Representatives from four states including Maharashtra and Karnataka will also be members of the panel.
Sheikh Hasina was on Thursday sworn in as the prime minister of Bangladesh for the fifth term, days after her Awami League won an overwhelming majority in the general elections boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies.
Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday assumed charge as the Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister for the second consecutive term and is slated to soon present the final Budget for FY '25 that is going to set the tone for the Modi 3.0 government's priorities and direction for Viksit Bharat. Upon her reaching the North Block office, Sitharaman was greeted by Finance Secretary T V Somanathan and other top officials. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary was also present. Chaudhary assumed charge on Tuesday evening.
The wholesale price-based inflation rate declined to (-) 4.12 per cent in June on easing prices of food, fuel and manufactured items. The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation in May was (-) 3.48 per cent. In June last year, it was 16.23 per cent.
India, the US and 12 other members of the IPEF grouping have signed a supply chain resilience agreement that would help mitigate risks of economic disruptions from supply chain shocks and improve crisis coordination. The agreement would help member countries like India to reduce their dependence on China and provide timely information to the IPEF member countries about potential supply disruptions. The COVID outbreak severely disrupted the global supply chain, as most countries were dependent on China for various products like pharma raw materials.
It is being suggested that apps, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, should share their APIs with each other to ensure there is interoperability, just as it exists across email services.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
The Union ministry of food and consumer affairs proposes to insert a new clause in the fresh discussion note for the Cabinet on allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail.
The commerce ministry recently announced that it intends to switch over to a small negative list for trade with India by the end of February and to phase out this regime by the end of the year.
The growth of eight key infrastructure sectors rose to a 14-month high of 12.1 per cent in August 2023 against 4.2 per cent a year ago, mainly due to expansion in production of coal, crude oil, and natural gas, according to the official data released on Friday. The expansion in August is the highest since June 2022, when it was 13.2 per cent. The production of refinery products, steel, cement and electricity also grew in August, the data showed.
Without making big-ticket changes in the economic ministries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday shifted Law Minister M Veerappa Moily to the ministry of corporate affairs and inducted young Milind Deora in his council of ministers.
Business chamber Assocham has asked the government to accord industry status to organised retail sector, which would improve investment inflows into the sector and increase its share in this segment. The move would increase the share of organised retail in the overall sector to 20-22 per cent from the current 3 per cent, Assocham said.
Explore, engage, participate and excel in as many co-curricular activities and hackathons as possible to improve your self-confidence, communication skills and overall personality, advises rediffGURU Chocko Valliappa.
Exports declined for the fourth-consecutive month by 10.3 per cent year-on-year to $34.98 billion in May, while the trade deficit widened to a five-month high of $22.12 billion. According to the data released by the commerce ministry on Thursday, key export sectors recording negative growth include petroleum products, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, ready-made garments of all textiles and chemicals. Imports also declined 6.6 per cent, six-month in a row, to $57.1 billion against $61.13 billion in the same month last year, the data showed.
The total incentive outgo under the ambitious production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme is estimated to be less than Rs. 40,000 crore by the fiscal year 2024-25 (FY25), when it completes the fourth year of implementation, according to the government's internal estimates. This means only a fourth of the allocated Rs 1.97 trillion is expected to be utilised by the end of FY24, indicating that not all the 14 PLI schemes would have taken off fully. While three of the 14 schemes - large-scale electronics manufacturing, bulk drugs, and medical devices - were introduced in 2020, the remaining were launched the following year.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the Ministry of Commerce has called a meeting on July 10 to discuss the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in the cigarette industry.
The finance ministry is of the view that all interests -- direct and indirect -- should be taken into account and that there should not be any threshold for calculating total effective foreign shareholding in a company.
Fresh guidelines issued by the Union home ministry on Wednesday permit industries operating in rural areas to run from April 30 with strict social distancing norms.
For the consumer, there would be practically no impact on prices of essential medicines this year.
Wholesale price-based inflation remained in the negative territory for the fifth straight month in August at (-)0.52 per cent, but prices of food articles and fuel showed an uptick. The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation rate has been in the negative since April and was (-)1.36 per cent in July. In August last year it was 12.48 per cent. Inflation in food articles remained in double digit at 10.60 per cent in August, lower than 14.25 per cent in July.
A panel led by the secretaries of the DEA and the DIPP would conduct a quarterly review on the pending proposals.
Starting today, Modi and top officials in the Prime Minister's Office will be briefed by various central ministries and departments on their plans as well as agenda for the next five years. They will also apprise the PMO of the work they have done so far in realising the agenda of government's second term in office.
Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, the wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, has filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi for 'false' allegations of irregularities in a food processing project.
Union Commerce and Industries Minister Kamal Nath on Friday said he disagreed with the finance ministry on the controversial fringe benefit tax, saying the tax laws should be made simpler.
Ensuring health insurance for all workers would be major challenge for the industry that is already grappling with cash crunch, and the government should have borne the cost.
The big boys of India's traditional retail have finally come together to fight the onslaught of their online counterparts.
Exports of electronics goods has risen by 24 per cent from April to November as compared with the same period in the last fiscal, the largest increase out of India's top 10 export categories. The increase has been propelled by mobile exports under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and has pushed electronics up from sixth to fifth position in the top 10. A gap of $200 million separates electronics from occupying the fourth position, currently held by drugs and pharmaceuticals at $17.9 billion.
The government on Friday approved an electric-vehicle policy, under which duty concessions will be given to companies setting up manufacturing units in the country with a minimum investment of $500 million, a move aimed at attracting major global players like US-based Tesla. According to an official statement, the companies setting up manufacturing facilities for e-vehicles will be allowed to import a limited number of cars at lower customs duty. The policy seeks to promote India as a manufacturing destination for EVs and attract investment from reputed global EV manufacturers, it added.
For the startup ecosystem in India, the scorecard so far has been a mixed bag, observes Akhil Gupta.
Industry lobbies have begun pre-budget consultations with the Union finance ministry for 2010-11.
Major portfolios like home, finance and education were on Tuesday allocated to People's Democratic Party ministers by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed who will himself hold the charge of home ministry.
The message is clear: The 60-year-old wise uncles need to handhold the 40-year-old entrepreneurs when, obsessed with ambition and greed for growth, they become a victim of hubris, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The grievance redressal mechanism of many big e-commerce players is not up to the mark as the number of complaints received by the National Consumer Helpline has risen sharply over the last four years, Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said on Thursday. Addressing an event organised by the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI), Singh said the number of complaints registered on the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) has gone up to 90,000 in November compared to 40,000 in the same month last year. "Four years back, the number of complaints pertaining to e-commerce transactions was 8 per cent of the total complaints.
The wholesale price-based inflation declined to 4.95 per cent in December 2022, mainly due to fall in prices of food articles and crude petroleum. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation was 5.85 per cent in November 2022 and 14.27 per cent in December 2021. Inflation in food articles was (-)1.25 per cent, while in fuel and power it was 18.09 per cent during December 2022.
The record contraction in the growth rate of eight core sectors will have its impact on IIP.
With the shifting of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to the finance ministry, the government has now reconstituted the board appointing Finance Secretary S Narayan as its chairperson.\n\n\n\n