As part of a stimulus package for the coronavirus-hit economy, the government is working on a credit guarantee scheme to enable banks to provide additional 10-15 per cent working capital to MSMEs for payment of wages, sources said. Currently, banks are offering an extra line of credit of 10 per cent based on working capital limits, which the government intends to increase further. Since units are closed due to lockdown and there has been no operation for the past two months, most micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) do not have money for paying wages and financial assistance for them is under consideration of the government, the sources said. One of the proposals under consideration is to provide 10-15 per cent additional line of credit by banks over the working capital limit of the MSME sector, which is the largest employer in the country after agriculture. This loan, especially for wage payment, will be backed by a proposed credit guarantee fund so that lenders' money is ...

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir doesn't see major changes in the way cricket is played in the post COVID-19 scenario besides the ban on using saliva on the ball. The International Cricket Council is considering legalisation of the usage of artificial substances to shine the ball instead of saliva. "I don't think a lot of rules and regulations will be changed, you can probably have an alternate for the usage of saliva apart from that I don't think so many changes will happen," Gambhir told Star Sports. "Players and everyone else need to live with this virus; probably they have to get used to it that there is a virus and that it will be around. Players might end up catching it, and you got to live with it." Though social distancing is possible in cricket to a certain extent, other sports will find it tougher when sporting action resumes, said the southpaw. "Social distancing and other rules may not be easy for any sport to maintain. You can still manage to do it with cricket, but ...

The Dakshina Kannada district administration has made arrangements to quarantine non- resident citizens arriving here by flights from various countries amid the COVID-19 crisis. The first repatriation flight from Dubai carrying 170 passengers is expected to land at the Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) here on Tuesday. Nearly 1,000 rooms at lodges, hostels and service apartments have been kept ready as quarantine facilities for the NRIs. The authorities have reserved rooms in 18 hotels, lodges and six hostels for the mandated two-week quarantine. The returnees will be given the option of staying either at hotels or in government facilities, sources said. All the quarantine facilities will have the services of doctors to monitor the health of those coming from abroad. Around 3,000 Indian citizens have sought repatriation to DK and Udupi districts from different countries, sources said. Some of them will arrive in ships once the services are started to the New Mangalore ..

Plans are in place to start outdoor training in premier centres in India later this month and Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government had to tread a careful path to ensure that athletes remained free from COVID-19. Rijiju had already said that his ministry was devising a plan for a phased resumption of national camps for Olympic-bound athletes, starting with the athletes currently based at NIS Patiala and SAI Centre in Bengaluru by the end of this month. "A roadmap is being prepared. If something happens to top athletes it will be a set back and so we are careful and that's why there are no positive coronavirus cases for our athletes till now. Players are pride of our country and so we can't risk anything," Rijiju said. "Medical experts, technical committee are working to start things. We have started preparing, NIS Patiala, Delhi IG stadium, SAI centres, premier sports centres will be opened after lockdown," he was quoted as saying by India Today. The coronavirus-forced ...

: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has instructed officials to prepare a comprehensive agriculture policy for the state with an aim to make the agriculture sector profitable. Rao said he would be talking to farmers through clusters, farmers groups such as Rythu Bandhu Samithis and agriculture officers through a video conference very soon, an official release issued late on Saturday night said. Rao, who held a review on the agriculture department, instructed officials concerned to prepare the comprehensive agriculture policy and stressed the need for everything to happen in tune with it. "The government should decide on which crops the farmers should cultivate. Planning should be done in such a way that crops should be cultivated based on the food needs of people in the state and the crops, which are in demand in the markets in other regions," Rao said. Alternative crops should be identified and suggested to farmers and cultivation done on these lines, he said,

Drug major Dr Reddy's Laboratories is recalling 1,752 bottles of generic heartburn medicine in the US after the American health regulator found quality issues with the product. As per the latest Enforcement Report by the the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), the Hyderabad-based drug firm is voluntarily recalling 1,752 bottles (1,000 count) of 40 mg Esomeprazole Magnesium delayed release capsules in the US. The ongoing Class III recall is on account of "Discolouration" and because the product contains brown pellets, USFDA said. As per the US health regulator, a class III recall is initiated in a situation "in which use of or exposure to a violative product is not likely to cause adverse health consequences". The recalled product lot has been manufactured at Dr Reddy's Bachupally manufacturing facility in Telangana and is being recalled by the company's US-based arm. Esomeprazole Magnesium delayed release capsules are indicated to reduce the amount of acid in the stomach and ...

