'Should China's interest in the Teesta River projects be approved, it would likely result in heightened Chinese presence near the Siliguri corridor.'
The beneficiaries will get increased pensions of Rs 1,100 from July.
The Finance Ministry's annual report has revealed that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) funded seven projects worth USD 750 million in India during the 2023-24 fiscal year. The projects, implemented in partnership with the Indian government, cover areas like agriculture and food security, water and sanitation, renewable energy, disaster management, health, sustainable forests, and climate adaptation. This disclosure comes amidst controversy over USAID's alleged role in influencing Indian elections, with claims that the agency allocated USD 21 million to India for 'voter turnout'. However, the report clarifies that no funds were dedicated to enhancing voter turnout.
The latest annual report of the finance ministry has disclosed that the agency funded seven projects worth USD 750 million in 2023-24.
The Centre on Monday announced seven big programmes for the holistic growth of agriculture and allied sectors with a total outlay of nearly Rs 14,000 crore, as it aims to improve farmers' income. The Union Cabinet approved seven big-ticket programmes related to the farm sector, including a Rs 2,817-crore digital agriculture mission and a Rs 3,979-crore scheme for crop science. "The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved seven schemes to improve farmers' lives and increase their incomes at a total outlay of Rs 13,966 crore," an official statement said.
While the Delhi and Haryana governments have declared that they are all set to roll-out the food security programme on August 20 -- Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary -- there is confusion among the chief ministers about the implementation of the ordinance which gives the right to people to receive adequate quantity of food grains at affordable prices. Anita Katyal reports.
Gandhi also said the idea of 'One Nation, One Election' was aimed at distracting from real issues of the people.
ersonnel in a revamp that aims to provide cost-effective, reliable, and professionally competent security service at airports. Aneesh Phadnis reports.
There are 78 such people in the village, of which 41 are women and 30 children aged three to 15 years.
'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.'
Since jobs will remain scarce for the foreseeable future, an unemployment allowance should be the next big social-security initiative, suggests T N Ninan.
Security incidents became more costly and harder to contain due to drastic operational shifts during the pandemic with the cost of data breaches to Indian organisations rising close to 18 per cent to Rs 16.5 crore on an average between May 2020 and March 2021, according to a report by IBM. The study pointed towards similar trends in other parts of the world with data breaches costing surveyed companies $4.24 million per incident on an average - the highest in the report's 17-year history.
Though COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown left a trail of economic devastation on most countries, India can potentially build upon three positive aspects - push in the rural economy, stronger federalism and a huge consumption base, former RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao Rao has said. In his foreword on a Telugu book titled "Maandhyam Mungita Desam" (Nation in Recession) authored by Tummala Kishore, he said the challenge for the government in the months and years ahead is clear: to put the economy back on a healthy growth trajectory and ensure that growth is inclusive, with lower income households too enjoying the benefits of rapid growth.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A visibly elated Sharma said the decision gave India complete protection even if it breached the food subsidy limit under WTO rules
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that the agreement on food security and trade facilitation will have to go hand-in-hand.
He said the migrants and poor people had great expectations after the prime minister's address to the nation, but sadly...
A social activist in Bhopal has grabbed the essence of consumerism to work out a social security programme that should give the proposed social security programme of the Government of India a run for its money.
President Pranab Mukherjee signed the ordinance on food security to give nation's two-third population the right to get 5 kgs of foodgrains every month at highly subsidised rates of Rs 1-3 per kg.
'Any meaningful food security programme should aim at gradually reducing the number of hungry dependent on government support,' says Devinder Sharma. 'This is only possible if the government had looked at the entire issue in a sincere manner. I don't think at any stage the government was honest in its approach. It had simply worked and reworked the Food Security Bill keeping the 2014 election in mind.'
It does not bar any state or the Centre from continuing or launching other food-based schemes.
Member of Parliament can now allocate funds from their local area development scheme kitty for rural employment guarantee programmes. The move that comes just ahead of Budget is aimed at providing the much-needed fiscal cushion to operate the UPA's most ambitious social security programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).
A day after a breakthrough deal between India and the US on food security related issues, the WTO on Friday said there was a "high probability" of reaching an agreement within two weeks on the stalled Bali package to facilitate easier global trade flows.
The US agreed to India's proposal on food security issues at WTO on Thursday.
Sitharaman said that developed countries were blaming India for the impasse at the WTO, but India convinced them about its legitimate demand.
NGOs have acquired a certain critical mass and are increasingly becoming powerful voices in public discourse.
Jayalalithaa termed the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu as a corrupt party, pointing out that the CBI was carrying out raids on the residences and offices of people close to the party's leadership. "The 2G spectrum scam, which has caused a loss of one lakh eighty thousand crores, has been the largest scam in the history of the world .The DMK has always been a corrupt party and this scam has revealed the heights which the DMK leadership can reach in corruption," she said.
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Trade ministers and diplomats from around 130 countries are participating in the four-day meeting that started on Tuesday.
Since the food subsidy is almost Rs 1,000 per person per year, there is a need for complete re-engineering of the existing public distribution system so as to ensure each and every grain reaches the right beneficiary, he said.
The fund said oil prices are still at double the levels recorded in end-2006, even after the 40 per cent fall in prices from the peak they reached in July this year. Food prices too are still above end-2006 levels. Because of this, fuel importing low-income countries will see their import bill increase by 3.2 per cent of their GDP, while food importing countries will spend additional amount equivalent to 0.8 per cent of GDP on food.
The government on Thursday sent the ordinance on food security to President Pranab Mukherjee for his consent.
The minister, at a packed press conference, made it clear that New Delhi was not prepared for any compromise on the food security issue, adding the deal at Bali has to be fair and balanced as 'it is better to have no agreement than a bad Agreement'.
The ministry of labour and employment plans to implement social security programmes only for the poorest of the poor in the unorganised sector, to begin with.
India will impress upon China, which had torpedoed its Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid at the Seoul plenary,that taking care of each other's "interests and priorities" was the basis for forward movement in bilateral ties.
Trump said, 'North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy (Kim) have anything better to do with his life?'
The fate of the ministerial conference was sealed after assistant US trade representative Sharon Bomer Lauritsen said permanent solution to the food stockholding issue was not acceptable to America.
India had proposed amending the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap of 10 per cent.
The economy is growing at 7.5-8 per cent, the finance minister said.
Prime Minister Narandra Modi on Saturday said the government "chose" to take a tough stand in the recent WTO talks as it has to protect the interest of the poor people of the country rather than to look for good publicity in the international media.
Defying an overall sluggish market sentiment, IT stocks on Wednesday rose by up to 4 per cent amid the rupee sinking to a life low of 68.75 against the dollar.
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