-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 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...

-Livemint.com After being on the sidelines of Dalit and feminist movements for long, Dalit women are now standing up for their rights New delhi: In 2008, seven women, aged 19-24, walked into a police station in Haryana’s Indri village in Kurukshetra district. Dressed in salwar-kameez with dupattas draped around their necks, they looked tired but confident, angry and brimming with questions. They wanted to meet the SHO and ask why no FIR...

-The Indian Express EPFO manages social security funds of workers in the organised/semi-organised sector in the country. EPF is applicable to establishments with more than 20 workers. New delhi: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO’s) enrolment numbers, which formed the basis for an ‘independent’ study released earlier this year that the government cited as an indicator of buoyancy in formal job creation in the economy, has now been sharply whittled down for...

-The Hindu Business Line Controversial ‘bail-in’ clause had unnerved bank depositors New delhi: The government has decided to drop the controversial Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, thus allowing bank customers to breath easy. The Union Cabinet, which met on Wednesday, decided to drop this Bill, a senior Cabinet Minister told BusinessLine. This means the present system of insurance deposits will continue and customers will not have to worry about the ‘bail-in’...