News Highlights: 28th Aug 2014

Minimum pension of Rs. 1,000 under EPFO; wage ceiling up at Rs. 15,000
The much-awaited minimum monthly pension of Rs. 1,000 and a higher wage
ceiling of Rs. 15,000 for social security schemes run by retirement fund manager
EPFO will be implemented from September 1.The governments decision to fix
pension entitlement of Rs. 1,000 under the Employees Pension Scheme 1995
(EPFS-95) will immediately benefit 28 lakh pensioners who get less than this
amount at present. The move to enhance the minimum wage ceiling for
becoming a subscriber of Employees Provident Fund Organization to Rs. 15,000
per month is expected to bring 50 lakh additional formal sector workers under
the ambit of the body.

Sensex hits record high, heads

for seventh monthly gain
The BSE Sensex gains as much
as 0.43 percent to hit a record
high of 26,674.38 on Thursday,
surpassing the previous life high
hit on Monday. The Nifty gains
0.36 percent and is near a
record high. The benchmark
index is up 2.95 percent for
August, while the Nifty is up 3.1
percent so far. The Sensex is
headed towards its seventh
consecutive monthly gains.
Positive global stocks and
continued foreign buying help
ahead of derivatives expiry at
the end of the session.

Indian Gov. officially reveals .bharat domain name

In keeping with its goal of Internet access to all, the government has launched the
Dot Bharat domain name in eight Indian languages. The idea is to let the nonEnglish speaking part of the population type URLs in the script they understand.
Websites in local languages (also called IDNs for Internationalized Domain Names)
will help encourage development of content in these tongues too. This should
eventually allow for inclusive growth of the Internet. Todays Dot Bharat launch
by the government in the Devanagari script encompasses Hindi, Konkani, Marathi
and five other languages.
Ebola in India? Health Ministry Tracking 821 Passengers from Africa
The Union Health Ministry of India has declared, on Wednesday, that it is
currently keeping tabs on 821 people who have travelled from the Ebola-hit West
African countries, and have exhibited symptoms of the deadly virus on arrival. The
information on these passengers has been provided to the IDSP by the respective
airport authorities. Most of these people have, however, been cleared of the
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), after their test results came back negative. However,
the ministry, headed by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, is still tracking
these people because it could take up to 20 days for a person (who has
contracted the disease) to exhibit any symptoms.
Persistent inflation hurting India's sovereign ratings - Moody's
India's sovereign ratings are constrained by persistently high inflation that is
weighing on an otherwise promising economic recovery, Moody's Investors
Service said in a release on Thursday. Recurrent inflationary pressures keep
domestic capital costs high, erode domestic purchasing power as well as savings
and lower international competitiveness," the rating agency said. Moodys also
said the supply response to inflation has been weak and government-directed
food distribution system has made worse the food supply constraints.