'If in our cities, all urban bus transport services are free, then the taxpayers are paying for it, or if electricity were to be made free, that's a huge cost to the rest of the people'
After a fruitful visit of US President Barack Obama, India is planning to initiate negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the country.
If Beijing succeeds in this multipronged effort to challenge the current dominant power, it will have not just economic but political and security consequences. There is no let-up in the South China Sea nor any de-escalation moves on the India-China border. This portends to ominous signalling from Beijing, observes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Acutely conscious that he's left with less than four years to create his legacy, Trump is undoubtedly a man in a hurry, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India and Mexico have decided to explore the possibility of entering into a Preferential Trade Agreement to improve the bilateral trade, which stood at $1.6 billion at the end of 2006.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay a two-day working visit to the US from February 12 during which he will meet President Donald Trump, the external affairs ministry announced. The visit will give further impetus and direction to India-US bilateral relationship. Prior to his US visit, Modi will be in France from February 10-12 to co-chair the AI Action Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron. He will also visit Cadarache, the site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor of which India is a partner. During his visit to France from February 10-12, Modi and Macron will also address the India-France CEOs forum. The prime minister and Macron will travel to Marseille where they will inaugurate the Consulate General of India. The leaders will also visit the war cemetery and pay tribute to the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers in World War 1. Modi and Macron will visit Cadarache, the site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). There has been a very close rapport between Trump and Modi, dating back to the US leader's first term. There is a clear convergence of interests between the two countries in several areas, including trade, investment, technology, defense cooperation, counterterrorism, Indo-Pacific security, and people-to-people relations.
Amid record bilateral trade, China and India have reached "consensus" on goods and services trade, investment and facilitation of investment and economic cooperation as part of their proposed Regional Trading Agreement (RTA).
India seeks to play a supportive role for a peaceful and stable region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday as he embarked on a high-profile visit to Russia to hold summit talks with President Vladimir Putin amid the conflict in Ukraine.
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday proposed five steps, including trade liberalisation and trade expansion and diversification between India and China, to solidify mutual relationship.
In reflection of their growing congruence in areas of defence and security, the two sides, following the Modi-Mitsotakis talks, agreed to set up an institutional dialogue at the level of national security advisors, and boost defence industrial cooperation.
India and the US on Thursday said they are looking forward to the reconvening of the India-US Trade Policy Forum later this year to further enhance trade relationship and identify new areas for engagement.
Leading oil companies dedicated the second day of India Energy Week (IEW) 2025 to announcing strategic deals and business agreements across the supply chain - from sourcing more crude oil supply to deploying more domestic ships and building gas distribution capacity.
Modi held talks with Abe after arriving in the Laotian capital to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-India and the East Asia summits that will take place on Thursday.
'He needs to see results while he is in office.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday thanked Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani for the release of eight Indian nationals, who were sentenced to death after being arrested in Doha in August 2022.
India on Saturday announced plans to amend its nuclear liability law and set up a nuclear energy mission, a move that came ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's likely visit to the United States.
Like with all great crashes, some had noticed the cracks. "... cash balances (of banks) seem, from the available indications, to be hopelessly inadequate; and it is hard to doubt that in the next bad times they will go down like ninepins. If such a catastrophe occurs, the damage inflicted on India will be far greater than the direct loss falling on the depositors," said John Maynard Keynes in his May 1913 work "Indian Currency and Finance", written before his path-breaking work in macroeconomics laid the foundation of dealing with global crises.
'You can imagine for India what Shuks means not just to the billions of people in India but the entire Indian diaspora around the world.'
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said the government and the central bank are in discussion with South Asian countries to have cross-border trade in rupee. He also said the central bank digital currency (CBDC) is in trial phase and the RBI is moving very carefully and cautiously on digital rupee launch. After the successful launch of the wholesale pilot, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 1, last year, began its retail CBDC pilot project.
Lulu Retail announced on Wednesday that its initial public offering (IPO) was oversubscribed 25 times across all tranches, excluding cornerstone investors, generating demand exceeding $37 billion-a record for a private sector IPO in the United Arab Emirates. The company is controlled by Kerala-based business tycoon MA Yusuff Ali. The final offer price for Lulu shares was set at AED 2.04 per share, raising a total of $1.72 billion (AED 6.32 billion), making it the largest IPO in the UAE in 2024 to date.
India and Saudi Arabia on Monday decided to expedite implementation of the $50 billion West Coast refinery project, and identified energy, defence, semiconductor and space as areas for intensified cooperation during talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.
'By his words, actions, and body language during their joint press appearance wanted to convey his personal respect and, more broadly, his desire to work closely with India.'
Modi was honoured with the 'Order of Zayed', the UAE's highest civilian award, in 2019 as a mark of appreciation for his efforts to boost bilateral ties between the two nations.
India on Thursday said it promotes engagement with Taiwan in several areas including trade and investment and Taipei's decision to open an economic and cultural centre in Mumbai should be seen in that context.
'The policies announced by his administration are implemented faster.'
Anticipating US action on tariffs, India seems to have made the first move by revamping its tariff structure by reducing the slabs to eight rates, points out Mukesh Butani.
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
CII will renew its MoU with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade on June 25 in Beijing to continue with the sustainable institutional cooperation between the business communities of both countries.
During Abe's tenure, Japan had announced support for a number of major projects. These included the bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, besides allocations for a freight corridor between Mumbai and New Delhi.
Barring a few, such as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu (74), Union Minister C R Patil (69) and Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Khanna (71), most other ministers attending the WEF represent the next generation of India's politicians.
rediffGURU T S Khurana answers readers' personal income tax queries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his visiting Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen on Saturday held 'fruitful' talks with a focus on expanding cooperation in a range of key areas such as health, agriculture, water management, climate change and renewable energy.
Modi hits out at trade protectionism and calls for a rule-based, transparent, anti-discriminatory, open and all inclusive WTO-centred multilateral trading system focused so that the interests of every country specially the developing ones can be taken care of.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese will hold extensive talks on Friday with a focus on boosting overall bilateral ties in areas of trade and investment, defence and critical minerals.
Taiwan is keen to collaborate with India and help it become a leader in the semiconductor space, Jason Ho, chairman of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in India, said, asserting that the Taiwanese companies have the supply chain for things that the Indian market needs. Manufacturing semiconductors - used in electric and hybrid cars, drones, and communication devices - is fairly complicated, entails huge investment, and can be a cumbersome process.
India and five Central Asian countries on Thursday decided to establish a joint working group on Afghanistan at the senior officials' level, ministry of external affairs secretary (West) Reenat Sandhu said.
Ukraine is currently in the middle of a strategic offensive into Russia's Kursk region.
To celebrate the new trade deal with India, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday took to Instagram to post a picture showing him preparing khichdi, his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi's favourite dish.
'The border deal offers a hedge for India against Trump's unpredictability when it comes to his approach to competition with China.'
China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, close to the Indian border. The USD 137 billion project, which is expected to dwarf even China's own Three Gorges Dam, has raised concerns in India and Bangladesh, the downstream riparian states. Concerns in India are centered around China's potential to control water flow, potentially enabling the release of large amounts of water to flood border areas in times of hostilities. The dam is part of China's 14th Five-Year Plan, and the Chinese government claims that the project is safe and prioritizes ecological protection.
