India, Singapore discuss key issues
New Delhi: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit next month, India and Singapore on Monday discussed key bilateral issues, including Defence, and decided to revive the Joint Working Group on Intelligence Cooperation to combat terrorism. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan co-chaired the 4th Joint Commission Meeting during which they discussed ways to boost maritime cooperations, trade ties and cyber security among other strategic issues, setting a stage for Modi's visit from November 23.
Green India Mission panel approves plans
New Delhi: The Executive Council of Green India Mission has approved the Perspective Plans and Annual Plan of Operations submitted by four States — Mizoram, Manipur, Jharkhand and Kerala. The council has approved total financial outlay of Rs90,202.68 lakh is for a period of 5 to 10 years, along with Approved Plan of action of Rs11,195.32 lakh for the current financial year. The total forest and non-forest area to be taken up in these four States during the total plan period will be 1,08,335 hectares. Of this 81,939 ha will be improving the density of existing forests and 16,396 ha will be developing new forest areas.
restructured RSBY to be operational soon
New Delhi: Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), which will be restructured to make its coverage wider, intensive and IT driven, will become operational soon. MoUs would be entered with the State Governments. Those States, which want to extend the services to people above poverty line (APl) and provide secondary and tertiary benefits, could do so as a top up of the scheme," said Union Health Secretary B P Sharma at the ninth Health Insurance Summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Monday.