A Parliamentary Committee has pulled up the government for going ahead with approvals for more Special Economic Zones without waiting for its report on the subject.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked stakeholders like the Centre, Niti Aayog, Finance Commission and the Reserve Bank of India, to brainstorm on the 'serious' issue of freebies announced during elections and put forth 'constructive suggestions' to tackle it, saying no political party will oppose such handouts or like to debate it in Parliament.
'All Shatabdis and Rajdhanis should be converted to this type of high-speed train.' 'There should be a sleeper version of the train.' 'Right now, there is only a day version of the train.' 'Unless you develop a sleeper version, it will not be possible to replace the Rajdhani.' 'Work on the sleeper version was stopped for some reason. It should be revived now.'
The additional cash will now give the Centre more headroom for stimulating the economy.
The Reserve Bank of India has forecast the economy to grow by 6 per cent with an upward bias.
'Chup is the work that I'm most satisfied with; it won't bore me or make me cringe later.'
The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council on Friday cut its growth forecast for the current fiscal to 7.1 per cent, lower than the previous projection of 7.7 per cent, due to "painful adjustments" to the ongoing global economic turmoil. India's economy had grown 9 per cent in 2007-08.
Acharya emphasised that the time is "really ripe" for land, labour and agricultural reforms in India.
S&P Global Ratings on Monday expressed scepticism over allowing corporate ownership in banks given India's weak corporate governance amid large corporate defaults over the past few years. It also said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will face challenges in supervising non-financial sector entities at a time when the health of financial sector is weak. Last week, a RBI panel had proposed that large corporate may be permitted to promote banks, as well as raising the cap on promoters' stake in private sector banks to 26 per cent, from15 per cent at present.
Thyagarajan said the estimate of asbestos on board the aircraft carrier varies from 50 to 500 tonne and that information on the ship was incomplete and unhelpful.
The finance ministry is working on a second relief package for the Indian economy hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak and the 21-day nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the contagion, sources said. Last month, the government announced a Rs 1.70 lakh crore relief package in the form of foodgrains and cash transfers for the poor and vulnerable section of the society to help them deal with the hardships caused by the lockdown. Now, the government is working on a stimulus to be given to hard-hit sectors of the economy after the lockdown is lifted, sources said, adding that an announcement is expected in the next few days depending on the severity of the pandemic.
Prompt measures and legal actions taken by the Indian government and PNB helped in securing the extradition of diamantaire Nirav Modi by the UK on Friday, a senior official said. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday signed off on the order to extradite Nirav Modi, wanted in India on fraud and money laundering charges related to the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case. According to the government official, a scam of this magnitude had potential to create instability in the financial sector but the deft handling saved the entire public sector banking space from the crisis and litigation.
The government is likely to announce early next week a series of measures to boost economic activity in the country.
Chetan Ghate, Pami Dua and Ravindra Dholakia have been appointed for 4 years
The thinking at the Centre is that since the RBI has ramped up purchases of government bonds, the interest earned on them will be transferred to the exchequer as dividend.
The Centre's proposal to call for governance reform in the RBI could, however, take a back seat, a source privy to the development said.
One representative of the government as well as that of the Indian Banks' Association have been included in the expert committee which will advise the government on the new company law.
Besides, the economic growth in the January-March quarter last fiscal was at nine-year low of 5.3 per cent.
World Bank along with economic think-tank National Institute for Public Finance and Policy have strongly pitched for making finance commission a permanent body like planning commission, although government has some reservations on it.
India's total purchase of oil from Russia in a month is probably less than what Europe does in an afternoon, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.
Experts said banking is a play on the economy and the latest buying into this space is underpinned by hopes of a sharper-than-expected recovery in the economy.
