-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Senior citizens who want to avail Concessions on train tickets will now have to produce the 12-digit Aadhaar number. An official said reservation of rail tickets for senior citizens will be directly linked to Aadhaar from April next year on a mandatory basis for availing Concessions at both counter and for e-tickets. The railways has decided to implement Aadhaar-based ticketing system in a two-phased manner. From...
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Demonetisation Alone Can't Turn Agricultural Markets Cashless -Nidhi Aggrawal and Sudha Narayanan
-TheWire.in A large chunk of India’s farmers continue to depend on commission agents and not formal institutions for credit, thereby relying on cash. It is now official. Demonetisation has led to an implosion of agricultural trade in the country. In the week following demonetisation, soyabean arrivals in select major states had collapsed by 87% relative to average arrivals over the week preceding demonetisation. The figures were 55% for paddy, 61% for guar,...
More »Retaining MGNREGA's core -Brinda Karat
-The Hindu Held to account by the Supreme Court, the Central government is using opaque methods to change the key provisions of the employment guarantee scheme and make it targeted instead of universal. There is a pithy saying in Hindi that the elephant has two sets of teeth, one for show and the other to eat. This seems an apt description of the approach of the Narendra Modi government towards the implementation...
More »The foreign hand isn't enough -Alex M Thomas
-The Hindu The pursuit of full employment of labour cannot primarily rely on domestic private investment, much less FDI. Only public investment will steady us in the long run. We are increasingly told that the inflow of capital — particularly the foreign direct investment (FDI) variety — increases employment levels and contributes to economic growth. In a rare interview given to The Wall Street Journal in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced...
More »Expenditure on freebies not transparent: Report
-The Hindu The government incurred an expenditure of about Rs. 5,049 crore in 2014-15. Chennai: The State’s accounting of expenditure on freebies is not clear and does not transparently disclose the nature of details, said the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report for the year ended March 2015. The report pointed out schemes like free distribution of laptops, marriage assistance schemes, free supply of grinders, mixies, fans, Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health...
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