India's COVID-19 recoveries have sprinted past 27 lakh, taking the recovery rate to 76.61 per cent, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.79 per cent, the health ministry said on Sunday.
The Essential Defence Services Bill, 2021, introduced by Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt amid din created by the Opposition over three new agri laws and the alleged Pegasus snooping controversy, seeks to replace an ordinance issued in June.
Expressing the government's commitment to continue with reforms, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday assured India Inc that it is ready to do everything required to revive and support economic growth hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Stressing that there is a need to promote growth as it helps bring down poverty, she however said it would not be at the cost of inflation. RBI has been mandated to keep inflation at 4 per cent, with tolerance level of 2 per cent on either side.
The letter from West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha to Chairman of Railway board V K Yadav dated May 22, stated that the state has been severely impacted by Super Cyclone Amphan on May 20-21 which caused extensive damage to the infrastructure.
Just a few weeks ago, the Centre has come out with the long-awaited Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, which have drawn a dismayed response from the companies concerned.
Under fixed-term employment, workers are entitled to all statutory benefits available to a permanent worker in the same factory. However, employers may not give notice to a fixed-term worker on non-renewal or expiry of his or her contract.
Apart from Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where none of the estimated 6.7 million construction workers got cash transfer benefits, the coverage of the construction workers was the lowest in Delhi, where only about 5 per cent of the estimated workers received cash under the PMGKY, followed by Kerala and Uttar Pradesh (22 per cent), among major states. In India, construction workers belong to the unorganised sector but account for the highest share of non-farm jobs after manufacturing.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
The output of eight core sectors grew by 16.8 per cent in May, mainly due to a low base effect and uptick in production of natural gas, refinery products, steel, cement and electricity, official data released on Wednesday showed. The eight infrastructure sectors of coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity had contracted by 21.4 per cent in May 2020 due to the lockdown restrictions imposed to control the spread of the COVID-19 infections. In March this year, these key sectors had recorded a growth of 11.4 per cent, and 60.9 per cent in April.
MNREGS labourers are usually engaged in irrigation projects.
He also announced an assistance of Rs 3,000 for accredited journalists while acknowledging their role in the dissemination of information on COVID19.
Mudasir Ahmed, a businessman from Kashmir, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
The protests brought home the fact that the Sri Lankan public is in no mood for halfway measures, as voices against Rajapaksa 'family rule' and 'securitisation' of the civilian administration began sidestepping the more critical economic crisis, affecting the nation and afflicting the individual, observes Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
The migrants were ferried to their villages in sanitised buses arranged by the Jharkhand government to take them home after preliminary medical screening at the station, officials said.
As the COVID wave gradually shifts to rural areas, several states are gearing up to check its spread through self-proclaimed lockdowns by Panchayati Raj institutions, creating a database of migrants and providing free online medical consultation to the sick.
The agriculture ministry, in the last few weeks, issued guidelines and letters to states to ensure agriculture and food products reach consumers in a timely manner, while farmers don't have to come to the mandis to sell them.
Some of the violations that will lead to community service include failure to pay social security contribution of workers, maintain records, furnish information to inspectors, pay gratuity to workers, provide crche facility and medical pay, and retrenching women workers during maternity leave.
Ruia, a chartered accountant whose business ranged from sugar to textiles and heavy engineering to tyres, refused to comment on queries about his interest in Air India.
'The belief that FDI will shift from China appears to be a strategy of politicians to keep the media busy, chasing irrelevant news to ward off pressure and questions about the government's plans to deal with COVID,' observes Debashis Basu.
The Centre and states are looking to further tighten the GST registration process and legal measures to deal with the rising cases of fake invoicing. A meeting of the law committee of the GST Council has been convened on Wednesday to discuss these issues, finance ministry sources said. The committee, comprising senior central and state tax officers, would also discuss the GST fake invoice frauds, further tightening of the GST registration process and work out other legal measures including necessary law amendment required in the GST Act to curb the menace of fake invoicing, they added. Also the provisions related to deemed registration under Goods and Services Tax (GST) law may be tightened to prevent the misuse of such provisions by fake dealers and the provisions related to suspension of registration may also be streamlined to make the procedure of suspension and cancellation of registration more efficient and faster, so that such fraud operators can be prevented in time from continuing to pass on fake credit down the chain.
The "intentions and motive" behind filing of the plea are evident from the fact that the instant project has been singled out by the petitioners despite several other agencies, including Delhi Metro, carrying out construction activities across the national capital, the Centre has alleged.
With 1,209 new deaths reported across the country, the toll due to the disease stands at 76,271.
Sawant took the oath in Konkani language.
The company has already shifted production to Aurangabad.
The miners are now feared dead as water from a nearby river has been gushing into the 370-feet-deep pit.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address a press conference in New Delhi at 4 pm on Wednesday. The information regarding the press conference by the Union finance minister was given through a tweet by the ministry of finance in the morning.
Spurring the economy, currently in the throes of a slowdown, remains the prime focus for most ministries, but the government is also looking to make women's welfare and environmental protection key to policymaking in this term.
Rules being drafted, to also cover unorganised sector; maternity benefit, old age pension, sickness allowance to be included
Seeking to reach out to the fishing community in poll-bound Kerala, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday interacted with the fishermen at Thangassery beach in the district.
The Labour and Employment Ministry has requested the Finance Ministry to keep Employee State Insurance and Employee State Insurance schemes out of the ambit of service tax as they are social security schemes.
'I hear of so many people not getting their money and producers not taking their calls to pay them.'
Does IAS officers' work go unappreciated, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
The government has asked the eleven municipal areas to step up monitoring in old cities, urban slums and other high density pockets like camps and clusters for migrant workers for management of COVID-19 cases.
Trade deficit during the month narrowed to USD 14.54 billion from USD 15.3 billion in January 2020. It was USD 15.44 billion in December 2020.
His appeal came when certain organisations of the neighbouring Barak Valley region of Assam observed a 12-hour bandh on Wednesday and have been staging an economic blockade on the National Highway-306 that connects Mizoram with the rest of the country since July 26, disrupting transportation of goods to the state.
A total of 77 deaths were reported since Thursday evening of which 27 fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, 17 from Gujarat, 11 from West Bengal, seven each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, three from Delhi, two from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and one from Karnataka.
Each train is likely to carry around 1,000-1,200 passengers, keeping in mind the social-distancing protocol.
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.
Earlier on Wednesday, Reuters reported that Swiss business tycoon Hansjoerg Wyss is considering buying football club Chelsea from Abramovich, Wyss told Swiss newspaper Blick as British lawmakers continued to push for sanctions against the billionaire.
The statement said the food inflation stood at 7.56 per cent in February, 2014, against 8.94 per cent of the previous month and 14.98 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year.