The uncertainty created by the jump in COVID-19 infections and localised lockdowns prompted RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and other members of the rating setting panel MPC to unanimously vote for status quo in interest rates and an accommodative policy stance to support growth, as per minutes of the meeting released on Thursday. "The need of the hour is to effectively secure the economic recovery underway so that it becomes broad-based and durable," the Governor said during the three-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which ended on April 7. The renewed jump in COVID-19 infections in several parts of the country and the associated localised and regional lockdowns add uncertainty to the growth outlook, he observed, as per the minutes of the meeting released by the central bank.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved a legislation that would triple economic assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year, authored by its chairman Congressman Howard Berman, California Democrat, despite being vehemently opposed by the pro-Pakistan lobby and the Obama Administration.
'There were two options before the government -- create a complex, cumbersome law, which will cause a tremendous amount of compliance challenges for startups or say let's go back and do a clean slate, where we do a framework of laws and policies'
The development is significant for Nestle since arguments in the Bombay High Court over testing and sampling went in the company's favour, too.
India's negotiating posture at the multilateral negotiations should be aligned with a significantly transformed development strategy domestically.' 'The positions the country takes at the negotiations will then carry credibility, says Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary and India's chief negotiator on Climate Change 2007-2010.
After the RBI surprised the Centre with a record Rs 99,122 crore in surplus transfer for FY21, analysts said this will help the government tide over the revenue losses from lockdowns and extend more support to the pandemic hit industries and to the poor people. In fiscal 2020, the RBI had paid only Rs 57,128 crore in dividend to the government and the finance minister had budgeted only Rs 45,000 crore from the central bank. The higher payout followed the Bimal Jalan panel report that had set a new economic framework capital buffer for the central bank along with the contingency risk buffer at 5.5 per cent.
A committee headed by the Rajasthan chief secretary will be set up soon to implement the decision to accord five per cent reservation in jobs to Gujjars and three other communities and 14 per cent to economically poor among forward castes in the state. This was stated today by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who said that a Gazette notification on the Rajasthan Reservation Act-2008, which was approved by Governor S K Singh on Thursday night, will be issued soon.
Old timers in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) still remember how in early 2000 its overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), was on the verge of closure. Though OVL was set up in 1965, the only discovery the company had made till then was in Vietnam offshore, with more investment needed to monetise it. In 2001, when OVL started looking for new blocks abroad, the company's previous acquisition was 13 years old.
There is so much liquidity in the system, in the global economy, and that's why the stock market is very buoyant. It will certainly witness correction in the future: RBI's Das.
There is a vocal constituency of educated, well-to-do, articulate Indian elites who would rather go with the idea that too much democracy is a liability. That India needs a spell of benevolent dictatorship. Of course, they have never lived under one, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a bill providing internal reservation of 10.5 per cent for Vanniyars, a most backward community in government jobs and in admission to educational institutions.
Unlike the first two stimulus packages, this time the focus would be on boosting demand.
With the Covid-19 pandemic showing signs of ebbing and economic activity picking up, factory owners in Jalandhar had hoped that the worst was over. However, the heat wave in April and extensive power cuts that came with it, have crushed their hopes. The city's large number of micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) are now gearing up for yet another struggle, this time to survive with the shortage of power that is severely impacting their operations.
Observing that there are "definite and proved" allegations that complaints of the victims of violence in the aftermath of the West Bengal assembly polls were not even registered, the Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into all alleged cases of heinous crimes like rape and murder, while accepting the recommendations of a National Human Rights Commission panel.
The decision comes after Australian mining major BHP Billiton said it would not improve the terms of its bid. BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, and new entrant GVK Oil and Gas were the sole bidders for five deepwater blocks and hence the provisional winners after the bidding closed on June 30 this year.
The panel had first visited the Valley in October after which it had recommended an immediate ban on use of pellet guns by security forces.
The IHS Markit India Services Business Activity Index stood at 5.4 in April, an extreme decline from 49.3 in March, and indicative of the most severe contraction in services output since records began in December 2005. As per the IHS Markit India Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.
