Since the onset of monsoon on June 20 to date, rain-related incidents have claimed 23 lives in the state, according to the state emergency operation centre.
An Indian commerce ministry team will soon visit Washington for another round of talks on the proposed trade agreement with the US to iron out differences in sectors, like agriculture and automobiles, a government official said on Thursday.
The labourers, who are said to be of Nepali origin, were engaged in the construction of a hotel.
India and the UK on Thursday inked a landmark free trade agreement (FTA) that will cut tariffs on British whisky, cars and an array of items, besides boosting bilateral trade by around $34 billion annually.
'You've got to understand it is not easy to die by suicide.' 'People commit suicide only when they lose everything and find no other way to live.'
India's policy for agriculture trade must move commodity-by-commodity to gain maximum benefits as US President Donald Trump's 26 per cent tariff on exports from the country take effect, said agriculture economist Ashok Gulati in a recent policy paper.
India and the US are likely to agree on an interim trade agreement before July 8 with New Delhi pushing for full exemption from the 26 per cent reciprocal tariff on domestic goods, an official said. The US on April 2 imposed an additional 26 per cent reciprocal tariff on Indian goods but suspended it for 90 days till July 9.
A new study by IIT-Kharagpur warns that ozone pollution could significantly reduce agricultural yields in India, particularly impacting wheat, rice, and maize production. The study, published in the journal 'Environmental Research', highlights the vulnerability of major food crops to rising surface ozone levels, especially in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Central India. The researchers call for effective emission reduction strategies to mitigate these risks and ensure global food security.
The Indian government has assured citizens that the country has ample food stocks to meet domestic demand, despite escalating tensions with Pakistan. The government has also warned traders against hoarding essential food items and creating artificial shortages, emphasizing that there is no need for panic buying. The food ministry detailed the country's current stock levels, showcasing a surplus over required buffer norms for rice, wheat, and pulses. Additionally, India holds substantial edible oil and sugar stocks, ensuring a strong food security position.
According to the authorities, tragedy struck near the border town of Metula on Thursday morning when a rocket fired from Lebanon slammed into an apple orchard, claiming the lives of five people.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will lead a team of senior Indian officials to Washington starting May 16 for discussions with their US counterparts on the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA), an official said on Tuesday. Goyal is expected to hold meetings with US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during his visit.
'I am not an aspiration-oriented politician.' 'This is the time to redefine politics.' 'Politics of power is not real politics.'
A team of senior officials from India will again visit Washington this month to hold discussions with their US counterparts on the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA), government sources said on Thursday. To give impetus to the talks, India's chief negotiator Rajesh Agrawal, special secretary in the Department of Commerce, and Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch had last month held three-day talks in Washington.
Recent documents by NITI Aayog and periodic labour force surveys on employment show that the importance of agriculture is rising in the Indian economy.
Indian and US officials will begin deliberations on the proposed bilateral trade agreement in Washington from Wednesday with an aim to iron out issues and give an impetus to the negotiations.
Geopolitical tensions, trade policy uncertainties, volatility in international commodity prices and financial market uncertainties pose considerable risks to India's economic growth in the coming year, the finance ministry cautioned on Wednesday. "Global trade continues to be affected by uncertainty in the policy environment... tariff-related developments in multiple countries have heightened trade-related risks, affecting investment and trade flows globally.
India and the visiting US officials have decided to hold a wrap-up session on Saturday morning to conclude the three-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement, government sources said. They said the discussions are at a "very" early stage.
The 37-year-old labourer Srikanta Shee hanged himself from a guava tree in the compound of his house at Gopalnagar-Sonapara at around 2 am, Officer-in-Charge of Singur police station Priyabrata Bakshi said.
India and the US have decided to hold sector-specific talks in the coming weeks to finalise the structure of the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA), the government said on Saturday. The engagement between the two countries came in the backdrop of the USA's threat to impose reciprocal tariffs on its key trading partners, including India, on April 2.
Senior officials of India and the US will begin three-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement in New Delhi on Wednesday amid threats of reciprocal tariffs from the Trump-administration, an official said. To formally start the negotiations on the pact, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch, along with a team of officials, is in New Delhi.
Union Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda on Tuesday said a law guaranteeing minimum support price (MSP) on crops cannot be brought in a hurry without consulting all stakeholders and urged the protesting farmer groups to have a structured discussion with the government on the issue.
