The finance ministry is putting shape to a new social security scheme for unorganized sector workers, creating for the first time a safety net for millions of underpaid and overworked people, many of whom living in abject poverty.  The ministry has discussed with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and the four state run non-life Insurance companies the contours of this scheme that will provide life Insurance, health cover and retirement pension...

Government proposes to provide basic Insurance coverage to an estimated 43 crore unorganized workers Furthering the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s objective of inclusive growth, the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will discuss ways of bringing India’s unorganized workers under the social security net in its meeting on 29 November. A new NAC working group on social security is working on draft recommendations that will seek to...

The claim that the Unique Identification project will facilitate the delivery of basic health services is dishonest. AMONG the many reasons cited for India to proceed with the Unique Identification (UID) project – that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure, that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes, and so on – the most specious is perhaps the...

The govt has thus rejected the recommendation of the parliamentary standing committee on finance that the 26% FDI cap be a part of the Bill The cabinet on Wednesday cleared amendments to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, 2011, capping the overseas investment limit in the sector at 26%, but retaining the flexibility to raise this limit by stating that it would not form a part of the legislation. The...

-PTI   Over 200 government officials have been penalised for their alleged involvement in corruption by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) during September this year.  Out of the total of 201 government employees, the highest number of 46 were from Central Board of Excise and Customs, 29 from Syndicate Bank, 20 from State Bank of India and 13 each from Delhi Development Authority and Ministry of Railways among others, a CVC report said.  Besides...