Imports too tumbled by 58.65 per cent to $17.12 billion in April from $41.4 billion in the same month last year, according to the data by the commerce and industry ministry.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the economy is showing "green shoots" as the country emerges from the coronavirus lockdown and underscored the importance of being focussed on both life and livelihood.
The growth rate in September too was 3.2%.
The ministries of coal and environment and forests are currently in the temporary charge of the prime minister and all the indications are that the current power minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, might be moved to Maharashtra as chief minister, creating a vacancy, top sources in the government said.
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But critics caution that over-centralisation can lead to new bottlenecks
Power Minster R K Singh said, "The power supply ramp down and ramp up -- they (officials) handled very smoothly, and I along with my senior officials -- power secretary, POSCO CMD -- were personally monitoring the situation from National Monitoring Centre in the ministry. I congratulate all the engineers of NLDC, RLDC and SLDCs for handling the situation very efficiently especially in huge response to the Prime Minister's call".
The government's disinvestment programme is set to get a boost this Diwali, with the finance ministry planning to hit the market to sell a five per cent stake in Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) by October.
The government has threatened to cancel the coal block alloted jointly to ArcelorMittal and GVK Power in Jharkhand for the inordinate delay in developing the property.
Coal, refinery products, electricity and cement production registered a growth of 14.5 per cent, 8.1 per cent, 10.2 per cent and 11.3 per cent, respectively in November, as per the data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry.
Against a widening 142 MT demand-supply gap and a huge over 12,000 MW power capacity addition plans, warring ministries, specially Coal and MoEF, remaining at loggerheads throughout the year over contentious issue of 'go' and 'no go' mining zones gave much fodder to media.
The government on Monday budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including 2 PSU banks and one general insurance company, in the next fiscal year beginning April 1. The amount is lower than the record Rs 2.10 lakh crore which was budgeted to be raised from CPSE disinvestment in the current fiscal year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the government's CPSE stake sale programme, and the target has been lowered to Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das and Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg are also expected to attend the meetings.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain DoPT, Atomic Energy as well as all important policy issues and portfolios not allocated.
It is hoped that the decision of India's apex court will send a signal to politicians and their cronies from the world of business that the rule of the law does eventually prevail, says Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.
National Aluminium Company had said on Friday that its power units, capable of generating 960 MW, had to be shut down owing to serious coal crisis.
Transparency is more than welcome, but govt should not look vindictive.
Rao is now just the Minister of State for Coal.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday said 28,252 cases of mucormycosis have so far been reported from 28 states/UTs in the country, of which 86 per cent cases have a history of COVID-19 and 62.3 per cent with a history of diabetes.
The Reserve Bank of India is expected to hold interest rate at 8 per cent in its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy review on Tuesday.
The investment bank also says no ministries were merged even as some ministers were given more than one portfolio.
A ministry official said just like an internal financial audit, a green audit would protect stakeholders.
The two signed an agreement on Monday to study and clean the Ganga.
These core industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production.
Merger of the three key ministries is expected to help in removing the hurdles in these areas.
Jaitley is now a minister without portfolio in the Narendra Modi government.
Dharmendra Pradhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal have been elevated to Cabinet ministers.
The ministry has also decided to offer station for redevelopment by inviting open bids from companies.
The Narendra Modi-led government has issued around 50 fresh guidelines easing conditions for industry in about six months, beside launching an online system for applying environment clearances.
The government had in July 2010 imposed a cess on coal at an effective rate of Rs 50 a tonne.
Reliance Power Limited, the flagship company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), plans to invest about Rs 2,500-3,000 crore (Rs 25-30 billion) over a period of three years, to develop three coal mines to fuel its Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project in Madhya Pradesh. Reliance Power currently has access to coal reserves of about one billion tonnes in India and abroad, including a coal mine in Indonesia, which it acquired recently.
In the new policy, which is likely to be called the Gas Linkage Policy, the government is mulling the option of giving preference in allotment to greenfield (new) power projects over brownfield (expansion).
Anil Swarup, who conceived the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana -- a scheme the United Nations Development Programme and the International Labour Organisation recognised as among the finest -- speaks to Anjuli Bhargava.
The miners are now feared dead as water from a nearby river has been gushing into the 370-feet-deep pit.
The output has seen a decline due to the ban in Karnataka and Goa.
Natural gas and fertiliser output recorded a negative growth of 1.7 per cent and 1 per cent, according to the data of the Commerce and Industry Ministry.
ETFs function like a mutual fund scheme and have underlying assets of government-owned companies.
Officials say a fall in global oil prices will reduce the government's subsidy burden, giving it a greater chance of hitting its ambitious fiscal deficit target of 4.1 percent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year to March.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to open commercial coal mining to private players is a key step towards bringing order to the country's chaotic power industry and ending the chronic blackouts that impede its economic rise.
The government is likely to take a call on the much-talked about divestment in Hindustan Copper next week.
These issues range from resolving the conflicts between power sector borrowers and banks.
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