Only 200 of the 403 MLAs will be able to sit inside the Uttar Pradesh Assembly if social distancing norms are implemented in the House as there are not enough seats, Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit said. However, Dixit is "optimistic" and feels that by the time the next sitting of the Legislative Assembly is convened the situation will improve. "At present, the House is not in session. The Monsoon Session of the UP Legislative Assembly should be held some time in August and I am optimistic that by then the situation would have changed," the speaker told PTI in an interview. When asked to elaborate, Dixit said, "If we adhere to social distancing and leave one seat vacant, we will not have enough seats. There are 403 MLAs. Already there are not enough seats for everyone." "There is a shortage of 10-12 seats. The work goes on as (generally) 10-12 (members) are absent. In these circumstances, if one seat is left vacant then not more than 200 MLAs will be able to sit," he said. On being asked

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold a review meeting with CEOs of public sector banks (PSBs) on Monday to discuss various issues, including credit offtake, as part of efforts to prop up the economy hit by the COVID-19 crisis. The meeting, to be held via video-conferencing, will also take stock of interest rate transmission to borrowers by banks and progress on moratorium on loan repayments, sources said. The RBI had on March 27 slashed the benchmark interest rate by a massive 75 basis points and also announced a three-month moratorium to be given by banks to provide relief to borrowers whose income has been hit due to the lockdown. Earlier this month, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das held a meeting with heads of both public and private sector banks to take stock of the economic situation and review implementation of various measures announced by the central bank. The deployment of excessive funds by banks under the reverse repo route may also come up for discussion on Monday, ...

Mizoram's corona-free status can be attributed to the discipline of its people and the combined efforts of the church, NGOs and administration, says Chief Minister Pu Zoramthanga. While happy that his state has managed to contain the spread of COVID-19, the chief minister told PTI he was worried about the economic slump due to the lockdown and the threat posed by corona carriers from neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar. On Saturday, Mizoram became coronavirus-free with its lone COVID-19 patient being discharged from hospital, officials in the state capital Aizawl said. The credit, Zoramthanga said, goes to the discipline of the people who allowed the state to execute all the provisions suggested by a special task force constituted for the sole purpose to curb the spread of the virus. "Mizoram is a very disciplined state With the help of the church, NGOs and administration, we have so far survived this crisis and are determined to continue to do so in the future," he said in a phone ..

Uttarkashi on Sunday reported its first COVID-19 case, raising Uttarakhand's coronavirus tally to 68. Uttarkashi district falls in the green zone.The red, orange and green zone classification is based on the number of coronavirus cases, doubling rate of coronavirus cases, and the extent of testing and surveillance The man, who tested positive, hails from Dhanaripatti village in Dunda block and had returned recently from Surat in Gujarat, Chief Medical Officer DP Joshi said. Three persons who came along with him in separate two wheelers from Gujarat have been kept in isolation, he said, adding contact tracing is underway. The 32-year-old man's swab sample was tested at AIIMS, Rishikesh, Joshi said.

Notwithstanding the ongoing lockdown which has mostly restricted the movement of vehicles to essential commodities only, the 270-km Jammu-Srinagar national highway has become a nightmare for the commuters due to the pathetic condition of the only all-weather road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country. The people living along the strategic highway, especially in the most slide prone Ramban-Banihal sector, are also exasperated over the slow pace of work on the four-laning project being undertaken by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) over the past nine years. "This is not the road but has become a virtual death trap. You can see the drivers of all types of vehicles, both light and heavy, moving out of their lanes to avoid the massive potholes dotting the highway right from Samroli to Qazigund, a distance of almost 120-kms, thus increasing the chances of accidents on the hilly road," Rajinder Singh, a frequent traveller between the twin capitals, told PTI. Singh said ..

: Communicating across its nine factories and setting up milk collection points are some of the steps taken by dairy products major Thirumala as per COVID-19 guidelines for manufacture, to ensure supply does not get affected, a top official said. Thirumala was acquired by France-based dairy group Lactalis in 2014 and the company produces dairy products across nine manufacturing units in southern states. Thirumala CEO Christophe Jouin said the company had taken precautions by communicating across factories, setting up milk collection points and issuing safety guidelines to employees. "The first step was to carry out checking of temperatures of employees before they enter the factory and maintaining social distancing norms during daily work, among others," he told PTI. The entire process, from the collection of milk till the distribution, has been enhanced and totally protected with the help of intensive comunication done well in advance, he said. The company collects milk ..

