel also stated that without the lockdown the country would have witnessed a peak of over 140 lakh cases.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting five measures to conserve money for the fight against COVID-19, including a complete ban on media advertisements by government and PSUs for two years and suspending the Central Vista beautification project.
If the precautions are not taken and guidelines are not followed properly, there can be chances of spike in cases, the government said.
Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last week, in 9 images.
The Congress has never given India a PM who was a prisoner of his or her own image, said Rahul Gandhi at the party's MPs' meet.
With the first salary date after demonetisation around the corner, will India's labourers be able to take their hard-earned wages home?
An average nine unidentified bodies, largely of drug addicts and beggars, are recovered from the streets of the national capital every day.
'That way, it will be helpful for India because by April, temperatures will be in the late 30s and early 40s.' 'So, if we are able to sustain these 21 days, and go to that temperature zone, it will be a way of nature protecting us.'
In a nearly 25-minute televised address to the nation, Modi said implementation of the lockdown will be strictly ensured in its second phase and detailed guidelines will be brought out on Wednesday to ensure that outbreak does not spread to new areas.
A worker has died in a "work-related fatality" at the site of a 2022 World Cup stadium in Qatar, the country's World Cup organizing body said late on Saturday.
'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
She had faced criticism over the existence of UK Home Office deportation targets and her knowledge of them.
'The jobs that are being created now are the delivery boy jobs which are of extremely poor quality, or contractual jobs where you hire a person on a per piece basis.'
'Give cash assistance of Rs 75 per person per day and an android phone and you will see the economy reviving.'
'I am sceptical of the Indian economy returning to a sustained high-growth trajectory any time soon'
A total of 77 deaths were reported since Thursday evening of which 27 fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, 17 from Gujarat, 11 from West Bengal, seven each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, three from Delhi, two from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and one from Karnataka.
If Team Rajini expected Kaala to carry the superstar's political message off-screen, it may have proved counter-productive. If the not-so-infrequent presence of Muslim residents of Dharavi, including that of Kaala's ex-love Zarina, in many scenes is expected to convey a political message, it is a no-brainer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'You can't make the poor rich overnight.' 'Nor can you fly millions in planes.' 'But remember that word: Empathy.' 'Who in the BJP is speaking in that language to these millions?' 'Someone putting an arm of understanding, warmth, comfort around them?', asks Shekhar Gupta.
'When the virus, in a way, tires itself out, because it is not finding any more people to attack or keep itself viable, that is when the peak actually has been reached and you are on the downward limb (of the curve).'
'Evacuation' has been key to disaster management in Odisha. The aim is to achieve zero casualty.
Any NGO critical of the government is unlikely to receive a green signal. The new amendment will leave NGOs vulnerable to harassment. It was the NGO sector that helped provide compassion and food to millions of people during the lockdown. The new Bill will render such cooperation and camaraderie impossible in future, observes Rashme Sehgal.
India has asked its nationals living in Saudi Arabia, who have received their Emergency Certificates, to get their final exit visa immediately from the Saudi authorities.
Speaking at industry association CII's annual session, PM Modi said the government has taken tough steps to fight the coronavirus pandemic and has also taken care of the economy. "On the one hand we have to safe the lives of our people and on the other hand we have to stabilise the economy and speed up the economy," he said. "Yes, we will definitely get our growth back," he asserted.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has started preparing the ground to rescue Indians who are expected to be deported from Saudi Arabia as it goes ahead with its new job law, Nitaqat. Sheela Bhatt reports
'The fight against COVID-19 is not a hospital fight.' 'It's a community level fight. 'If your community level measures are good, you can decrease the number of people coming to hospitals, or flatten it.'
'How many people have been skilled up and thus able to escape from needing to be in NREGA? The true success of NREGA would lie in its irrelevance -- that is, people no longer need it as a crutch.' 'NREGA should enable them to climb out of poverty and stand on their feet.' 'But this is expressly forbidden by NREGA rules. Skill development, which is what India needs more than anything else, appears to be outside the purview of NREGA,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
Massive crowds thronged liquor stores, more vehicles plied on roads and cab-hailing platforms resumed services as India entered the third phase of the lockdown on Monday with further easing of curbs except in containment zones in the shadow of the highest rate of recovery yet from coronavirus.
'We have not been able to use the potential of our location in the region and the world and our strength as a nation and an economy to establish an EU-like structure in South Asia,' points out Aakar Patel.
The new government has to make conscious efforts to rebuild social equality and bring the people together.
Taking on the grand alliance in Lalu Prasad Yadav's home turf of Gopalganj, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar whether he wanted the old days of 'jungle raj'-- when the region had turned into a 'mini Chambal' -- to return.
Jayanta Roy Chowdhury reports on how the West Bengal elections are being fought by the BJP and Trinalool Congress amid COVID challenges, 'Bangaliana', and campaigns based on religion, region, and caste.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter visited Qatar's emir on Sunday and said that while progress has been made in improving workers' rights in the 2022 World Cup host nation, more still needed to be done.
Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com reveals how the BMC has contained the spread of COVID-19 in Dharavi, India's largest slum, which WHO wants to know more about.
Retaining the GST rate assumes importance since states are under pressure to increase their revenues, hit hard by lockdown. Also, the Centre has not fully compensated states for their revenue losses on account of GST for 2019-20.
The US dependent visa puts many restrictions on the spouses, mostly women, of the skilled workers who have an H1-B visa. Some even felt like they were thrown back into a model of the 'traditional family' where women are not valued at all outside of the home.
