Page 2 - Govt

Govt unable to protect citizen's detail: Cong slams Centre over data breach

The Congress on Tuesday intensified its attack on the Centre over the alleged data breach on CoWIN platform and accused it of not being able to protect the personal details of crores of people. Asserting that the CoWIN portal was completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy, the government has dismissed as "mischievous" the claims of data breach on the platform and said the matter has been reviewed by the country's nodal cyber security agency CERT-In. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said neither does the Narendra Modi government care about the right to privacy of citizens nor about national security. "Overall, the situation is clear. The Modi government neither cares about the fundamental right to privacy of 140 crore people nor about national security. Data privacy law has not been made and no national security policy has been implemented on cyber attacks," he said in a tweet in Hindi. "No matter how much an irresponsible Modi government covers up the CoWIN data

New IT Rules: 16 groups join hands against govt-run fact-checking unit

The groups said that the new IT Rules would censor journalism and severely jeopardise freedom of expression

Back in action: After a year of lull, Centre to swing into hiring mode

Will recruit more for central ministries and depts in 2022-23 and 2023-24

Govt extends bidding deadline for commercial coal mines auction till Jan 13

The government on Monday said that it has extended the deadline to submit bids for the coal blocks under sixth round of commercial mine auction till January 13. The biggest tranche of 141 mines covering eleven coal-bearing states are being offered in the sixth round of commercial coal mine auction. "In response to... requests from prospective bidders, the ministry has extended the bid due date till January 13, 2023," the coal ministry said in a statement. The earlier due date for submission of online and offline bids was December 30. The coal ministry had recently organised investor's conclaves in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Indore, for which tremendous response was received. Several pleas for extension of bid due date were received during conclaves and also in writing at the office of the nominated authority, ministry of coal. The coal ministry had launched the process for auction of 133 coal mines under sixth round of commercial auctions, of which 71 are new coal mines and 62 blocks

Rs 2.46-trn capital procurement proposals approved for armed forces: Govt

The government on Monday said that it has accorded approval to 163 proposals worth Rs 2,46,989 crore under various categories of capital procurement for the armed forces in the last three years. Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt, replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, also said the share of procurement from domestic firms has been on an upward trajectory. "The government, in the last three years that is from 2019-20 to 2021-22 and current year (2022-23 up to September 2022), has accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to 163 proposals worth Rs 2,46,989.38 crore approximately, under various categories of capital procurement which promote domestic manufacturing as per DAP-2020," he said. The AoN is the initial approval for any defence project. Procurement is done under the framework of the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP). Bhatt said the share of domestic firms in the total procurement was at 54 per cent in 2018-19. It jumped to 59 per cent in 2019-20 and to 64 per cent in .

Govt tweaks spending norms for Contingency Fund of India

The fund is held by the Department of Economic Affairs on behalf of the President of India and it can be operated by executive action

Delhi govt caps RT-PCR price at private hospitals, labs at Rs 300

The earlier cost of an RT-PCR test was Rs 500

Govt must consider extension of expiry dates under provisions

During the first and second waves of the pandemic, the government extended many deadlines for filing various applications and even the expiry dates of import licenses and export obligation periods

Government to give tourist visa free of charge to 500,000 travellers

The scheme will be applicable till March 31, 2022 or till 5,00,000 visas are issued, whichever is earlier.

Google removed 100 lending apps violating policies between Dec-Jan: Govt

Google removed about 100 money lending apps that were "possibly not in compliance with the applicable legal and regulatory framework" from December 2020 till January 20, 2021, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has received a number of public grievances against frauds and the malpractices by few online instant loan applications available on internet, including Google Playstore, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Sanjay Dhotre said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. He added that the complaints are mainly related to high interest rates, alleged collection of personal data and its misuse, fraudulent and unlawful practices of physical threats and use of other coercive methods for recovery of loan and that few cases have also been filed in the courts. "Upon being notified by law enforcement agencies of the availability of certain money lending apps that were possibly not in compliance with the applicable legal and

Govt to bear transaction cost of payment via card

At present, customers bear transaction cost commonly known as merchant discount rate (MDR) on payments made to govt

Govt blames UPA regime for decline of BSNL, MTNL

Ravi Shankar Prasad said when the NDA government took charge in 2014, the BSNL was suffering a loss of Rs 8,000 crore and MTNL Rs 2,000 crore