-The Hindu Public sector insurers, oil-marketing firms and others not to take a hit for cashless push The Centre has decided to bear the burden imposed on public sector firms on account of the many discounts and incentives offered to promote digital payments. The plan is to create a new expenditure head in the exchequer’s accounts that will absorb the costs of such measures. Public sector insurers, oil-marketing firms and others will thus not...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's big push for digital payments and cashless transactions post-demonetisation, government hospitals across the country remain woefully unequipped to translate his lofty visions into reality. Despite various state governments issuing directives to state and municipality-run hospitals to promote digital payments, an overwhelming majority of these are yet to install card swipe machines. Last week, the Union health secretary held a meeting on the...

-The Indian Express With optic fibre cables laid in over 65,000 gram panchayats, Centre’s BharatNet project seems on track to achieve its 1,00,000 target by March 2017. However, lack of active connectivity remains a concern. Ahmedabad/ Gandhinagar/ New Delhi: With less than 25 per cent of the 65,475 gram panchayats in the country with optic fibre connectivity having active internet under the BharatNet project, the success of Centre’s push for digital payments...

-Hindustan Times Plight of the migrants: Jobless labourers return home after demonetisation Twenty-THRee-year-old Avinash Kumar is planning to postpone his sister’s marriage. The money he had saved, working at a sweatshop in New Delhi’s Mongolpuri, is all but gone. Kumar lost his job in about two weeks from the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, in a move that he termed as the biggest-ever...

-Hindustan Times Village Khokh (Patiala): Nek Singh Khokh fears he might wilt, just the way the saplings in his sprawling nursery might. Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled his demonetisation plan, scrapping big denomination currency to drain the economy of black money and counterfeits, Khokh has been struggling to pay labourers to tend to his saplings. The owner of a nursery, some 25 km west of the Punjab town of Sirhind, Khokh...