Category: MIL-OSI

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Government of India

EPFO Simplifies Transfer Claim Process Through Revamped Form 13 Functionality; More Than 1.25 Crore Members to Benefit

Launches Facility for Bulk Generation of UAN by Employers without Aadhaar Seeding

Posted On: 25 APR 2025 2:00PM by PIB Delhi

Simplification of Transfer Claim Process through Revamped Form 13 functionality

To ensure ease of living for its members, EPFO during January this year, has greatly simplified the process for transfer of PF account on change of jobs by removing the requirement of approval from employer in majority of the cases.

Till now, the transfer of PF accumulations used to happen with the involvement of two EPF Offices. One, from which the PF accumulation is transferred (Source Office) and two, the EPF Office in which the transfer is actually credited (Destination Office).

Now, with an aim to further simplify the process, EPFO has removed the requirement of approval of all transfer claims at the Destination Office by launching a Revamped Form 13 software functionality.

Henceforth, once the transfer claim gets approved at the Transferor (Source) Office the previous account will automatically get transferred to the present account of the member at the Transferee (Destination) Office instantly furthering the aim of “Ease of Living” for Members of EPFO.

This revamped functionality also provides the bifurcation of taxable and non-taxable components of PF accumulations to facilitate accurate calculation of TDS on Taxable PF interest.

It is expected to benefit more than 1.25 Crore Members facilitating the transfer of around Rs. 90,000 Crores every year henceforth as the entire transfer process shall be speeded up.

Bulk generation of UAN by Employers without seeding Aadhaar

With a view to further Ease of Doing Business and to address the grievances being raised w.r.t proper accounting of the Past Accumulations that had been remitted to EPFO by the Exempted PF Trusts consequent to the surrender/cancellation of exemption and also in other cases involving remittance of past period contributions consequent to quasi-judicial/recovery proceedings, it has been decided by EPFO to relax the requirement of Aadhaar for generation of UAN/credit of Past Accumulations for such members. Also, a facility for bulk generation of UANs based on the Member Id & other member information available on record so as to enable prompt crediting of funds in the accounts of such members has been provided.

To that effect a software functionality has already been deployed and made available to the Field Offices in the FO Interface for bulk generation of UANs in the above said cases and also account the Past Accumulations without the requirement of Aadhaar in EPFO Application.

However, as a measure of risk mitigation to protect the PF accumulations, all such UANs would be kept in a frozen state and subsequently made operational only after the seeding of Aadhaar.

All these measures are expected to significantly improve services to members and reduce long standing grievances including further streamlining of validations for auto settlement of eligible claims.

******

Himanshu Pathak

(Release ID: 2124244) Visitor Counter : 41

Source: Government of India

Viksit Vibrant Villages Program to Take Place From 15th to 30th May 2025; Registrations on MY Bharat Platform Started from 23rd April

500 MY Bharat Youth Volunteers from Across Country to Work Directly with Communities in 100 Selected Villages of Leh-Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand

Program to Empower Youth to Take Lead in Giving New Identity to Border Villages and Transform India’s Frontier Communities

Posted On: 25 APR 2025 2:16PM by PIB Delhi

The Viksit Vibrant Villages Program is a joint initiative aimed at revitalizing India’s remote border regions. Spearheaded by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, in coordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the program will be implemented with support from local governance bodies and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). It will focus on Leh-Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, taking place from 15^th to 30^th May 2025.

This initiative will empower youth by involving 500 MY Bharat volunteers from across the country, who will work directly with communities in 100 selected villages. These volunteers will drive grassroots engagement and community development through a variety of initiatives, ranging from educational support and infrastructure enhancement to healthcare and cultural preservation. By engaging local residents and leveraging the strength of youth leadership, the program aims to bring long-lasting, positive transformation to these border areas.

