While rising food inflation is a matter of grave concern for a significant chunk of the population and for policy makers as well, it marks a turnaround in the fortunes of the farmer, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
A pick-up in farmer income could have a cascading impact on the rural economy, though agriculture is becoming a smaller part of India's overall rural incomes.
C P Chandrasekhar, who has served on key statistical panels in the past both as a chairman and member, said he was present in the campus when the ruckus broke out on Sunday and found the incident "disturbing" and "unprecedented", and that it further undermined the faith in the system. Somesh Jha reports.
Starting today, Modi and top officials in the Prime Minister's Office will be briefed by various central ministries and departments on their plans as well as agenda for the next five years. They will also apprise the PMO of the work they have done so far in realising the agenda of government's second term in office.
The net NPA ratio declined to 3.7 per cent in September 2019 from just below 4 per cent in March 2019, reflecting increased provisioning.
This, said Sitharaman, would remove the possibility of unauthorised communication "and consequent harassment", which was a cause of concern for bankers.
In 2009, the UPA government, had announced a slew of measures to boost liquidity in NBFCs. These included a scheme for providing liquidity support to NBFCs having assets size of over Rs 100 crore through a SPV.
In the 2020-21 Budget, the prime minister and the finance minister are keen to stamp their narrative, after various rollbacks following the previous Budget, said top government sources. Besides the scheduled meetings, the sources said, the Prime Minister's Office is expected to hold several meetings with top secretaries and officials on various ongoing schemes, their performance and also how some of them could be tweaked for better results.
Banks will also consider requests from MSMEs for restructuring their stressed standard assets. So far, only 25 per cent of the around 1 million eligible MSMEs have taken benefit of the RBI's special dispensation.
Gig workers are usually spoken of in the context of the sharing economy, like Uber, Ola drivers, delivery persons for Zomato and Swiggy and so on. This is the first time such workers will be covered under India's social security law.
India exported $102 million worth of dehydrated onions in 2018-19.
Though the NITI Aayog did not give its estimates for the required GDP growth at constant prices, economists pegged it at 9 per cent, a feat not seen since the GDP series was revised with 2011-12 as the base year.
Only 48.3 per cent of the rural households used LPG, while the figures were much higher in urban areas at 86.6 per cent, according to a NSO report.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
Experts said a dip in consumption expenditure indicated an increasing prevalence of poverty in the country.
Sitharaman said the Bill has proposed giving a legal framework for fixed-term employment through which contract workers serving a fixed-tenure will get equal statutory social security benefits as regular workers in the same unit.
The findings of the report showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18. The government has, however, termed it a "draft" report, reports Somesh Jha.
Sources said the rural development ministry has sought an additional Rs 20,000 crore for MGNREGA for 2019-20 over and above the budgeted Rs 60,000 crore for 2019-20. Though, all of the PM-KISAN savings may not be transferred to fund MNGREGA's extra needs, sources said a part of this could be transferred.
In the draft rules, among 681 listed professions, armed security guards, supervisors, surveyors, and carpenters (class I) are proposed to be treated as highly skilled professionals; electricians, tailors and drivers are skilled; cooks and cobblers as semi-skilled and dairy coolies, office peons and sweepers as unskilled.
After taking benefit of the scheme, jobs increased by around 11 mn in establishments that took loans.