-The Indian Express The new law allows maternity leave up to 12 weeks for women who adopt a child below the age of 3 months, and for commissioning mothers (in cases of surrogacy) The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2017, passed by Parliament last week, has made 26 weeks of paid maternity leave mandatory for all women employed in the organised sector. The more than doubling of the existing entitlement of 12 weeks...

-TheCitizen.in NEW DELHI: Perhaps no other public policy debate in post-independence India has seen as much of an “inversion of reason” on the part of the government as the demonetization debate. When critics were pointing, on the basis of government statistics themselves, to the palpable failure of the demonetization measure to achieve its purported objective, which was to cripple the black economy, the government kept harping, in its justification, on the extraordinary...

-The Hindu Business Line It should have considered universal basic income. But sadly, budgets are not seen as a means to meet socio-economic goals The Union Budget attracts considerable media hype and debate. Democracy, if understood as a contract between the state and its citizens, may have to use the budgetary process to ensure not only prosperity for all, but justice or fairness to the most disadvantaged among them as well. A rational...

-IANS Kolkata: Lack of policy directions for ensuring quality implementation of programmes makes the Union Budget 2017-18 allocations to ailing core social sectors like education and health inadequate in delivering the benefits, experts say. Schemes like Swachh Bharat-Urban and the National Social Assistance Programme saw no increase, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan got a mere 4.4 per cent rise in allocation, while the Integrated Child Development Services got an enhancement of about five per...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Government is conducting a study to ascertain agrarian distress in major farmer suicide-hit states, Parliament was informed today. The data on number of farmer suicides during 2016 has not yet been compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The most recent NCRB data showed number of farmer suicides to be 12,602 in 2015, with maximum reported in Maharashtra (4,291), followed by Karnataka. "Taking cognisance of the problem of agrarian...