After recognising its adverse health effects, the govt has now dismissed its own lab reports to conclude that the evidence against plastic is insufficient.
The GST rate on mobile phones will be hiked to 18 per cent while that on maintenance repair overhaul (MRO) services for aircraft will be lowered to 5 per cent with effect from April 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. The GST rate on handmade and machine-made matchsticks has been rationalised to 12 per cent from 5 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.
'Reports of hitherto 'atmanirbhar' breadwinners having to stand in line for a plastic bag of khichdi or, travelling thousands of kms with nothing but packets of biscuits, have not moved the prime minister,' observes Jyoti Punwani.
The first nationwide mock drill was held on January 2 which, the health ministry said, helped to iron out any glitches in the final execution and further refinement of the operational procedures.
The venue for Saturday's meeting was shifted at the last minute from the headquarters of the India Banks' Association in Cuffe Parade to avoid media glare.
The company faces fine of up to $18 billion in the US.
The National Investigation Agency on Saturday arrested an alleged operative of banned Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh terror outfit Rezaul Karim, believed to be in charge of transporting explosives to various places in Burdwan in West Bengal.
With all the brouhaha over GST, and (often) a limited understanding of the long-term forces shaping India's logistics sector, companies seem to have omitted factoring in some underlying trends that could shape supply chain excellence, says Neelesh Mundra.
'By the time the goods that were sent from December onwards reached stores in Europe, they became dead inventory as the stores there were closed by then.' 'Those that were in the warehouse there also became dead inventory. Those that reached the ports there also became dead inventory.' 'And what Tirupur produced in March is still here, and they have also become dead inventory.'
The lowest employability figure across roles was observed in Chennai with employability for the civil design engineer roles as low as 1 per cent.
'The answer for a quicker boost to growth is simple -- run a much larger deficit, use the resulting public resources to ensure adequate price support for agriculture, subsidise wage costs of MSMEs and accelerate public sector construction-intensive activities,' advises Nitin Desai.
It was amusing to hear Minister Jaishankar's argument of tech companies being influential non-State actors. If only he looked at his own party before saying what he did, notes Shyam G Menon.
'The new government will have to contend with slowing economic growth, weak private investment, anaemic exports and vulnerable external imbalances, a stressed financial system, mounting fiscal pressures (including high government debt-to-GDP ratios) and an exceptionally bad employment situation,' says Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
As campaigns against Chinese brands intensify and the virus keeps people indoors, Vivo plays it slow with a digital-first launch plan.
Excise duty on most products has been capped at 12.5 per cent
With fresh inputs on the Burdwan blast indicating pan-India existence of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday ordered immediate neutralisation of the terror modules of the banned group.
'The rise in unemployment, underemployment, discouraged workers and job insecurity is likely to continue, with very adverse consequences for the nation's economic well-being and social cohesion,' warns Shankar Acharya.
The government plans to rationalise trade margins for many other medical devices, besides stents and knee implants.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi attacked the Modi government of forcing everyone into silence at a function to re-launch the National Herald newspaper.
In the broader market, the S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices added 0.6% and 1.3%, respectively to touch their fresh lifetime highs.
What seems to have changed over the last two-three years is that earlier the CCI considered online as another channel for retail sales, while it now seems dividing the retail market into two -- online and offline, and looking at them separately, say competition law experts.
A call by the Traders Federation in Tamil Nadu to ban sales of Coca Cola and Pepsi soft drinks came into effect on Wednesday with its president A M Vikrama Raja declaring drinks as 'toxic' for consumption.
ILO acts upon a plea by 10 central trade unions objecting to the ordinances proposed to temporarily scrap labour laws in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, along with executive orders issued by at least 10 states to increase the daily working limit to 12 hours from eight hours, along with other labour law changes.
It emphasised that agricultural infrastructure needs considerable investments and hence Section 80IA benefits must be extended to all such investments like IT infrastructure, computers, VSAT, solar panels, water harvesting facilities, storage etc.
"This is the third year in a row that India makes to top 10 in Doing Business, which is a success which very few countries have done over the 20 years of the project, Without exception, the other countries that have done this are very small, population-wise, and homogeneous," Simeon Djankov, Director of Development Economics at the World bank told PTI in an interview.
A Priority Foreign Country is a status reserved for those nations that are the most egregious violators of intellectual property rights and have the most negative impact on US competitiveness abroad.
'For them life is very difficult since there has been no universalisation of PDS.' 'And let's understand that there are people who need ration instead of cooked meals.'
Raksha Bandhan festivities were little subdued this year owing to the coronavirus pandemic, with siblings having to rely on technology to wish each other.
Two-wheeler manufacturing giant Hero Motocorp Limited announced its association with the Junior Hockey World Cup, to be held next month, as the title sponsor.
'We are having an outsize impact not only on the lives of the customers and livelihood, but also the economy of India.'
'We are not yet out of the woods.' 'If India sees the South African or Brazilian type of mutations, our numbers will rapidly rise.'
Iran's decision to keep India out and welcome China to the scene is a huge strategic setback for India, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Deane De Menezes hopes to reduce the awkwardness and stigma around menstruation.
According to a senior government official, the plan is to do "collective bargaining" for certain medical devices and implants by assuring a bulk requirement to the manufacturers. "The requirement for these devices runs into millions. We assure them that the requirement is going to be in bulk. In return, they should offer us better rates," he said.
Economist Deepak Nayyar says economic openness, while necessary, is not sufficient, and is conducive to development only when combined with industrial policy.
Mandatory prescription of generic names is not a complete solution. Rather, in the absence of a range of approaches, it could mean passing the choice of selecting a drug from a doctor to a pharmacist, says Chandrakant Lahariya.
One should appreciate the sagacity and audacity of JRD and Nani Palkhivala in founding TCS on April 1, 1968. At that time there was no Microsoft or Intel, SAP or Accenture, much less Google.
They needed a person who could build and execute their vision: A frontiersman; a problem solver and an institution builder. It was their and India's good fortune that Faqir Chand Kohli more than measured up to their requirements and indeed laid the foundation to take TCS to unimaginable heights and to the giant success that it is today. Shivanand Kanavi salutes the incomparable F C Kohli, who passed into the ages last week.
Ahead of the Kumbh Mela from January-March 2019 at Prayag, the tanneries have been asked to shut down to stop discharge of effluents into the Ganga.
This crisis has arisen just as demand in India's auto sector started seeing some sort of revival after the nationwide lockdown in March/April.
