Keep up-to-date with all that is happening in welfare policy with this curated selection of news, published every fortnight. The current edition focusses on the Coronavirus pandemic in India, and the government’s efforts to stem its increase. 

Policy News

• The proposed National Employment Policy (NEP) has been fast-tracked by the Union government. The policy aims at the formalisation of the country’s workforce, including migrants, to ensure job and social security.
• The Karnataka government has introduced amendments to sections of the Industries (Facilitation) Act 2002. The amendment will improve ease of doing business by doing away with the statutory approvals that delay the commencing of work.
• The Haryana government has entered into a partnership with Reliance Jio TV in order to facilitate distance education for school students. According to the agreement, all four channels of EDUSAT will now be available on the Jio platform free of cost.
• The Rajasthan government has launched ‘Indira Rasoi Yojana’ to provide meals to the poor twice a day at a concessional rate.
• The Jharkhand government is planning to launch a job guarantee scheme to provide employment to urban workers for a maximum of 100 days. The wages are likely to be 40% higher than what is provided under MNREGA in the state.

Health

• According to the India TB Report 2020, India recorded 24.04 lakh tuberculosis cases and 79,144 deaths last year. Over half of the total TB cases were from five states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.
• The Supreme Court has asked the Union government to ensure that COVID-19 test rates are uniform across the country.

Others

• The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved USD 750 million as loan to India in order to strengthen the battle against COVID-19.
• India has joined the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) as its founder member. It is an international and multi-stakeholder initiative on artificial intelligence.
• The Government has approved setting up of a new ‘Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre’ (IN-SPACe), an “autonomous nodal agency under the Department of Space” in order to provide support to the private space industry to conduct its activities.