Ajay Banga was on Wednesday appointed the next president of the World Bank, becoming the first-ever Indian-American to head the global financial institution which said it looks forward to working with him at a time when it's tackling the toughest development challenges facing developing countries. "The executive directors of the World Bank today selected Ajay Banga as president of the World Bank for a five-year term beginning June 2, 2023," the bank said in a press statement. In February, President Joe Biden announced that the US would be nominating Banga, 63, to lead the World Bank because he is "well equipped" to lead the global institution at "this critical moment in history."
The Congress Working Committee, the highest decision making body of the grand old party, passed a resolution to this effect. The CWC, chaired by Sonia Gandhi earlier discussed the issue along with that of the farmers' agitation and the COVID-19 vaccination drive and passed three resolutions on each of them.
One fallout of Rahul Gandhi's disqualification will be reflected in the Opposition's role in Parliament and related institutions.
The RBI's Monetary Policy Committee brainstormed the impact of any future shocks on the inflation trajectory and stressed monitoring the cumulative effect of monetary policy actions over the past one year, which is still unfolding, revealed minutes of the rate-setting panel released on Thursday. The minutes of the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), headed by Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das, also indicated it would be premature to declare an end to the monetary tightening cycle, which started in May 2022 to check high inflation following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. The central bank, which effected six back-to-back hikes in the key short-term lending rate (repo) since May 2022 to check high inflation, decided to take a pause early this month.
Sonia aid the Congress has been consistent over the years in its strong belief that both the Palestinians and Israelis have the right to live in a just peace.
According to the final recommendations of an expert committee, the weight of primary (unprocessed) food items will go down by 0.5-1.0 percentage points in the new series compared to the current one
'The purported claim that Israel can defeat Hamas and everything 'would go back to normal' is completely absurd.'
In his opening remarks at the virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Modi also said that some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of their policy and the grouping must not hesitate to criticise them.
'But he was very quick and did a very stylish adab.' 'Of course, I didn't expect him to hug.'
From India's fight against COVID-19 to China face-off, Kovind spoke on several issues during the televised address.
Although the Disaster Management Act for Covid containment measures, considered a hindrance in conducting the census, was withdrawn in March this year the Centre has not taken any further action on conducting the much-delayed population enumeration.
Rising prices of cereals and concerns over rice production in the 2023-2024 crop year due to insufficient rains followed by floods could be the possible causes.
India's economy continues to be robust, but downside risks such as rising crude oil prices, adverse weather conditions, and the global banking crisis outweigh the upside potential in gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the current financial year (FY24), the finance ministry said on Tuesday in its Monthly Economic Review for March. "We reiterate that downside risks to our official forecast of 6.5 per cent for real GDP growth in FY24 dominate upside risks," the review said. "Opec's surprise production cut has seen oil prices rise in April, off their lows of low-seventies per barrel in March.
This is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to media persons ahead of his interaction with them in New Delhi on Friday
He is not good at thinking through laws and policies. His lockdown produced chaos and misery and didn't stop Covid. His GST finished off thousands of companies and reduced the amount of tax government collects to such an extent that he cannot pay state governments any more, observes Aakar Patel.
Economist Jayati Ghosh noted that the word 'freebies' indicates the class position of those who use it.
Greenwashing is making misleading or false environment-friendly claims about a product. Consumers in India currently do not have any way of telling whether a claim is authentic or greenwashing. And one never hears of action against any company for making false claims of being environment-friendly.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the states were free to announce farm loan waivers if they had the fiscal space and that there would be no shortfall this year in divestment and non-tax revenues.
It entered India in 2006, with the aim of tapping the promising consumer market.
Sanath Jayasuriya is both 'angry' and 'sad' to witness his beloved Sri Lanka grapple with enormous financial crisis and civil unrest but the former cricketer is expecting that democracy will soon be restored in the island nation.
Among the panels announced on Thursday is the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) to be headed by the prime minister with Shah as the other member.
The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.
'He told senior journalists a few days after the Babri Masjid demolition, 'Jo hua theek hua. Maine isliye hone diya ki BJP ki rajniti hamesha ke liye khatam ho jaye.'
Beyond announcements and optics, key projects have hardly moved under the Yogi government, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
'The Israeli government is saying, "OK, leave northern Gaza, because we're going to fight Hamas there".' 'But Hamas is not stupid. They are going to put militants in southern Gaza too. And then what's Israel going to do?' 'At some point are they going to say, 'Leave southern Gaza too because we want to fight Hamas there? Go across the border to Egypt"'? 'That's what people are worried about. Because they fear that once they cross the border into Egypt there will be no coming back.'
The 17 related ministries have been combined into seven different groups, including some infrastructure departments, in a bid to ensure synergy and better results.
During his address after flagging off the train via video-conferencing, Modi said his government's policies are clear and intentions transparent in reforming the agriculture sector.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said underlying economic activity in India continues to be strong, but external factors will cause some "dent" to the economy. Speaking at the BFSI Insight Summit 2022 organised by Business Standard, Das said the RBI tracks 70 fast moving indicators and most of them are in the "green box". It is the external sector, mired by a fear of recession or clear visibility about slowing growth in a large part of the world, where the challenges lie, he said, adding that the impact of external demand will "dent" the economy.
Except for Xi, 69, all top officials including the number two leader, Premier Li Keqiang will be replaced in the massive reshuffle to follow in the days to come, which included a new foreign minister replacing the incumbent Wang Yi.
'They are not tom-tomming what a great thing the Supreme Court decision is.' 'If they say it was a great thing, the public will react because people suffered and are still suffering.'
If you have seen Zwigato, Param Kumar's story will sound familiar. Laid off from his job as a repairman at a Gurugram-based water purifier provider, he now delivers groceries and food for a mobile-based delivery app, in Delhi. Kumar, who started making deliveries last August, told Business Standard that he is working longer hours than his older salaried job as an RO repairman, and has no paid leaves or health insurance. Kumar is part of India's estimated 7.7 million-strong force of gig workers.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the central bank saw economic growth slowdown in February, prompting it to cut rates ahead of the curve and wondered why markets were surprised with the decision to pause rate reduction. Noting that there is a need for an "informed and objective discussion" on the country's economy, Das said the RBI would do "whatever is necessary" to address growth slowdown, spikes in inflation as well to ensure good health of banks and non-bank lenders. The apex bank went for five consecutive rate cuts starting in February this year, making it a cumulative reduction of 1.35 per cent.
The government has unleashed a slew of reforms to attract greater investments including higher foreign direct investment in defence and opening up the railways infrastructure sector, relaxed labour laws, launched campaigns like the Make in India for re-invigorating manufacturing, Clean India and Digital India, among others.
The top court said it is not satisfied with the efforts of the Centre as well as the states on the issue of registration of workers in unorganised sectors.
In a televised address to the nation, Mahinda, who is under growing pressure to quit due to the worst economic crisis facing the island nation, said that he understands the people's sufferings.
Some of the Congress's new-found enthusiasm for hitting the streets will show its result in the Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka elections. That is when we will know if the Congress will go to the regional parties or the parties will come to the Congress.
Can the leaky public distribution system, or PDS, deliver the subsidised grain to two-thirds of the population?
At $2.6 trillion, the Indian economy is currently ranked sixth in the world behind the US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK.
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.
'If an election promise has to be credible, silence on practical questions doesn't help matters,' notes T N Ninan.