-The Economic Times In over a decade, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has been instrumental in providing employment to rural households. One of its key provisions is that once the work week is completed, the worker must be paid within 15 days. Millions depend on the timely payment of these wages. The payments process has made many strides in the last decade, from cash payments to wages being...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Dalit and tribal groups observed "national resistance day" on Tuesday to demand restoration of key provisions of a protective law that has allegedly been diluted by a Supreme Court judgment. Over a dozen organisations representing Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes held the protest in 70 cities across the country to demand a reversal of the judgment that stopped immediate arrest of offenders under the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities)...

-The Hindu NITI Aayog member says national health scheme will aim to keep cheaters out Mumbai: To curb illegal mass surgeries, policy makers working on the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) are planning to restrict surgical procedures like hysterectomies and appendectomies to public sector hospitals. Dr Vinod Paul, member, NITI Aayog, said on Saturday that such procedures could also be dropped from the scheme. “Procedures like these can be misused. We have...

-Business Standard The task force also highlighted that companies had been misused to channel unaccounted cash after demonetisation in November 2016 Mumbai: The government’s task force has arrived at a formula to define a ‘shell company’, a move critical for enforcement agencies to crack down on dubious entities exploiting the regulatory framework. According to sources, the task force has listed 18 key parameters, including beneficial ownership and the nature of business dealings, to...

-The Telegraph Economist who served as finance minister dies at 90 Calcutta: Former Bengal finance minister Ashok Mitra, who also served as the chief economic adviser to the Indian government, passed away in a city nursing home on Tuesday morning. The Marxist economist was 90 and had been suffering from age-related complications. His wife Gouri had died 10 years ago. An economist by training - with a PhD under Nobel laureate economist Jan Tinbergen -...