Rather than worry about what picture of India is being painted in the foreign media, the focus must be on marshalling all our energies to provide relief and solace to our deeply wounded and dispirited citizens, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
The Bhartiya Kisan Union Lokshakti said the principle of natural justice is going to be violated as those appointed to the four-member committee 'have already supported these laws'.
The Planning Commission, which was established in 1950, will be called 'Neeti Ayog' in its new avatar, months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that it will replaced by a new body.
A panel will examine the merits and demerits of various dates for the commencement of the financial year.
India has a history of jugaad, and retrofitting vehicles is one such manifestation of the legendary Indian skill. Not so long ago autorickshaws and small Marutis used to strap on subsidised LPG cylinders and power themselves to a cheap ride. There were the odd explosions, lives were lost, but the jugaad continued. Then compressed natural gas (CNG) was introduced in Delhi following a court order. Initially, customised CNG kits were fitted to conventional (internal combustion engine or ICE) autos cheaply, enabling commuting at less than half of what you would cough up for diesel. The industry is better organised now with Suzuki and Hyundai designing CNG-fired vehicles, and Mahindra and TVS manufacturing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)-powered three wheelers.
Commodity investments can help you diversify your portfolio in asset classes other than equity and debt, says Dwaipayan Bose.
Parliament has cleared the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2023, recently. The objective of the Act is to invite investments from the private sector, including foreign companies, for mining minerals such as lithium and other critical minerals. Other than lithium, some of these minerals were classified as atomic minerals, including beryl and beryllium, niobium, titanium, tantalum and zirconium.
Debates on changing the name of India to Bharat continue to spark a crisis of identity without answering moot questions that stare us in the face. Ramesh Menon asks a few of those questions that do not have easy answers.
'I see in the BJP an attempt to get growth and redistribution of resources.' 'For growth you need growth of the economy.'
The home minister said the northeast and the Left-wing extremism-affected areas in the country are tribal-dominated regions and security is a precursor to development there.
Bibek Debroy raised seven questions about the new institution.
A small Ahmedabad-based chartered accountancy firm, whose appointment was questioned by a US short seller in its scathing report against the conglomerate run by billionaire Gautam Adani, has resigned due to "pre-occupation", Adani Total Gas Ltd said. Hindenburg Research in its January 24 report that levelled allegations of fraud, stock manipulation and money laundering against the Adani group, had also raised the issue of the size and capability of the firms auditing the conglomerate. Adani group has repeatedly denied all allegations.
From the seas to the stars, this partnership will now be deepened by the defining role of technology, the statement said.
'The Himalayas are the Creator of Life.'
'That is the one headline the world is reading about India this week, and it is a potentially damaging story...' 'I don't think a panic mentality has set in, but this story is one that investors and market watchers are absolutely seized with.'
Xi does not want to risk any political or economic crisis complicating his bid to remain in office, observes Ambassador Shyam Saran, the former foreign secretary.
A recent pre-election survey suggests that AAP may win 53 seats in the 117-member Punjab assembly and reduce the Congress to just 43.
'Laws have been used in a way to serve the needs of the current regime and its authoritarian ideology.'
'Which will not happen.' 'Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has expressly refuted Beijing's statement that normalcy was returning to Sino-Indian relations.'
'It is only when Beijing sees a country with an infirm political will such as India that it acts up as the PLA has done in eastern Ladakh.'
Alibaba's pervasive economic and social influence in China is seen as a threat to the authority of the Chinese Communist party, notes Shyam Saran.
Addressing a press conference at Singhu Border in New Delhi, farmer leader Balbeer Singh Rajewal said that farmers never demanded the Supreme Court form a committee to resolve the impasse, alleging the central government was behind this development.
Results of an interim study recently published in The Lancet showed that two doses of Covaxin, also known as BBV152, had 77.8 per cent efficacy against symptomatic disease and present no serious safety concerns.
'This reluctance to respond forcefully to Chinese PLA provocations and outright aggression has as much to do with Prime Minister Modi personally, as with the institutional mindset of the MEA or even the Indian Army.' 'They are scarred by the 1962 War and are still cowed by China.'
The talks between Singh and Esper came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a telephonic conversation with US President Donald Trump.
'English must be taught extremely well to all children in all schools, and especially so in those schools where the medium of instruction until Grade 5/8 is in the mother tongue/local language/regional language.'
The number of times public sector undertakings (PSUs) have held conference calls with investors, their capital management, and debt financing are among the parameters that the Centre will use to judge their performance for the first time, a senior official in the know said. The government will evaluate PSUs for FY22 based on new parameters that were finalised by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) in consultation with the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) last year, the official said. The government had included more conditions in the memorandum of understandings (MoUs) - used to set annual targets - that public sector enterprises sign with the DPE every year. These included a consistent dividend policy, which seeks to transfer dividends by PSUs every quarter; and market capitalisation or share price improvement over the sectoral index on an annual average basis for listed companies.
'The BJP while being in government in Gujarat continues to campaign like an Opposition party whereas the Opposition does the opposite.'
'Our strategy should be to 'hold the line' in the north on the Sino-Indian land frontier, but maintain and, if possible, enlarge India's current edge in the maritime south.'
'It is far too early to celebrate the numbers.' 'They are still fairly weak compared to the pre-pandemic level.'
'The MEA, hopefully, made it clear that the Indian PM can't be seen in Xi Jinping's company when China has, for all intents and purposes, annexed over 1,000 sq kms of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh, and essentially that the Wuhan spirit and the Mamallapuram spirit have turned into vinegar.'
Uttar Pradesh has the highest pendency with more than three-fourths or 77.77 per cent of the total POCSO cases that were filed between November 2012 and February 2021, according to the data.
It is certain that the Chinese government was 'under-prepared' as it decided to end its zero-COVID policy abruptly after people held protests across the country, The Hong Kong Post reported.
While the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur may have attracted among the highest donations by an individual (former student and IndiGo Airlines co-founder Rakesh Gangwal) at Rs 100 crore last week, IITs have largely seen such contributions rise over recent years, despite the Covid pandemic. According to Mahesh Panchagnula, dean, Alumni and Corporate Relations, IIT Madras, in the last five years, the premier institute has raised more than Rs 135 crore under the endowment category of education alone. Despite the pandemic, there has been an increasing trend in endowment funding received at IIT Madras, with an average increase of about 20 per cent year-on-year across the last five years.
'Article 370 laid down the edifice of the relationship between J-K and the Union of India.' 'If you look at the Article, what is there now is a provision which states that all provisions of the Constitution of India applies to J-K.' 'The veto that the state could exercise previously on most Union laws has ended.'
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
'When the average growth in the last three years was just 2.5%, how does that make us the fastest growing country?' 'They only tell you what has happened in the last 2 years; they are not taking into account what happened in FY21 on account of their mistakes.'
RBI recently cut repo by 0.25 percentage point, taking the rate to 7.25 per cent in three reductions since January.
Wrapping up his four-day state visit to the US, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that a new and proud journey of India-US ties has begun and the world is watching the two great democracies strengthening their bond.
