'Farmers must get Maximum Support Price instead of Minimum Support Price.'
Addressing a separate session on world food security, Thomas said that India's food law marks a paradigm shift in approach to food security -- from being a welfare measure to rights-based approach.
Rajan retained the short-term lending rate at 6.5 and the cash reserve requirement of banks at 4 per cent.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to make this decade a "techade" for India and the push for 5G, semiconductors and transformation through digital services is going to boost the technology sector in the country, industry players said on Monday. Modi, in his speech on the 76th Independence Day, touched upon all-round development of technology in the country, from 5G to push for electronic chips, laying of optical fibre cable (OFC) network across villages and enablement of digital entrepreneurship in villages through Common Services Centres, making the present decade as "techade" for India. Homegrown mobile devices maker Lava International's Chairman and Managing Director Hari Om Rai said electronics and technology sectors create about $4 trillion of revenue.
In mid-2020, when Kushal Pal Singh, the undisputed king of India's vast real estate market, relinquished the top post at the country's largest realtor, he left behind an empire that is best compared to the Greek myth of the Phoenix. Once the leader of Delhi's organised real estate market, DLF's steep decline in the 1970s and its majestic rise since has often been cited as a business resurrection story. Now, a year after his departure from the helm of affairs, history seems to be repeating itself at the real estate major. In the 1970s, it was the government prohibitions that had forced DLF to venture into uncharted territory; some five decades later, the Delhi-headquartered firm has set its eyes on another growth trajectory that holds immense potential.
The government should set up agricultural co-operatives in every cluster of villages and in respective districts on a war-footing within a time limit. We should involve the services of our military personnel who retire at a young age with several years of working life still left in them and would be happy to contribute to nation-building, recommends Atul Gupta.
'If one crore is sanctioned to make a road, they spend only Rs 40 lakhs and the remaining 60 lakhs is looted by the politician, bureaucrats and the contractor.'
The patience, discipline, and resolve displayed by 125 crore Indians, will play a critical role in shaping the future of the nation for years to come, the PM said.
The IIM-B's 'Karnataka innovation report' has become the basis for the Congress party's election narrative, particularly to distinguish it from the 'Gujarat model of development', reports Archis Mohan.
Ghanwat, also a senior leader of Shetkari Sangathan, said he will mobilise one lakh farmers and bring them to Delhi in the next couple of months demanding farm reforms.
The unions said the minimum support price (MSP) cannot be separated from the demand of repealing the contentious agriculture laws, asserting that the issue of a legal guarantee for the MSP is a key part of their agitation.
In a show of strength, hundreds of women are expected to drive tractors at 'Kisan Gantantra Parade' on Republic Day, as a large number of farmers opposing the new agriculture laws will enter the national capital under a high security cover.
Over all trends indicate prices of pulses and onions have declined, and prices of all other commodities have remained stable across the country.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
To prevent rise in air pollution levels, oil marketing companies and thermal power units were planning to procure stubble from farmers to make bioethanol and promote the central government's 'Agricultural Mechanization' for crop residue management. But both have seen minimal success.
Farmer leaders on Saturday said the protesting unions stand firm on their demand of a complete repeal of the three agri laws and asserted that they are ready for talks with the government, but that should be held without any condition.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar accused the Congress of ignoring farmers' interests and keeping them poor to ensure cheap grain prices, and asserted that the Modi government empowered them by implementing the Swaminathan commission report to give them remunerative price through MSP.
If government statistics are at variance with private data flow, chances are high that the latter presents a picture closer to reality.
Police personnel in adequate strength were deployed across the state to maintain law and order, officials said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called for focus on 'repair and prepare' as the nation emerges out of a devastating pandemic. "Over the past year, we have witnessed a lot of disruption in different sectors. Much of it is still there. Yet, disruption does not have to mean despair," he said at VivaTech Summit. "Instead, we must keep the focus on the twin foundations of repair and prepare," he said referring to the need to augment healthcare infrastructure in the country as well as prop up the economy.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde will hear the application on January 18 along with pleas raising the issue of farmers protesting at Delhi borders.
'However, this time it looks like that is not working.'
Data compiled by National Collateral Management Services (NCML, a non-government body) shows a 6.3 per cent rise to 109 million tonnes (mt). The Union ministry of agriculture's first advance estimate was 100.5 mt, as compared to 102 mt in last year's fourth advance estimate.
"The question of entering into Delhi is a law and order matter and will be determined by the police," the bench said.
One lakh copies of the three agri laws were burnt at the Singhu border alone, said Paramjeet Singh of Samyukta Kisan Morcha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that the country's economic growth is picking up pace again and the domestic industry needs to enhance its risk-taking appetite. Noting the recent reforms taken by the government, the Prime Minister said that bringing reforms is a matter of conviction for his government, which is ready to take all risks in the national interest. "We have taken bold decisions. Reforms continued even during pandemic. "The government is doing reforms not out of compulsion but out of conviction," he said while addressing the CII's annual meeting.
In recent past, midcap stocks have performed well, say experts.
The Reserve Bank has asked banks to encourage borrowers to hedge agri-products on commodity bourses.
The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs staged a walkout ahead of the voice vote.
Extended rounds of negotiations having failed, farm leaders now reckon that their best chance to pressure the government lay in defeating the BJP in the coming assembly poll, particularly in UP, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'Rain-fed farms in the drier parts of the country are feeling the pinch of lack of water, and this pinch is only going to increase. Some of the biggest companies have shut down because of non-availability of water.'
The Bhartiya Kisan Union Lokshakti said the principle of natural justice is going to be violated as those appointed to the four-member committee 'have already supported these laws'.
He asserted that the government purchase of farm produce will remain, adding that the mechanism of minimum support price will continue in the same way it always has.
The Reserve Bank on Friday retained the GDP forecast for the current financial year at 9.5 per cent and flagged global semiconductor shortages, elevated commodity prices and potential global financial market volatility as downside risks to economic growth. In his address after the three-day meeting of the rate-setting panel, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said recovery in aggregate demand gathered pace in August-September, and it is reflected in high-frequency indicators, like railway freight traffic; port cargo; cement production; electricity demand; e-way bills; GST and toll collections. "The ebbing of infections, together with improving consumer confidence, has been supporting private consumption," he said, and added the pent-up demand and the festival season should give further fillip to urban demand in the second half of the financial year.
The next meeting has been scheduled for January 22, a day after the farmer unions hold their internal discussions on Thursday, farmer leaders said after the 10th round of talks ended at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi after nearly five hours of talks, including two breaks.
Forced to cross the Nanoi, a channel of the Brahmaputra, over 7,000 people uprooted from their homes and farms in Darrang district of Assam now use the stream's muddy water to drink and cook and defecate in the open as `Swachh Bharat' toilets built in their villages are now guarded by policemen who do not allow them to re-enter any part of the lands they have been thrown out of.
Later, there may be some tax relief aimed at the middle class and measures to benefit the sectors worst hit by Covid-19 and the resultant nationwide lockdown.
The government allowed sugar companies and distilleries to make hand sanitizers using ethanol. Sugar companies supply ethanol to oil marketing companies for blending with petrol.