Registration for the Viksit Vibrant Villages Program officially commenced on 23^rd April 2025 via the MY Bharat Portal. Volunteers from across India are encouraged to apply for this transformative opportunity. 10 MY Bharat volunteers will be selected from the Union Territories and 15 from each participating state. In total, 500 volunteers will be chosen to serve as the backbone of the program, leading and coordinating activities within the villages.

As part of this program, immersive learning journeys, cultural exchange programs, and grassroots development projects are being rolled out, allowing the youth to directly interact with the unique socio-cultural and strategic fabric of India’s border regions.

The program will unfold over 7 days, with each day dedicated to a distinct domain of community development. The activities will include, but are not limited to:

1. Community Engagement

2. Youth Leadership Development

3. Cultural Promotion

4. Healthcare Awareness and Support

5. Skill-building and Education

6. Environment Protection Best Practices

7. Career Counselling Sessions

8. Fitness Activities like Sports, Yoga, Meditation, etc

9. Open Mic, Essay, Fireside Chat, etc on My Dream India

Knowledge Transfer and National Consciousness

Through this program, young citizens will have the opportunity to explore and document the heritage, resilience, and potential of border communities. These experiences, when shared through digital platforms, community discussions, and institutional presentations, will ensure that the voices of India’s frontier residents reach wider national and global audiences.

The initiative encourages youth to not only witness but actively contribute to the development of these areas – be it through innovative projects in education, entrepreneurship, sustainable agriculture, or local governance. This interaction cultivates mutual respect, deeper national unity, and the emergence of border villages as ‘cultural beacons’ rather than isolated outposts.

From Forgotten to Celebrated: Giving Border Villages a New Identity

The program seeks to dismantle the long-held stereotype of border villages being “the last on the map.” Instead, it celebrates them as ‘first villages’ in the journey toward Viksit Bharat  by 2047. Through sustained youth involvement, these villages will be given a platform to showcase their language, art, music, architecture, and stories – redefining their identity from that of a geopolitical buffer to centers of heritage, innovation, and national pride. The Viksit Vibrant Villages program is not just a government effort – it is a generational mission to ensure that development, identity, and dignity ow to every corner of the country, with the youth leading the way.

To kick-start this initiative, the Ministry will conduct an orientation program in Delhi, where all selected volunteers will undergo an intensive briefing and training session. This orientation will ensure that the volunteers are well-prepared to carry out the program’s objectives and equipped with the necessary knowledge to engage with local communities effectively. The orientation program will provide a unique opportunity for the volunteers to develop crucial leadership skills, gain deeper insights into rural community needs, and learn how to coordinate their efforts with the local governance systems.

This structure aims to provide a well-rounded learning experience for volunteers, ensuring that they not only contribute to village transformation but also grow personally and professionally throughout the program. This initiative will serve as a catalyst for positive change in the border regions of India, empowering the youth to become active participants in nation-building. By providing youth with the platform to engage directly with local communities, the program seeks to foster a spirit of National integration, cultural pride, and strategic development.

*****

Himanshu Pathak

(Release ID: 2124248) Visitor Counter : 39

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

A man and two women were each sentenced to four months’ imprisonment and fined between $500 and $1,000 at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts today (April 25) for possessing duty-not-paid cigarettes and failing to declare to Customs officers, as well as for importing alternative smoking products, in contravention of the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance (DCO) and the Import and Export Ordinance (IEO).

Customs officers intercepted a 40-year-old incoming female passenger, a 36-year-old incoming male passenger, and a 30-year-old incoming female passenger at Hong Kong International Airport on February 18, February 26 and March 6. About 118 200 duty-not-paid cigarettes and about 7 000 alternative smoking products, with an estimated market value of about $518,000 and a duty potential of about $390,000 in total, were seized from their personal baggage. They were subsequently arrested.

Customs welcomes the sentence. The custodial sentence has imposed a considerable deterrent effect and reflects the seriousness of the offences. 

