Amid the coronavirus scare, Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju inaugurated the Khelo India's first Winter Games chapter in Jammu and Kashmir's Gulmarg town on Saturday. This comes amid calls from Srinagar Mayor Junaid Mattu seeking cancellation of the event.
Seeking to avoid inconvenience to air passengers due to delays on foggy winter mornings, the government has instructed all airline operators to provide refreshments to travellers as they wait for their flights.
Government feels that early conclusion of Idnia-EU trade pact will open up new economic opportunities.
Modi will embark on a three-nation tour beginning March 30 during which he will attend the crucial Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, India-EU Summit in Brussels and travel to Saudi Arabia, a key partner of India in the sensitive Gulf region.
Given wild swings, investors are wondering where the metal market is going. There was a strong uptrend in industrial metal through much of the last three years due to fears of supply chain issues - first due to Covid-19 and then due to the Ukraine War. That uptrend broke down as it became apparent that global growth would moderate as inflation rose and Western Europe (the EU plus the UK) went into a near-recession and China was in a rolling lockdown.
Investors are showing some interest in the downstream energy cycle. Refiners and marketers, especially the public sector (PSU) oil marketing companies (OMCs) could see a revival of marketing margins. Lower crude oil and gas prices may also improve margins in industries like paints, logistics, synthetic fabrics, plastics, and fertilisers. In the medium-term, however, there could be a supply overhang affecting OMCs as new refining capacities are scheduled to be commissioned, especially in China, and this may lead to a drop in the refining margins as capacity would be surplus to demand until and unless there's a pick-up in global growth.
Barring a few exceptions India has a chronic trade deficit with most of its existing FTA partners as it is with most of its proposed FTA partners.
'The big power struggle in faraway Europe erupted at a most critical juncture when India has been increasingly sceptical about American policies and statesmanship,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
An overarching law governing public healthcare is a glaring gap in India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. In India it is left to individuals to quarantine themselves voluntarily. Moreover, the 123-year old The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, governs healthcare emergencies in India.
This means fully vaccinated Indian passengers will no longer be subjected to a compulsory 10-day hotel quarantine on their arrival in Britain.
In April, the 28-member European Union had temporarily banned the import of Alphonso mangoes and four vegetables from India from May 1.
The visit of the MEPs to Kashmir was not ceding of ground on Kashmir, the MEA said.
Calling for 'equal recognition of vaccines', COVAX on Thursday urged all governments to recognise as 'fully vaccinated' those people who have received COVID-19 vaccines deemed safe by World Health Organisation, saying any move that restricts travel of people based on the vaccines they have received is 'counter-effective, both in spirit and outcome'.
Colombo seems to be veering to the middle path between China and the US on global matters, but in regional matters of strategic security, it is increasingly identifying with India, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
So far 15 rounds of negotiations have been held.
While the 27-nation bloc is pressing hard for a significant duty cut in automobile sector in the proposed Broad based Trade and Investment Agreement, Indian industry is strongly opposed to such a move.
The G20 foreign ministers' meeting on Thursday was unable to come out with a joint communique due to sharp differences over the Ukraine conflict despite persistent efforts by host India to build consensus.
What the UK is getting out of the Serum Institute is what India is losing. And the responsibility of the Indian State ought to have been to dictate where Serum Institute's vaccine doses should go, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
That was the compromise formula, said Mukherjee.
Go-getter, ambitious, dynamic, workaholic are some of the adjectives that officials who worked closely with B V R Subrahmanyam use to describe him.
The electric Chetak has already sold close to 25,000 units in India, and the European version will be based on the same platform.
The European Union is following with great interest India's discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the civilian nuclear agreement and will take a decision on supporting India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group after studying all the developments.
Union IT and Communications Minister Arun Shourie on Friday said Indian IT companies should diversify to Europe and respond to the outsourcing backlash by expanding its markets.
The European Union on Tuesday assured its full solidarity in fighting terrorism alongside India and termed the recent blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad "cowardly and inhuman" attacks.
Their favourite alternatives: Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Note, India is missing from that list. And this is despite an attractive financial incentive scheme for OSAT players. The reason, said a senior executive of a US chip company who had a meeting in Taiwan just a few weeks ago, is that "they want more predictability in government policy because they plan to put in big money."
Stressing that terrorism is now a world problem, Mariani said he did not want Kashmir to become a 'second Afghanistan'.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the Indonesian city of Bali from November 14 to 16 to attend the G-20 summit, the ministry of external affairs announced on Thursday.
Keeps open the option to make payments in yen or yuan in the face of sanctions
Among all the geographies where Amazon is fighting regulators, India is the only place where its lines are also tangled in a major corporate battle, this one with India's largest company by market capitalisation over the acquisition of Mumbai-based Future Group's retail chain, the country's second largest. No other corporate entity in any country offers a challenge to Amazon's hegemony in a way Reliance Industries does - and the final hearing of an arbitration case filed at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre between the two may decide at least some of these issues. This legal battle between one of the world's most powerful corporations and one of India's most powerful conglomerates could be complicated by a host of other developments.
Modi also made a call for European Union unity and said India would play a positive role in enhancing that through Germany.
Representatives from the United States and Qatar, the UN, China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the EU, Germany, India, Norway, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan joined a regional conclave on Thursday to discuss ways to contain the escalating security situation in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had informal interactions with US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and several other global leaders on Tuesday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali and exchanged views on a range of issues.
A referendum will be held on Thursday, June 23, to decide whether Britain should exit (Britain's exit, hence the term Brexit) or remain in the European Union.
The FIEO on Thursday reiterated that the Customs authorities at several ports in India had ordered a sudden examination of Chinese consignments without any official word from the government, and this may have led to the Chinese retribution.
UK's outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday hailed "important partner" India in his first Parliament statement since the country voted for leaving the EU and said Britain must not turn its back on Europe or the rest of the world.
Washington is signalling to Delhi that it can rely on American support in any great game vis-a-vis China. Delhi shouldn't fall into the trap, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
EU and UK laws require airlines to incorporate data protection measures and report data breach to regulators within 72 hours. Non-compliance can invite steep fines.
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