-The Indian Express Sahara India, which is already being investigated by market regulator Sebi, has now also come under the scanner of the provident fund department and is amongst the top defaulters of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in the country. Five of the group firms including Sahara India Financial Corporation and the former Sahara Airlines are part of the top 50 companies in the country that have defaulted on depositing...

-The Hindustan Times A civil society group on Friday demanded key changes in the bill to protect whistleblowers, including widening its scope to bring all categories of public servants and private sector employees under its purview. The National Campaign for People's Right to Information, after day-long consultations with the families of some of the whistleblowers, asked the government to make the definition of victimisation clear in the bill. The Whistleblowers Protection Bill was...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-The Hindu   The flagship programme will now include LPG subsidy Admitting that the UPA government's ambitious flagship Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme had run into unanticipated "difficulties" since its roll-out in January this year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday exhorted the departments concerned to renew efforts for its successful implementation. Dr. Singh pointed to the "unsatisfactory nature of tracking and monitoring" systems of the scheme which had the potential of "transforming...

-The Times of India The expansion of UPA's flagship intervention - direct benefits transfer (DBT) - is likely to be pushed back by three months, shrinking the window for fullscale implementation of the scheme that Congress sees as its trump card for the 2014 polls. The scheme to ensure delivery of cash subsidies and entitlements to bank accounts of beneficiaries was launched in January 2013. However, for the scheme to live up...