-PTI Amritsar: Aiming to move towards a cashless India, the Centre and States could soon have powers to specify categories of employers who will have to pay wages either through cheques or by crediting the amount directly into the workers’ bank account. “The Government is ready with the Payment of Wages (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which seeks to empower the Centre as well as States to specify industrial or other establishments where employers...

-IANS The Supreme Court on Thursday sought response from 13 drought-affected States as to why they were not lifting enough food grain to made available at subsidised rates to the priority and vulnerable sections of the people in affected areas. The bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice N.V. Ramana sought response from the 13 States as NGO Swaraj Abhiyan told the court that they were not lifting sufficient food grains...

-TheCitizen.in NEW DELHI: A bizarre argument is doing the rounds these days. It States that the cash which gets disabled in the “black economy” because of the government’s demonetization measure, would enable the government to undertake an equivalent amount of expenditure with impunity; it can therefore spend more on infrastructure and other essential areas, or simply provide cash transfers to the people. BJP spokespersons who have been putting forward this argument, are...

-Livemint.com To increase farmers’ enrolment in the PMFBY, the Karnataka government started deducting compulsory insurance premiums for almost all crop loans disbursed Bengaluru: The Karnataka government’s initiatives to enrol more farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana (PMFBY)—to ensure continued Central assistance to help mitigate the economic impact of deficient rainfalls and resulting crop damage—seems to have paid off as the number of enrolments in the state during the Kharif...

-The Times of India In the finely balanced but lucrative economy of vegetable and fruit trade, demonetisation has had a bizarre effect. In distant rural areas, local vegetable prices — both wholesale and retail — have crashed as the oxygen of currency has been suddenly sucked out. Since the whole economy depended on cash, from transport to mandis to purchase prices, this is unsurprising. But in cities, where there is more liquidity,...