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday came to the help of 13 girl students from the Northeast studying in Delhi University, after they were asked to vacate their hostel, and he made it clear that they can continue to stay in their current accommodation "as long they as wish". The minister for Development of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) intervened after the DU administration asked the students to vacate the North Eastern Students House for Woman by May 31. The provost had asked the students to leave the hostel as soon as possible due to the expiry of mess contract by month-end. While the hostel has a capacity of about 100, currently 13 students are stuck there because of the lockdown. "I have spoken to vice-chancellor of the Delhi University Prof Y C Tyagi regarding the students and resolved the issue. They can continue to stay comfortably in the hostel as long as they wish," Singh said here. The minister said no one should bother students and put them under any kind of ...

Several NGOs working in the disability sector are facing severe financial crunch as most of the funds and donations they would earlier get has been diverted towards tackling the COVID-19 crisis. Prashant Verma, general secretary, National Association for the Blind, says he could just pay 65 per cent salary to his employees in the last two months due to financial crunch and if no fresh donations are made he does not have any money to pay his 120 staff members this month. "We feel as if we are at the end of the line," he told PTI. Verma said his organisation used to get grants from many companies under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and even from individuals, especially during March as it was the end of the financial year. "But this year we didn't get any money. Some of the companies, which even committed to us, are saying that this time they have to think about their own survival. Many individuals (who earlier donated) don't have money to support us. A lot of the money is ...

Left without jobs and desperate to return home amid the lockdown, 10 migrant labourers have set off on foot from Pune in Maharashtra for their native place hundreds of kilometres away in Uttar Pradesh. The Pune administration has asked the officials concerned to make necessary arrangements for such migrants at hotels and halls available on highways in the district and set up camps for them, in the wake of the death of 16 migrant labourers after being run over by a goods train in Aurangabad. The 10 migrant workers, all natives of Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh, started walking to their homes from Pune on Saturday evening after losing their jobs and finding to difficult to sustain their livelihood here. "We all were working as construction labourers in Pune. Now we don't have food to survive. Therefore, we have started for our native place in Uttar Pradesh," one of the labourers from the group said. Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram has ordered tehsildars and ..

An Air India flight landed here from London at 1.30 am on Sunday carrying 239 Indians from the UK who were stranded there due to suspension of commercial passenger air services and the subsequent lockdown, an official statement said. In addition to this, two more repatriation flights -- one each from Singapore and Manila ( Philippines) -- are expected to arrive in Mumbai on Sunday, it said. While the flight from Singapore (AI 343) will be carrying 243 passengers, the Manila-Mumbai flight (AI 387) would bring back 241 Indian nationals from the South East Asian country, as per the statement. "1st flight 2 #Mumbai landed- crew interaction less with the passengers. Protective kit was given 2 all-along with snack n meal kept on the seat beforehand. Next #quarantine. Watch the space," tweeted a passenger on the flight. "Reached Mumbai safely from UK. Thank you so much to @airindiain @HCI_London, @NISAU_UK, @MEAIndia," another passenger tweeted. The Mumbai airport authorities, in a statement

Tour the five luxury homes featured in our Listing of the Day series this week

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back about half of new mortgages in the U.S. Now, talks are heating up about reshaping or shrinking the two companies, a move that could impact millions of Americans. Photo: Heather Seidel/The Wall Street Journal

This 15-year-old school in Rajasthan has been providing quality education accessible to poor children. But going against the spirit of a High Court order, the Jaipur Development Authority has asked the Bandhyali school to pay a prohibitive sum for its allotted land. Deepa A reports.

The new National Curriculum Framework has put the child firmly at the centre of its proposals. But critics point out that it has overlooked many problems, such as the lack of infrastructure, inadequate teacher training, and continuing social biases. Some provisions have also been attacked as obscurantist. Deepa A reports.

A number of new NCERT textbooks for class I to class XII have been designed to encourage children to question social prejudices, discrimination and inequalities. This is a conscious reversal of the earlier trend where textbooks reinforced prevailing stereotypes, notes Deepti Priya Mehrotra.

The ground realities of the nation's much neglected government-managed school system are beginning to impact the national consciousness, reports Summiya Yasmeen.

The UGC has given the green signal to a plethora of value-added, job-oriented diploma programmes in colleges and varsities. An Education World report.

The new government's higher priority to education is seeing experts and activists revisit the 40-year old Kothari Commission recommendations for a common school system. Summiya Yasmeen reports.

To mark its fifth anniversary, EducationWorld asked several educationists and industry leaders with proven commitment to improving the education system to write prescriptions for a renaissance of Indian education. Dilip Thakore threads the responses together.

