All eyes are on the Bharatiya Janata Party's National Executive that will be held in Goa over the weekend. Speculations are rife that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi may be made the party's campaign committee chief for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
In a scathing attack on the United Progressive Alliance government, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said that the government had failed in all its economic policies and that is why the aam aadmi in the country is suffering. Exceprts from his speech:
Elections may be a few months away, but the government may get into election mode much earlier than that, predicts A K Bhattacharya.
However, storage capacity way behind even present public distribution system procurement need.
Jaishankar said he apprised Prime Minister Shmyhal of "India's principled position that emphasises cessation of all hostilities and return to dialogue and diplomacy."
States have been told to prepare in advance to counter any impact of an adverse southwest monsoon.
The G20 foreign ministers' meeting on Thursday was unable to come out with a joint communique due to sharp differences over the Ukraine conflict despite persistent efforts by host India to build consensus.
Moody's Investors Service has warned that India, along with the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are highly vulnerable to volatile food and energy prices in the Asia-Pacific region as the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to disrupt supplies and raise the cost of agricultural products, especially cereals and vegetable oils, as well as fertilizers and other agricultural inputs. This is so because these countries have a higher weighting of energy and food prices in their consumer price index (CPI) baskets, Moody's said in its report released on Tuesday. The weighting of energy and food in overall Indian CPI stands at over 55 per cent.
The Congress on Sunday gave a call to party leaders in poll-bound states to work with unity to ensure victory that will 'set the tone' for 2024 Lok Sabha polls even as it showed willingness to forge an alliance of 'like-minded' parties.
"Reports of PM Modi not meeting Putin due to nuclear threat is baseless. The meeting is not taking place due to scheduling issues," sources told ANI.
The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) was launched in March 2020 to provide free 5 kg foodgrains per person per month to about 80 crore beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to reduce their hardship during the lockdown period. This was over and above the general allocation under the NFSA.
'A delay of two years has happened, but stretching it to 2024 is a bit too far.' 'And we do not know about 2024 also.'
'If one crore is sanctioned to make a road, they spend only Rs 40 lakhs and the remaining 60 lakhs is looted by the politician, bureaucrats and the contractor.'
The 193-member General Assembly adopted the draft resolution, put forward by Ukraine and its supporters, titled 'Principles of the Charter of the United Nations underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine'.
India needs a second green revolution along with the next generation of reforms with a view to make agriculture more climate-resistant and environmentally sustainable, said an RBI article on farm sector challenges. Observing that Indian agriculture has exhibited remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 period, the article said "new emerging challenges warrant a second green revolution along with next-generation reforms". Despite the success in terms of production that has ensured food security in the country, food inflation and its volatility remain a challenge, which requires supply-side interventions such as higher public investment, storage infrastructure and promotion of food processing, said the article titled 'Indian Agriculture: Achievements and Challenges'.
Addressing the G-20 University Connect initiative, the first event of India's presidency of the grouping, Jaishankar said it would also be India's endeavour to emerge as the voice of the Global South -- comprising Asia, Africa and Latin America -- that has to face the brunt of polarisation and conflict in the developed world.
'The decision to supply free food grains is not an economically sound decision because the government will find it very difficult in future to charge anything for food grains.'
Universalisation of the public distribution system can help the needy get low-priced but nutritious food and cover most of the Indian population at a very low cost to the exchequer, argues Gopal Krishna.
In a tweet, Zelenskyy said he counted on New Delhi's support for the implementation of his "peace formula", which he had proposed during a virtual address at the recent G20 summit in Bali.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was representing President Vladimir Putin, left Bali on Wednesday, a day ahead of the scheduled conclusion of the G20 Summit held amid the economic challenges triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
Blinken will also attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping and will hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine, saying 'today's era is not of war' even as he called for finding ways to address the global food and energy security crisis.
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
Severe heatwaves, responsible for thousands of deaths across India over the last few decades, are increasing with alarming frequency and soon the country could become one of the first places in the world to experience heatwaves that break the human survivability limit, according to a new report.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday and asserted that there can be no military solution to the Ukraine conflict, while also underlining that endangerment of nuclear facilities could have catastrophic consequences.
