-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In its latest report, the Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day in 2016 there were nearly 8 million people living in “modern slavery” in India — a claim strongly contested by the government on the grounds that its parameters were poorly defined and too wide-ranging. The report said that in terms of prevalence, there were 6.1 victims for every thousand people. Among...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The income tax department has allowed referral kickbacks paid to doctors by private hospitals, nursing homes and diagnostic centres and spending on advertisements by doctors as expenses despite such expenditure being disallowed and unethical, a parliamentary panel said on Thursday. The public accounts committee for the Union finance ministry's department of revenue has cited an audit that found that in 19 instances in eight states, income-tax officers had...

-The Indian Express The government is looking at various data sources and has started releasing enrolment data for Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) as an indicator. As per latest data, 41.26 lakh enrollments were recorded in the EPFO database for Sept 2017-April 2018. The government is planning to launch enterprise-level area frame survey early next month for capturing employment generation in companies with less than ten workers. The results of the survey,...

-The Indian Express Rising cases of leprosy among Adivasis call for urgent public action. India officially eliminated Leprosy in 2005 by bringing the Prevalence Rate below 1/10000 at the national level. However, the National Health Policy 2017 (NHP), which will guide the health policy direction of the country over the next decade or so, still has elimination of Leprosy as a national level target. It is highly unlikely that India achieves elimination...

-TheWire.in In Maharashtra, a mere 7% of total claims have been settled under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. New Delhi: In April this year, Beed district in Maharashtra won an award for ‘effective implementation’ of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFSBY) – the Centre’s flagship crop insurance scheme for farmers. However, last week it was reported that farmers in Beed were provided compensation amounts of Re 1, Rs 2,...