-Down to Earth The Red Dot Campaign by SWaCH cooperative is sensitising people about the importance of proper handling and disposal of sanitary waste SWaCH (Solid Waste Collection and Handling), a Pune-based wholly-owned cooperative of self-employed waste workers, in collaboration with the Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP) and Rotary Pune, launched a ‘Red Dot campaign’ to help waste pickers avert health hazards due to mishandled sanitary waste. The campaign is the...

-The Hindu Surakhpur, declared ‘fully digital payment enabled’ by government, rues low literacy, poor connectivity Around 10 days ago, a team of Delhi government officials handed over two PoS (point of sale) machines to kirana (grocery) store owners Surat Singh and Ramesh Kumar, both residents of Surakhpur village in Najafgarh, on the Delhi-Haryana border. The officials taught the two how to use the machines. On Wednesday, when The Hindu visited the village, where...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: The Bengal budget has proposed a grant of Rs 50,000 each to 50,000 migrant workers who were forced to return from other states because of demonetisation. By announcing the FIRst such scheme in the country, the Mamata Banerjee government has beaten to the draw the Narendra Modi dispensation. Speculation had swirled around the Modi government that it might share the "gains of demonetisation" with the people through direct deposits...

-TheWire.in The Economic Survey 2016-17 devotes a chapter to the provision of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), describing it as a “raging new idea,” a “radical new vision” and “the shortest path to eliminating poverty”. While warning that the UBI “should not become the Trojan horse that usurps the fiscal space for a well-functioning state,” the survey says a de facto UBI can be instituted in the existing “fiscal space”. It...

-Scroll.in The Paharia Adivasi community says they are cheated in their banking transactions and don't know what to do with the debit cards. Just days after the Central government’s demonetisation announcement on November 8 kicked off a major push for digital payments, Kusheshwar Paharia, a resident of Nathgoda village in Jharkhand’s Godda district, received a thick packet in the mail. It contained a letter from the State Bank of India, with which he...