-The Hindu Public sector insurers, oil-marketing firms and others not to take a hit for cashless push The Centre has decided to bear the burden imposed on public sector firms on account of the many discounts and incentives offered to promote digital payments. The plan is to create a new expenditure head in the exchequer’s accounts that will absorb the costs of such measures. Public sector insurers, oil-marketing firms and others will thus not...

-The Economic Times Farmers accustomed to decades of government policy failure are willing to bear the pain caused by the government’s decision to recall Rs 500 & 1000 bills, but engineering a systematic failure of the rural cooperative banking sector would be an unpardonable desecration. Earlier rural bank branches were given a step motherly treatment: Rural cooperative bank branches were not replenished with lower denomination currency, while the newer higher denomination notes...

-The Hindu Personal data of 1.5 crore PDS beneficiaries laid bare without password protection Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government may have compromised the privacy of Public Distribution System beneficiaries, by making available their personal information online. Personal data such as monthly income, electoral card details, consumer numbers of power and cooking gas connections of 1.5 crore residents were published on the Civil Supplies website, throwing open the possibility of misuse by private companies and...

-TheWire.in Given the negative impact biometric point of sales machines have had in Jharkhand and Rajasthan, the group urged Bihar to continue its own PDS reforms. A group of economists and social scientists have urged Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to not buckle under pressure from the Centre to use Aadhaar-based point of sales (PoS) machines for the distribution of rations under the public distribution system (PDS). These machines have been found...

Two back-to-back reports that shed light on the status of MGNREGA implementation in the country, have been released recently from the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). A review of MGNREGA implementation in 8 different states of India by a team of experts during the month of May this year reveals that in many of the drought affected districts, the Gram Panchayats have no work to offer under the programme. (Please click...