Under the DCO, tobacco products are dutiable goods to which the DCO applies. Any person who imports, deals with, possesses, sells or buys illicit cigarettes commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $1 million and imprisonment for two years. 

Under the IEO, any person who imports an alternative smoking product into Hong Kong commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $2 million and imprisonment for seven years.

Members of the public may report any suspected illicit cigarette activities to Customs’ 24-hour hotline 182 8080 or its dedicated crime-reporting email account (crimereport@customs.gov.hk) or online form (eform.cefs.gov.hk/form/ced002).

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

     The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) released today (April 25) the results of the Quarterly Business Tendency Survey for the second quarter (Q2) of 2025.
 
Business Situation
 
     For all surveyed sectors taken together, the proportion of respondents expecting their business situation to be better (9%) in Q2 2025 over the preceding quarter is lower than that expecting it to be worse (18%). 
  
     When compared with the results of the Q1 2025 survey round, the proportion of respondents expecting a better business situation in Q2 2025 is 9%, broadly the same as the corresponding proportion in Q1 2025. On the other hand, the proportion of respondents expecting a worse business situation had slightly decreased from 19% in Q1 2025 to 18% in Q2 2025.
 
     Analysed by sector, respondents in most of the surveyed sectors expect their business situation to decrease on balance in Q2 2025 as compared with Q1 2025. In particular, significantly more respondents in the accommodation and food services and transportation, storage and courier services sectors expect their business situation to be worse in Q2 2025 as compared with Q1 2025.
 
     The results of the survey should be interpreted with care. In this type of survey on expectations, the views collected in the survey are affected by the events in the community occurring around the time of enumeration, and it is difficult to establish precisely the extent to which respondents’ perception of the future accords with the underlying trends. The enumeration period for this survey round was from March 4, 2025 to April 10, 2025. 
 
Volume of Business / Output
 
     Respondents in all of the surveyed sectors expect their volume of business/ output to decrease on balance or remain broadly unchanged in Q2 2025 as compared with Q1 2025. In particular, significantly more respondents in the accommodation and food services sector expect their volume of business to decrease in Q2 2025 over Q1 2025.
 
Employment
 
     Respondents in most of the surveyed sectors expect their employment to decrease on balance or remain broadly unchanged in Q2 2025 as compared with Q1 2025. In particular, more respondents in the accommodation and food services and construction sectors expect their employment to decrease in Q2 2025 over Q1 2025. In the real estate sector, however, more respondents expect their employment to increase, as compared to those expecting it to decrease.
 
Selling Price/ Service Charge
 
     Respondents in most of the surveyed sectors expect their selling prices/ service charges to remain broadly unchanged in Q2 2025 as compared with Q1 2025. However, significantly more respondents in the construction and accommodation and food services sectors expect their tender prices/ charges for services rendered/ prices of food provided to go down in Q2 2025 over Q1 2025.
 
Commentary
 
     A Government spokesman said that according to the survey conducted earlier, the near-term business outlook and hiring appetite among large enterprises for the second quarter of 2025 were largely stable compared with expectations for the previous quarter.  
 
     The spokesman pointed out that the survey captured largely the views of enterprises before the abrupt escalation of trade tensions due to the significant increases in import tariffs by the US in early April. Looking forward, as the downside risk and uncertainties of the global economy have increased notably, business sentiment should be subject to pressure. The Government has been providing support to enterprises through various measures, and will monitor the situation closely. 
 
Further Information
 
     The survey gathers views on short-term business performance from the senior management of about 570 prominent establishments in various sectors in Hong Kong with a view to providing a quick reference, with minimum time lag, for predicting the short-term future economic performance of the local economy.
 
     The survey covers 10 major sectors in Hong Kong, namely manufacturing; construction; import / export trade and wholesale; retail; accommodation and food services (mainly covering services rendered by hotels and restaurants); transportation, storage and courier services; information and communications; financing and insurance; real estate; and professional and business services sectors.
 
