-TheWire.in The wholesale price inflation for wheat in March was 14%. The retail prices will, therefore, reflect the same once the peak arrival season is over, in June 2022. Even the critics of India’s public distribution system (PDS) acknowledge that it worked well during the Covid-19 pandemic. Additional allocations of free food grains at 5 kg per person per month, under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), helped prevent mass hunger...

-The Hindu 144 institutions were de-empanelled Non-genuine 18,606 hospital transactions were detected in the Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) with penalty amounting to Rs.29.72 crore being levied on erring hospitals. Also 144 hospitals were de-empanelled from the scheme based on confirmed fraudulent behavior, said the Health Ministry in its reply to the Parliament in the recently concluded session. The Ministry added that the National Health Authority (NHA)—the implementing agency...

-The Telegraph Rights activists say the provisions can be used to suppress dissent and intimidate political protesters New Delhi: The Centre on Monday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha that authorises law-enforcing agencies to collect a wide spectrum of physical and biological samples from people convicted, arrested or merely held in preventive detention, without having to seek a magistrate’s permission. Rights activists said the provisions could be used to suppress dissent and...

-Financial Express ”This is the swamp of unconstitutionality, and unwisdom, into which the ECI and the voter will be cast if this linking proceeds as proposed. The linking of the voter database with the UID database must bewilder anyone who has watched the progression of the UID project. It has been plagued by exclusion, fraud, leakage, biometric failure, insuperable barriers to updating the information on the database, and ‘civil death’. Attempts to...

-Livemint.com biometric attendance for government officials and employees is being suspended with immediate effect, till further orders, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh said The biometric attendance at all government offices has been suspended in the view of rising COVID cases, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh said. However, all the employees are required to mark their attendance in attendance registers to be maintained manually, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said. “Keeping in...