India shifted gears in rejuvenating strategic ties with its major partners like the US and Russia and focused on drumming up global support for its distinct strategy in the Indo-Pacific to check Beijing's increasing muscle-flexing in the region.
The government, it would seem, is reserving its firepower to spend on big-ticket items that will be announced in the Budget, reports Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
The Indian economy is rapidly normalising towards pre-pandemic activity levels, even as uncertainty exists about coronavirus mutations and repeated infection waves, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla said on Wednesday. Vaccination is picking up pace, which would improve India's resilience against a potential third wave, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group said while virtually addressing shareholders at the AGM of group firm UltraTech Cement Ltd. Moreover, various steps taken by the RBI and the government have helped in containing the economic disruptions of the pandemic, Birla added.
A bit of economic reforms stalled and decisions delayed -- what Narayana Murthy spoke of -- don't hurt if a country's compassionate and inclusive social fabric has survived intact; if the country is happy, observes Shyam G Menon.
The winners of the Natural History Museum's prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition were announced at an awards ceremony in London. American photographer Karine Aigner was announced as this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
As the economic crisis in Sri Lanka - the world's largest exporter of orthodox tea - continues to rage across the island nation, tea producers in India look to cash in on the opportunity to seize the market. The country's largest tea growing company, McLeod Russel India, expects orders to come in from July. "A huge opportunity is coming up for everyone in India. "McLeod Russel is well placed because we have the capacity for orthodox tea," said Azam Monem, director, McLeod Russel. About 10 per cent of McLeod's production is orthodox tea.
Here's the full text of address to the nation by President Droupadi Murmu on the eve of the Republic Day 2023.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his maiden trip to India next week would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to discuss wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues, his spokesperson said on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the first in-person summit of the Quad leaders in Washington on September 24 that is expected to broadly focus on contemporary global challenges including ways to ensure a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.
In his address at a ministerial meeting of the SCO in Moscow in the Russian capital, Singh also referred to the Second World War and said its memories teach the globe the 'follies of aggression' of one state upon another that brings 'destruction' to all.
The industry may account for just 0.05 per cent of the total volume of single-use plastics in the country. And the product it uses is just one among the 22 - including spoons, forks, plates, knives and trays - that will be banned across the country from July 1 by government order. Yet, it is the plastic straw that is at the centre of public focus as fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies make a last-ditch effort to get the government to extend the deadline.
Four-nation grouping Quad on Tuesday launched a major new initiative for the Indo-Pacific that allows the partner countries to fully monitor the waters on their shores and help ensure peace and stability in the region, a move that comes amid China's increasingly intimidatory behaviour.
Scientists have developed a novel psychological "vaccine" to immunise the public against the damaging "virus" of fake news and misinformation on websites and social media.
The only thing that may salvage Narendra Modi's trip to the US is his meetings with CEOs, such as those of Blackstone, First Solar, Qualcomm, Adobe, and General Atomics, asserts Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Visibly there is a posturing that everything is fine. That creates a bit of a problem.'
Ride-hailing major Ola on Wednesday said it will launch its electric two-wheeler range in New Zealand. This will help support the New Zealand government's goal of bringing on road 64,000 new electric vehicles by the end of 2021, while also helping the public sector become carbon neutral by 2025, Ola said in a statement. According to the industry sources, the company plans to launch the range in New Zealand over the next 6-9 months.
Amid the 'Toolkit' controversy surrounding the ongoing farmers' protest, the central government has directed the microblogging platform Twitter to remove 1,178 Pakistani-Khalistani accounts spreading misinformation and provocative content on farmers agitation, sources said.
A senior company executive said the company waited for seven years for the verdict and its shareholders needed to know when it would be concluded.
'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.'
Prominent international celebrities and activists on Wednesday joined American pop star Rihanna to extend support to the farmers' protests here and garner international attention on the protracted stir but their remarks were slammed by India as 'neither accurate nor responsible'.
UNESCO is looking at adding another Indian locale to its prestigious index of World Heritage Sites -- Meghalaya's Living Root-Bridges.
'Not a single bullet was fired, but we were warning the enemy not to continue with their antics!' IAF Veteran Air Commodore Nitin Sathe finds out how the Light Combat Helicopter, which will be inducted into the IAF on October 3, was designed, developed and flown.
'Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is sincere about maintaining religious harmony in the country.' 'But for mysterious reasons, it does not reach the grassroots activists of her party.'
India caved in to a bad deal at Copenhagen, says Praful Bidwai.
EU operates as one block at the climate change negotiations and takes a single greenhouse gas emission reduction target under the Paris Agreement
A total of over 75 Heads of State and Foreign Ministers will be meeting with Modi, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan during the week across various platforms.
The Delhi Police will investigate the role of a woman based in the United Kingdom after its probe revealed that she, along with lawyer Nikita Jacob and engineer Shantanu Muluk, allegedly drafted the content of a 'twitter storm' campaign in February in support of the ongoing farmer agitation, officials said on Wednesday.
Forced out of India due to the rising COVID-19 case count in the country, the IPL will allow unlimited COVID-19 replacements considering the delicate health safety situation across the globe.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Modi announced a USD 14-million grant for community development projects in the Caricom and another USD 150 million line of credit for solar, renewable energy and climate- change related projects, a statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that he held a "good discussion" with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on many important issues, including on the two nations' commitment to democratic principles, recent protests, and the importance of resolving issues through dialogue.
The 2+2 was attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and their Indian counterparts S Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh respectively.
The bilateral and Quad summits, in which Prime Minister Modi played a significant role, has sent the right message to China, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
India on Wednesday hit out at tweets by global celebrities such as singer Rihanna and climate activist Greta Thunberg in support of the farmers' protests, the focus of a sharply polarised international debate that saw many Bollywood stars and top ministers rally around the government in its pushback.
Leaders of the United States, India, Australia and Japan did discuss the 'challenge' posed by China during the first meeting of the Quad, and they made clear that none of them have any 'illusions' about Beijing, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said.
At the Paris climate change summit, there is talk of restricting temperature rise to 1.5?C instead of 2?C, which has been negotiated so far. This would give India less space to grow by limiting carbon emissions further, reports Darryl D'Monte, reporting exclusively for Rediff.com from the French capital.
'Jim Corbett was a remarkable man. There's a history behind Corbett and he deserves the honour of the area being the Jim Corbett National Park.'
It doesn't make sense to view the womb through the prism of religion, community and tradition, warns Shyam G Menon.
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
'From March 2020 to November 2021, the combined wealth of the billionaires of this country has doubled.'