While politicians label it 'revolutionary' legislation, experts feel that the draft bill on the fundamental right to education ignores important issues, such as education for children below six and above 14. It also dilutes the meaning of 'rights', leaving the door open for the government to not meet its obligations. Deepa A reports.

A draft curriculum for teacher training acknowledges several problems in preparing teachers properly for the classroom, but it's unclear if the proposed revisions would adequately tackle these. The typical classroom in India is nothing like the environment that teachers train in, and this, say experts, must change first. Deepa A reports.

The central government's own figures indicate that many as two-thirds of those eligible for secondary education remain outside the school system today. A Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee estimates that 88,562 additional classrooms will be required in 2007-08 and over 1.3 lakh additional teachers. Deepa A reports.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India’s report on Tamil Nadu (General and Social Sector) for the year ending on March 31, 2014 got tabled in the state assembly last month. Himanshu Upadhyaya analyses the report and asks question on the non-responsiveness of the state government to CAG’s performance review.

Tarun Jain and Revathy Suryanarayana explore the link between vernacular language use in schools and educational achievement using data from large-scale historical events in South India.

Women domestic workers and children narrated horrific stories of violence and abuse at a recent public hearing in New Delhi, co-organized by the National Commission for Women (NCW). Organizers aimed to raise public awareness. Teresa Barat reports.

A wide range of programmes and strong financial support have helped Tripura raise access to education for its tribal population. Ratna Bharali Talukdar on the many incentives that anchor the state's efforts to bridge the learning gap between tribals and non-tribals.

As more poor migrant children face exploitation in Kerala, some schools are coming up with ways to enrol and retain them. A few schools now have more migrant than local students, Navya P K points out.

Despite laws abolishing the inhuman practice of manual scavenging, over a million dalits in 'superpower India' are caught in a vortex of severe social and economic exploitation. Even the central government pleaded lack of resources in failing to implement the law effectively, writes Sunil Kuksal.

Citizen participation is important not just for inspiring goals, but simply to create a society where governments gain and hold the confidence of the people.

The disconnect between civil society and government has led to successive generations of policy and implementation failures. The India Together editorial.

Caste is still the overriding indicator of social and economic status; until that is no longer true, affirmative action should remain. The India Together editorial.

Questions raised by the inclusion of World Bank and Asian Development Bank representatives in the committees of the Planning Commission should not be forgotten, even if the move has been rolled back. The India Together editorial.

Is a nationwide employment guarantee for the rural poor really unaffordable? No. But neither our ideologies nor our governments rank such an entitlement very highly. The Centre has instead proposed a watered down guarantee, without actually providing it. The India Together editorial.

The anti-defection law disqualifies legislators who switch allegiances when a government's majority in legislature is threatened, and rightly so. But by stretching it to penalise lawmakers who vote against their party's stand on normal legislative matters, our Constitution has curtailed dissent itself. The India Together editorial.

For hundreds of millions of citizens, the pursuit of dignity and happiness remains an unfinished journey. Political parties are still busy interpreting freedom for the people, rather than simply giving it to them. As a result, the appearance of independence is strong, whereas in practice there is much more to be done. The India Together editorial.

Our governments face mistrust, cynicism, and opposition from citizens, and even good plans are often defeated by this. Therefore, our development plans should focus first not on building physical infrastructure, but on erecting the infrastructure to restore citizens' trust in government. The India Together editorial.

Most public matters before judges are simply 'in court', and not necessarily sub judice to the extent that voicing one's views about them publicly would merit contempt charges. The courts should recognise the distinction formally, with a clear standard for separating the two. The India Together editorial.

While endless rounds of complaint and criticism have been seen in every arena, this has not led the public to demand that the size of government be reduced. How long will this last? The India Together editorial.

It is the first meaningful attempt by the Government of India to make good on a promise it made at the time of Independence itself, and yet, the RTE law has ended up in the courts. What happened and why? The India Together editorial.

Aarti Madhusudhan begins a series on the workings of development organizations. In this first part, she looks at the role of board members: their obligations, services, and even their identities!

Videh Upadhyay argues that adivasis will benefit greatly if the Provision of Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) is implemented on the ground by the state governments.

Volunteers for development find mutual encouragement, as well as learning, during the three-day event in Pittsburgh.

Aarti Madhusudhan looks at volunteers, in this third part of her series on non-profit governance.

Despite laws banning dry latrines and the transport of human excreta, thousands of people still make their livelihood this way, sometimes even working in government departments. The social structure has also forced nearly all of this work on to Dalit women and girls. Sachin Kumar reports.