-The Hindu Industry has expressed concern over the directive New delhi: The Centre has asked all employers and contractors to ensure that wages are paid to all employees, including casual and contract workers, through cheques or electronic transfers into a bank account. The Chief Labour Commissioner, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, has also asked firms to get bank accounts opened for all those workers who do not have one already, and...

-AlJazeera.com For girls and women from the Perna caste, entering the sex trade is a normal next step after marriage and childbirth. New delhi: When Sita* comes home in the morning, her husband is usually still asleep. She has worked through the night, selling sex on the highways tracing delhi's periphery, but she will bathe, cook breakfast, and get the children ready for school before getting some rest herself. Here, in a tumble-down...

-Livemint.com Only 23.6% of farmers enrolled for the scheme in 2016, against 22.2% in 2015 New delhi: Despite setting an ambitious target to cover half of all farmers under crop insurance, the first season rollout of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) has been tepid. According to the agriculture ministry, during the kharif 2016 season beginning June this year, 32.6 million farmers enrolled under PMFBY. While that is a 6.3% rise in...

-The Economic Times NEW delhi: The 81 bureaucrats, who were dispatched by the Centre in teams of three to study the impact of demonetisation on the ground, have red-flagged loss of livelihood in rural areas, particularly in the non-formal sectors, and highlighted the negative impact on the farm sector in the sowing season. Officials told ET that these confidential reports were submitted last week and are now being examined for further action....

-The Telegraph New delhi: The Opposition today sought to nail the government on a technicality: not one of the 30-and-counting notifications issued by the finance ministry and the RBI on demonetisation has been tabled in Parliament. The issue was flagged by the Congress's Anand Sharma in the Rajya Sabha. He said tabling the RBI's notifications was mandatory according to a decision of the committee on subordinate legislation. In case of notifications issued...