-The Hindu The government has declared an incentive package to encourage non-cash payments for fuel, new insurance policies from public sector firms, train tickets and highway toll, among other things. For credit and debit card transactions up to Rs.2,000, the Reserve Bank of India has relaxed its stringent two-factor authentication requirement, and service tax stands waived. Taken together, these moves to encourage cashless payments are significant not just because they can...

-PTI NEW DELHI: With the usage of micro-ATMs and POS counters witnessing a sharp surge post demonetisation, the country's premier cyber security agency CERT-In has cautioned customers, bankers and traders against skimming and malware attacks on these systems and asked them to adopt high-end encryption to plug possible breaches. The CERT-In, nodal agency to combat hacking, phishing attacks and to fortify security-related defences of the Indian Internet domain, has issued two specific...

-The Asian Age Replacing income-tax with a banking transaction tax is an unworkable idea. The poor will end up paying a lot more: Subhanil Chowdhury The idea that all taxes in India should be abolished, except import duty, and replaced by a bank transaction tax (BTT) is a deeply flawed one for a number of reasons. First, there are only few countries in the world that do not have income-tax — oil rich...

-The Economic Times "Demonetisation in a booming economy is like shooting at the tyres of a racing car," says development economist Jean Drèze . A leading advocate of welfare policies, Drèze who was a member of the National Advisory Council during the UPA regime, tells ET that the sudden move to demonetize high-value currency notes has created a scary situation for people who live on the margin of subsistence, and that...

-Scroll.in The author of a paper published by a research institute under the Ministry of Finance expands on its conclusions. The drying up of cash has thrown the lives of millions of Indians in disarray. But many facing hardship support the government’s move. In Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, a farmer who did not have cash to buy seeds and fertilisers, said, “Now when rich people deposit money in the bank, the income tax people...