In parliament: Cards of 15L MGNREGA workers deleted

The Ministry of Rural Development informed the Rajya Sabha that 15,12,864 job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) were deleted in 2024-25. Minister Kamlesh Paswan stated that job cards were primarily removed due to reasons such as fake, duplicate or incorrect entries, families relocating permanently from their gram panchayats or the classification of certain gram panchayats as urban areas.

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Cybercrime cases cross 20 lakh in 2024

India has witnessed a sharp rise in cyber attacks, with 20,41,360 incidents recorded in 2024, reflecting a significant increase from 15,92,917 in 2023 and 11,58,208 in 2020. Minister of State for IT Jitin Prasada shared the data, citing reports from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). He further stated that CERT-In had trained 12,014 officials last year to enhance security infrastructure and resilience against cyber threats.

Govt evasive on HPV vaccine rollout

The Ministry of Health remained non-committal in Parliament regarding the inclusion of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer, in the Universal Immunisation Programme. The ministry stated that the UIP currently provides 11 vaccines against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases, but the HPV vaccine is not part of the programme.

No universal standard for passport rankings

Addressing concerns about India’s passport ranking in the recently released Henley Passport Index 2025, Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh clarified that there is no universally accepted ranking system for passports.

No national survey on child begging

The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, which oversees initiatives addressing begging, stated that no national survey has been conducted to estimate the number of children begging at traffic signals and public spaces in big cities and Tier-II towns.

(Compiled by Aditi Tandon)