-News18.com House-building advance is available to central and state government employees for constructing a new house on a plot owned by the employee or jointly with the spouse. The scheme can also be availed while buying a new house or flat. New delhi: In a bid to boost the housing sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced reduction in interest rates on house-building advance and linking to 10-year government securities yields. The...

-Livemint.com With sliding incomes, rural households are struggling to stay afloat and are curtailing consumption of essential goods Vidisha/ New delhi: Ram Babu, who runs a hole-in-the-wall grocery store in Nateran village nestled deep inside Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha district, doubles up as a daily wager. However, with villagers cutting on small purchases, sales in his shop are down. Moreover, landless households dependent on wage labour are unable to find work—a day of...

-Livemint.com * The report was released on the sidelines of the 14th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Conference in Greater Noida * Representatives from over 198 countries and agencies are engaged in deliberations in the conference on strategies needed to mitigate drought New delhi: As climate risks become more profound on agricultural activities, a report by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has highlighted that the number...

-The Hindu Business Line National Anti-Fraud Unit finds ineligible people claiming medical cover by faking relationship with parent-beneficiary New delhi: Fraudsters are coming up with ingenious ideas to take the Central government for a ride when it comes to the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana’ (PM-JAY) or the Ayushman Bharat initiative, says the National Anti-Fraud Unit (NAFU), which monitors outliers in the scheme. In one such bizarre case, NAFU officials noticed that claims...

-Down to Earth A key paragraph has been proposed for deletion in the draft declaration The delhi Declaration, to be finalised and released on September 10, 2019, at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s (UNCCD) Conference of Parties (CoP) 14, might downplay many issues like the role of the international financial institutions and forest ecosystems. A draft of the delhi Declaration has been accessed by Down to Earth. The draft is currently...