India has been at the forefront of the years-long efforts to reform the security council, saying it rightly deserved a place as a permanent member.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to extend distribution of 5 kg foodgrains per month for free under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to over 80 crore ration card holders for four months till March 2022, a decision that will cost an additional Rs 53,344 crore to the exchequer.
India has been at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.
About 56 million Indians may have plunged into extreme poverty in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, increasing the global tally by 71 million and making it the worst year for poverty reduction since World War II, according to fresh estimates by the World Bank. "The global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 is likely to be missed: By then, about 600 million people will remain in abject poverty. A major course correction is needed," Indermit Gill, chief economist at the World Bank, tweeted. The World Bank in its latest "Poverty and Shared Prosperity" made fresh estimates of poverty using a new extreme poverty line based on the purchasing power parity (PPP) of $2.15, the earlier one being at $1.9.
'It has been an ongoing process, talking to the relevant ministries about eliminating leakages and curbing non-core expenditure in various schemes.'
In the three months leading up to the Assembly elections, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's government distributed over 1.4 million tonnes (MT) of wheat, 0.95 MT of rice, 0.10 MT of chana (gram), 101.9 million litres of soybean oil and 100,000 tonnes of salt as free ration. This was part of the Covid relief package, officials said.
"Prime Minister Modi has a powerful, influential voice on the world stage. We know the Russian leadership respects India's voice and position on the world stage. I think Prime Minister Modi's intervention is very, very welcome. And we really hope that Vladimir Putin listens to those voices who are calling for peace and for de-escalation. So we very much welcome Prime Minister Modi's intervention," Cleverly told PTI in an interview.
Stating that the food subsidy bill is becoming "unmanageably large", the Economic Survey 2021 on Friday suggested the government to increase the selling price of foodgrains provided through ration shops to over 80 crore beneficiaries. Foodgrains via ration shops are supplied at highly subsidised rates of Rs 3 per kg for rice, Rs 2 per kg for wheat and Rs 1 per kg for coarse grains through Public Distribution System (PDS) as per the National Food Security Act (NFSA). "While it is difficult to reduce the economic cost of food management in view of rising commitment towards food security, there is a need to consider the revision of central issue price (CIP) to reduce the bulging food subsidy bill," the survey said.
Climate and sustainable development financing, multilateral institution reforms, regulation of digital assets, the spillover effect on developing economies from actions of western central banks, energy and food security in the backdrop of war in Europe, and sanctions on Russia and their impact on the global economy are some of the agenda items that India will take up as President of G-20, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. India will take over as President of the powerful international grouping on December 1 for a year. There will be around 200 meetings throughout the country, with the summit Heads of State meeting expected to be held in New Delhi next September.
The government's subsidies on food, fertilisers and petroleum are estimated to decline by 39 per cent to Rs 4,33,108 crore this fiscal and fall further by 27 per cent to nearly Rs 3.18 lakh crore in 2022-23. In its revised Budget (RE) estimate for the 2021-22 fiscal, the government has pegged total subsidies to be at Rs 4,33,108 crore against the actual Budget estimate of Rs 7,07,707 crore in the previous financial year. Out of which, the food subsidy is estimated to decline to Rs 2,86,469 crore in the current fiscal from Rs 5,41,330 crore in 2020-21, while petroleum subsidy is estimated to fall to Rs 6,517 crore from Rs 38,455 crore in the said period.
Economist Abhijit Sen, a former Planning Commission member and one of the country's foremost experts on rural economy, died on Monday night. He was 72.
Although the Disaster Management Act for Covid containment measures, considered a hindrance in conducting the census, was withdrawn in March this year the Centre has not taken any further action on conducting the much-delayed population enumeration.
The free food scheme is driven by electoral considerations, but its long-term fiscal risks outweigh the short-term gains, cautions A K Bhattacharya.
India ranked 107 out of 121 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2022 with its child wasting rate at 19.3 per cent, being the highest in the world.
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