-The Hindu Despite being specialists, they are relegated to the margins The Central Board of Direct Taxation (CBDT), a wing of the Ministry of Finance, has initiated disciplinary proceedings against some Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers for a report they submitted to the government recently. The officers are not corrupt, nor did they abuse any Minister or any functionary of the government. So, what was their crime? A group of 50 IRS officers...

-The Hindu On the contrary, scrapping labour laws will only reduce wages, lower earnings and reduce consumer demand Following the adage, “never waste a crisis”, the government of Uttar Pradesh, last week, introduced an ordinance that has scrapped most labour laws for three years — ostensibly for creating jobs and for attracting factories exiting China following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These laws deal with the occupational safety, health and working...

-The Indian Express The draft proposes that the land pooling model which is used in building greenfield airports can be used in agriculture to enable corporatisation, which will create demand for skilled labourers. A LAND pooling model enabling corporatisation of agriculture, opening up EPF and ESIC for the unorganised SECtor, merging the MNREGA with skill development programmes to create a wage subsidy programme —- these are some of the proposals that have...

-The Hindu Rs.3,500 crore of SECond tranche of stimulus to be spent on allocation to those without ration cards. A major focus of the SECond tranche of the economic stimulus package announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday was to provide free foodgrains for the next two months to migrant workers who do not have ration cards. The Centre will spend ₹3,500 crore for this purpose. Quoting numbers from State governments,...

-Livemint.com As announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, 25 million farmers who do not have a Kisan Credit Card will now be able to avail concessional credit The government on Thursday decided to boost the flow of credit to the agriculture by attempting to bring more farmers under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme and through an additional outlay for farm loan refinance. As announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, 25 million farmers...