'Could the impending new crisis, vibe coding, similarly create not a disaster like what befell Indian handlooms during the Industrial Revolution but another opportunity like what the Y2K crisis created?' asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
An Indian official team is likely to visit Washington next week to iron out differences on certain issues before formally launching negotiations for the proposed India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA), an official said. The visit, which comes within weeks of a high-level US team visiting India, indicates that the talks for the BTA are gaining momentum.
While this will incur a revenue loss amounting to 0.2 per cent of GDP, it will provide a strong boost to consumer sentiment and spending, points out Rajani Sinha.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the BJP-RSS of carrying out a "well-planned conspiracy" against national heroes and said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's ideology was contrary to the RSS' ideas. He defended the relationship between Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, saying they were "two sides of the same coin". He also criticized the BJP-RSS for their alleged attempts to appropriate the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.
The challenge for politicians is that the continuous electoral cycle favours short-termism and the loan waiver type of policy, whereas prosperity requires hard decisions where commonly held perceptions must be disrupted and over-turned, says Dhiraj Nayyar.
The Indian industry is paranoid about the USA's plan to impose reciprocal tariffs and wants early conclusion of a bilateral trade agreement, sources said on Wednesday. They said that the talks for the proposed bilateral trade agreement are going well.
'Many of these issues will be resolved within 6 months because the US economy has started unravelling.'
The most striking features of this Budget was its focus on simplification and improving the ease of doing business in India, asserts Kaku Nakhate.
Ramesh opposes Pawar's plan to provide cheap labour to farmers under NREGS.
Union labour minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday said employment in the country has increased by 36 per cent to 64.33 crore in 2023-24 from 47.15 crore in 2014-15, which shows improvement in job creation during NDA period.
Shiv Sena's Dadaji Bhuse is the new school education minister while Uday Samant continues to be the industries minister.
T Nanda Kumar, former food and agriculture secretary, shared his memories of working with former prime minister Manmohan Singh during some of India's most challenging times, highlighting Singh's compassionate leadership and commitment to ensuring food security for all Indians. Kumar recalled Singh's steadfast support during the 2008 global food crisis, where he championed a ban on non-basmati rice exports to secure domestic supplies. Singh's leadership, characterized by intellect and humility, left a lasting impression on Kumar, who considered him a mentor and guiding light.
India should convert the Trump threat to an India opportunity, re-embracing a more liberal trade regime as a way of reviving manufacturing output and exports.
India remains the largest growing economy in the world, a senior official from the International Monetary Fund said, observing that the country's macroeconomic fundamentals are good. "India is said to remain the largest growing economy in the world. We project growth at seven per cent in FY24-25, supported by recovery in rural consumption, as there have been favourable harvests.
Employers in India are planning to outpace global adoption in certain future technologies as companies operating in the country are heavily investing in technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), energy technologies, robotics, and autonomous systems, said the World Economic Forum (WEF) in its latest "Future of Jobs" report released on Wednesday. The report, released days before the WEF annual meeting in Davos from January 20-25, notes that 35 per cent employers in India think that adopting semiconductors and computing technologies (compared to 20 per cent globally) will transform their operations while 21 per cent employers think that adopting quantum and encryption technologies (compared to 12 per cent globally) will also transform their operations.
India and the US will sit together in the next couple of weeks to decide on the nature of the proposed trade agreement and finalise its broad contours, a senior official said on Monday. During the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington, India and the US announced to more than double the two-way commerce to $500 billion by 2030 and negotiate the first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector bilateral trade agreement (BTA) by fall of 2025.
A court in Maharashtra has stayed the conviction of state minister Manikrao Kokate in a 1995 cheating and forgery case, citing the potential for "huge public money" to be spent on a re-election if he were to be disqualified. The court argued that voters had reposed faith in Kokate and elected him as their legislator, and that he would face an "irreversible situation" if disqualified. Kokate, a member of the ruling Nationalist Congress Party, was convicted in February and sentenced to two years in prison for submitting fake documents to obtain government housing. The court noted that Kokate has raised several arguable points in his appeal against the conviction and that a decision on the appeal will take time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lauded the Union Budget as a "people's budget" that fulfills the dreams of every Indian and said that it is a "force-multiplier" that will boost consumption, investment and growth. He highlighted a host of measures for different sectors, including welfare initiatives for gig workers, tax relief for the middle class, and support for the manufacturing sector.
Casual labour, which is the type of employment provided by agriculture, yields much lower wages -- of the order of Rs 291 per day. Labour would not voluntarily shift to this lowest wage-rate sector unless it had no better option, observes Mahesh Vyas.
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