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 Union Government cleared a new National Education Policy (NEP) proposing several major changes in school and higher education. The HRD Ministry has been renamed as the Education Ministry.
• The Parliamentary Standing Committees on Home Affairs, Science and Technology, Labour and Health have held a meeting each to discuss the government’s pandemic response. Similar meetings have been decided by the Standing Committees of Human Resources Development, Commerce and External Affairs as well as Committee on Estimates.
• According to the Health Ministry, Pune-based vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) has approval for conducting phase II and III clinical trials on the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
• Three more states – Uttarakhand, Nagaland and Manipur – along with the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have been integrated into the ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ scheme. With this, a total of 24 States/UTs have been covered under the scheme from 1 August 2020.
• In order to deepen financial inclusion and promote efficient banking services, the Reserve Bank will set up an ‘Innovation Hub’.
• The National Green Tribunal has set strict conditions for commercial groundwater use, asking authorities to mandate third-party compliance audit of businesses every year.

Others

• India contributed USD 15.46 million to the India-UN Development Partnership Fund to support fellow developing countries in their national developmental priorities.
• Asian Development Bank has approved an USD 3 million grant to India from its Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund to further support the government’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.