     Views collected in the survey refer only to those of respondents on their own establishments rather than those on the respective sectors they are engaged in, and are limited to the expected direction of quarter-to-quarter change (e.g. “up”, “same” or “down”) but not the magnitude of change. In collecting views on the quarter-to-quarter changes, if the variable in question is subject to seasonal variations, respondents are asked to provide the expected changes after excluding the normal seasonal variations.
 
     Survey results are generally presented as “net balance”, i.e. the difference between the percentage of respondents choosing “up” and that choosing “down”. The percentage distribution of respondents among various response categories (e.g. “up”, “same” and “down”) reflects how varied their business expectations are. The “net balance”, with its appropriate sign, indicates the direction of expected change in the variable concerned. A positive sign indicates a likely upward trend while a negative sign indicates a likely downward trend. However, the magnitude of the “net balance” reflects only the prevalence of optimism or pessimism, but not the magnitude of expected change, since information relating to such magnitude is not collected in the survey.
 
     Furthermore, owing to sample size constraint, care should be taken in interpreting survey results involving a small percentage (e.g. less than 10%) of respondents in individual sectors.
 
     Chart 1 shows the views on expected changes in business situation for the period Q2 2024 to Q2 2025.
 
     Table 1 shows the net balances of views on expectations in respect of different variables for Q2 2025.
 
     The survey results are published in greater detail in the “Report on Quarterly Business Tendency Survey, Q2 2025”. Users can browse and download the publication at the website of the C&SD (www.censtatd.gov.hk/en/EIndexbySubject.html?pcode=B1110008&scode=300).
  
     Users who have enquiries about the survey results may contact the Business Expectation Statistics Section of the C&SD (Tel: 3903 7263; E-mail: business-prospects@censtatd.gov.hk).

Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     The 77th issue of “HA Risk Alert” was published today (April 25) by the Hospital Authority (HA) as a risk management and communication initiative to further strengthen the reporting and monitoring of clinical incidents in public hospitals.
 
     In the fourth quarter of 2024 (October to December), there were seven sentinel events reported, comprising four cases of retained instruments/material after surgery/interventional procedure, two cases of inpatient suicide and one case of a surgery/interventional procedure involving wrong body parts. Among the 31 reported serious untoward events, there were 29 related to medication errors and two patient misidentifications.
 
     “Subsequent to the incident reviews and analyses of the root causes of these incidents, important lessons for patient safety have been identified, while recommendations are made and shared in this publication to avoid similar events in the future,” an HA spokesperson said.
 
     The HA Head Office has released the latest “HA Risk Alert” to all staff. It can also be accessed by the public at www.ha.org.hk/riskalert. “HA Risk Alert” is published on a quarterly basis and posted on the HA website in January, April, July and October. The next issue is scheduled for July 2025.

Source: Republic of China Taiwan

In accordance with the strategy of Pursuing Global Opportunities with Domestic Supply Chains of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the Taiwan Trade and Investment Service Center in Fukuoka was officially inaugurated on April 21. This marks a significant milestone in economic cooperation between Japan and Taiwan.

Considering their respective highly complementary industrial strengths, Taiwan and Japan are well-positioned to deepen collaboration through this newly established center. Functioning as both a bridge and a platform, the Center will integrate resources across government, industry, academia, and research sectors, offering one-stop services for businesses from both sides, such as investment consultation, industry matchmaking, technology exchange, and market development support.

The opening ceremony brought together over 200 prominent figures from the political and business sectors of both Taiwan and Japan. During opening remarks, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Cynthia Kiang emphasized that the center will play a key role in enabling Taiwanese and Japanese enterprises to jointly expand into Asia-Pacific and third-country markets, thereby fostering win-win partnerships and energizing regional value chains.

For more information on the Taiwan Trade and Investment Service Center in Fukuoka, please visit the official website at https://fukuoka.taiwantrade.com or contact the center by e-mail at fukuoka@taitra.org.tw.

