-The Hindustan Times The government is pushing for making it mandatory for recipients of funds from abroad to clearly identify themselves. The reason: intelligence agencies caution that some small money transmission agents are funneling funds for terror activities. As recording all recipients’ photographs has been found cumbersome, the authorities, on the RBI’s advice, may demand Aadhar unique ID numbers — after the numbers are made available — even from individuals receiving less than...

Indians with undisclosed foreign assets and offshore bank accounts will be in for a shock this Budget if the finance ministry clears a proposal empowering income tax authorities to reopen assessments up to 16 years as against 6 years now.  The proposed amendment, the ministry feels, may not only act as a deterrent, but also put pressure on people to declare their wealth stashed away in Swiss banks and tax havens.  In...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

Rajnish, a ninth grader of an English-medium school, wanted a medical certificate to do a bunk from school for some days. When doctors refused to certify he was ill, a quack obliged. The fee: Rs 50 Surajit Ghosh, a construction firm employee, defaulted on his Insurance Premium for 18 months. While reviving his policy the insurance office asked him to get his medical status approved by a doctor. Help was close...

The labour ministry has asked the Prime Minister's Office to direct the Planning Commission to allocate sufficient resources for the UPA government's flagship health insurance scheme for the poor in fiscal 2012-13 so that patients are not refused admission by hospitals.  The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), that guarantees 30,000 annual health insurance to a family of five, ran into trouble earlier this year due to shortage of funds.  In a letter...