"So far, 17 states and UTs have integrated and three more states Odisha, Mizoram and Nagaland are also getting prepared. Total 20 states/UTs will be ready for the launch of ration card portability from June 1," Paswan told reporters.

Industry bodies such as CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM suggested a slew of measures and sought relaxations such as increasing working hours to 12 hours per day from the existing 8 hours per day to help them revive operations, according to a release by the Labour Ministry.

India has allowed discounting of prolonged stay period for determining the residency status in relief for NRIs.

Earlier, such registrations/approvals were granted without any specific expiry period unless specifically withdrawn by concerned tax authority. Under the new law introduced by Finance Act 2020 and effective from June 1, 2020, all such registrations/ approvals would now be issued with an expiry period of 5 years.

​​Developed countries may well ask why they should pick up the bill for countries that are less well-prepared. The answer to that lies in looking to their own citizens for inspiration. Across the world, governments have introduced new restrictions into lives.

Public Accounts Committee chairman Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury urged the Speaker to take an expeditious and positive decision on allowing meetings of parliamentary committees including PAC via videoconference given the importance of assessing the economic and social costs these sectors have suffered due to lockdown.

In a notification issued Friday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) allowed tax exemption to donations under Section 80 G of the Income Tax Act, on the grounds that the structure would be a “place of historic importance and a place of public worship”.

Chairing a meeting to assess the impact of COVID 19 on Assam Power Distribution Company Limited, Assam Power Generation Corporation Limited and Assam Electricity Grid Corporation Limited, Sonowal said that though the state has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the endeavour of the government’s power companies has yielded into a power surplus.

By the time the third phase of the lockdown ends on May 17, the Indian industry would have lost two months’ output, the CII said, adding that Covid-19 has “crippled” the economy

Rajan says ‘monetisation’ is a good option in the short-term and within reasonable limits.

Despite all our past glory, the “potential” India has, the love you have for your country, that answer won’t change. We don’t have money. Our people are poor. Our government is poor. Hence, when we carry out a lockdown like Europe or the US, we suffer more. For them, the lockdown creates an itch. For us, we bleed.

Echoing similar sentiments put forth by several eminent economists, he had appealed to the central government to shed its reservations and borrow more in 2020-21.

Labour laws in India are part of the façade of democracy that middle-class India confuses for the real thing. In reality, nine out of ten of India’s 500 million workers are in the informal sector, which does not admit labour laws, minimum wages, social security and such other symbols of civilised existence even as figments of the imagination.

ET examines the labour reforms template of three states, which also seems to be part of efforts to lure companies looking to move out of China.

On February 20, 2020, Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam who holds the finance portfolio, announced that an expert committee would be constituted to improve the tax: GSDP ratio of Tamil Nadu.

Mediamatic ETEN, a restaurant in Amsterdam, is offering a four-course vegetarian menu for diners -- served to guests while they sit in their own personal quarantine greenhouses.

'Does it mean that till the COVID-19 fight is over, the governor should be non-functional, in sleep mode, and fiddling in the Raj Bhavan while the state is burning?'

The total of 103 deaths reported since Thursday morning include 43 in Maharashtra; 29 in Gujarat; eight in Madhya Pradesh; seven in West Bengal; five in Rajasthan; two each in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh; and one each in Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

At the invitation of United States President Donald Trump, Pujari Harish Brahmbhatt from the BAPS (Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha) Swaminarayan Mandir in New Jersey joined religious leaders from other faiths offering prayers on the occasion of National Day of Prayer Service.

The nationwide lockdown, which has been in place since March to contain the spread of coronavirus, has rendered several unskilled labourers and daily wagers jobless. The IIM-A conducted the survey among 500 households in the city that earned less than 19,500 per month, the release in Ahmedabad stated.

The move by the excise department has come in the wake of lifting of certain coronavirus-induced curbs, which included allowing reopening of liquor shops. As the demand for alcohol has increased in Maharashtra, there is a possibility of liquor smuggling by inter-state organised syndicates, the official said.

'If the trial succeeds, it will become the success of Ayurveda.' 'If it's a failure, it's my failure alone.'

Major Anuj Sood, scholar and daredevil soldier, had finished his Kashmir tenure and would have been home had COVID-19 not come in the way. He did not live to be old enough, but he lived the soldier's life to the fullest, reveals Archana Masih/Rediff.com.

Early detection will bring down the mortality rate, the minister said, adding that the government plans to increase institutional quarantine facilities.

Social stigma and low testing are the key reasons for the high mortality rate among COVID-19 patients in West Bengal, where the disease, like elsewhere in the country, is still an urban phenomenon, experts say. The state's Trinamool Congress government has been drawing consistent criticism from the Centre and opposition parties over the way it has tackled the pandemic, and has been accused of under-reporting data about the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, set up a five-member Committee to probe Thursday's gas leak incident in the chemical factory, in which 11 people were killed and 1,000 exposed, and submit a report before May 18.

'India is ahead only of Pakistan in the amount spent on each soldier a year.' 'The Indian military is a manpower-heavy throng that is poorly armed, equipped, and trained,' observes Ajai Shukla.

Thackeray said he was in constant touch with the Centre over the issue of running more trains to ferry migrant labourers, stranded due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, to their native places.