Source: Hong Kong Information Services

The Registration & Electoral Office (REO) today called on eligible individuals and bodies who have not yet registered as electors/voters to submit registration applications no later than June 2, so that their registration particulars can be included in the final registers of electors/voters to be published this year, and vote in the elections to be held this year.

Hong Kong permanent residents who hold an identity document, will reach 18 years old by September 25 this year and ordinarily reside in Hong Kong are eligible to register as geographical constituency electors.

Registered electors/voters need not register again, but if there are changes to their registration particulars, they should submit applications for change of particulars to the REO by June 2.

Eligible citizens are welcome to submit applications for new registration as geographical constituency electors or change of voter registration particulars through iAM Smart. They may also provide or update their mobile phone number and email address, and check their voter registration status through the app.

Alternatively, citizens can register by filling in application forms which are available on the Voter Registration website for download. Hard copies can obtained at District Offices, the management offices of public housing estates and the REO.

Completed forms can be sent by post to the Registration & Electoral Office, 29/F, Standard Chartered Tower, Millennium City 1, 388 Kwun Tong Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon; by fax to 2891 1180; by email to form@reo.gov.hk, or via the REO e-Form Upload Platform.

Source: Hong Kong Information Services

The Housing Bureau today invited tenders for two Light Public Housing (LPH) operation and management contracts. The deadline is noon on June 13.

The first contract covers four school conversion projects. These are at the Mission Covenant Church Holm Glad No. 2 Primary School on Shun On Road in Shun On Estate, Kwun Tong; the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Ma Kam Chan Memorial Primary School (Choi Yuen Annex) on Choi Yuen Road in Choi Yuen Estate, Sheung Shui; the Carmel Leung Sing Tak School on Shun Lee Tsuen Road in Shun On Estate, Kwun Tong; and the Baptist Rainbow Primary School on Chuk Yuen Road in Chuk Yuen South Estate, Wong Tai Sin.

The conversion works will be completed in two phases. The first covers the two projects on Shun On Road and Choi Yuen Road, which will provide about 130 and 110 units respectively. These are expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

The second phase covers the two projects on Shun Lee Tsuen Road and Chuk Yuen Road, which will provide about 110 and 105 units respectively. These are expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2027.

The second contract covers the project at Sheung On Street, Chai Wan, which will provide about 1,720 units and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of next year.

The bureau said the four school conversion projects have been packaged into one single contract in light of their relatively smaller scale. By engaging a single operator for the contract’s overall operation and management, resources can be shared among the projects to enhance cost-effectiveness, it explained.

The contracts cover not only occupancy management, property management and daily maintenance services, but also the provision of social services, as well as the management and operation of ancillary facilities.

Tenders are invited from all capable and experienced service providers, including non-government organisations and those with a valid property management company licence, or collaborations between such providers.

To ensure service quality, the bureau will carry out technical assessments based on factors including providers’ management capabilities, relevant experience and past service performance, as well as their proposed modes of operation and management, the social services to be provided, the feasibility of their exit plans, and their use of innovation and information technology.

Each tender price will then be evaluated to form a consolidated assessment to decide on the most suitable organisation for the LPH contracts.

Interested organisations may download the tender documents via the bureau’s website or from the e-Tendering System. They can also contact the bureau’s Dedicated Team on Light Public Housing to obtain the relevant documents.

The tender reference for the Shun On Road, Choi Yuen Road, Shun Lee Tsuen Road and Chuk Yuen Road LPH projects is HB2025/OPR-LPH-VSP, while the tender reference for the Sheung On Street, Chai Wan LPH project is HB2025/OPR-LPH-CW.

Tenders must be submitted before the deadline, either electronically via the e-Tendering System or by deposit in the Government Secretariat Tender Box situated at the public entrance lobby on Ground Floor, East Wing, Central Government Offices, 2 Tim Mei Avenue, Tamar.