Some vaccine frontrunners are in advanced stages of trial and could hit the market by early next year, making the task of securing "last mile connectivity" and ensuring that nothing goes wrong before the shot is administered more urgent.
Implementing the Food Ordinance is the bigger challenge and there are many provisions of the National Food Security Bill which need to be expanded and strengthened.
Hard and unpopular decisions are needed - not just another round of financial repackaging to sort out the discom mess.
Instead of relying on technology that is not in their control, businesses should stop using SMS based OTPs and start using other software-based or hardware-based token authentication, which are in their control, says Venkata Satish Guttula.
'There is a sense within the government and Modi that things are not as good as they were in 2019.'
Human memory about policy issues is short. That alone can explain why many are deliriously happy with his latest slogans and ignore seven years of poor 'doing business' climate, taxtortion, extortionate oil prices, and high dependence on babus and the big State that has kept the enterprise system stifled, observes Debashis Basu.
'I can say with confidence that any future SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, developed anywhere in the world, would have to be manufactured in India, if it is to be affordable and of high quality.'
The system moved north-northeastwards at 20 kmph in the last six hours and is over west-central Bay of Bengal, 90 km from Gopalpur, 120 km from Puri and 210 km from Paradip, the weather office said in its 11.30 am bulletin.
The future of cryptocurrencies in India appears uncertain but that has not deterred young Indians from embracing the so-called 'fourth industrial revolution' world, where interconnectivity and smart automation, much of it relying on blockchain technology, drive human civilisation. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has repeatedly warned of macroeconomic instability and even "serious consequences" if cryptocurrencies turn mainstream. The country's monetary authority wants a China-like total ban on crypto, not even allowing these currencies to be treated as investments. Though Parliament's website had listed the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill as one seeking a total ban of cryptocurrencies in the country, it was not presented in the Winter Session. India now has the highest number of cryptocurrency investors in the world.
This columnist cannot pretend to be an economic expert but can certainly point out that the statistics being reeled out on a daily basis now, have added to the economic burden of the people, says Seema Mustafa.
It was supposed to be a panacea against corruption, leakage and a magic wand for financial inclusion. But everywhere you look are people who enrolled, only to fall through the cracks again.
Amid the low stock position at the electricity generating plants, state-owned CIL has asked its subsidiaries to refrain from conducting any further e-auction of coal, except special forward e-auction for the power sector, till the situation stabilises. The development assumes significance as the supply of coal is being prioritised to the power sector to replenish the dwindling stock in the wake of reports of an electricity crisis looming large. "In view of the current low stock position at the powerhouse end, supply of coal is being prioritised to the power sector to replenish the dwindling stock...coal companies are advised to refrain from conducting of any further e-auctions of coal with the exception of special forward e-auction for the power sector, till the situation stabilises," Coal India said in a recent letter to its arms, including Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL), Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL).
Expressing commitment to augment the country's infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday proposed to significantly enhance capital expenditure to Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the next fiscal, besides creating institutional structures and giving a big thrust to monetizing assets to achieve the goals of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Sitharaman said NIP, that was launched in December 2019 with 6,835 projects, has now been expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure ministries have been completed. "For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided Rs 5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21," the finance minister said.
The fact sheet also asked people to inform the vaccinator or a supervising official about their medical condition before taking the vaccine.
The pre-Budget proposals sent to the finance ministry aim to bring uniformity in tax treatment for investments in different financial sectors, mitigate hardship to retail taxpayers, and encourage participation in mutual funds.
Sebi on Monday imposed a penalty totalling Rs 15 crore on senior officials of Franklin Templeton AMC and its trustee for violating regulatory norms in the case of winding up of six debt schemes in 2020. However, a spokesperson of Franklin Templeton said they disagree with the findings in Sebi's order and intend to file an appeal with the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). A fine of Rs 3 crore has been levied on Franklin Templeton Trustee Services Pvt Ltd and Rs 2 crore each on Franklin Asset Management (India) Pvt Ltd President Sanjay Sapre and its chief investment officer Santosh Kamat, according to the Sebi order. In addition, the regulator imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore each on fund managers -- Kunal Agarwal, Pallab Roy, Sachin Padwal Desai and Umesh Sharma -- as well as former fund manager Sumit Gupta.
Dr M Ponnavaikko, vice chancellor, Bharathidasan University explains why the Indian education system requires needs to be revamped.
India must streamline reforms, only then it will see success.
Supreme Court allows more instruments to use the biometric card.
Vaccinating 100-200 people in each session per day, monitoring them for 30 minutes after administering the shots for any adverse event and allowing only one beneficiary at a time are among the guidelines issued by the Centre for the COVID-19 inoculation drive.
The NDA government will be following the footsteps of its predecessor, the UPA, which had introduced the concept of "loan mela" to boost credit by directing banks to lend to people through public meetings.
Sanjeev Nayyar visits an Amma canteen in Chennai, and comes back impressed
'I'll give it to the vaccine manufacturers without guarantees, take the payment in advance and give me the supplies.' 'The moment you give me one lot of supply, I'll give you more.'
As of July 13, at least 111 countries, territories and areas have reported detection of the Delta variant, and this is expected to continue to increase, becoming the dominant variant globally in the coming months.
After embarrassing his own government by publicly thrashing its ordinance on convicted legislators in public, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday trained his guns at the Maharashtra government for rejecting the Adarsh Inquiry Commission report.
During an over three-hour hearing on the matter relating to oxygen crisis and shortage of medicines to treat COVID-19 patients in the national capital, the court observed that the "problem lies with the Delhi government" and directed nodal officer Udit Prakash to ensure supply of oxygen by cylinders to hospitals and nursing homes "without fail".
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Can the leaky public distribution system, or PDS, deliver the subsidised grain to two-thirds of the population?
'Despite expanded testing the incidence remains low.' 'Therefore, the focus should be on specific districts where we need to improve the testing.' 'We should have a district-centric strategy.'
This will, of course, go a long way in meeting the promised fiscal deficit target of 3.6 per cent of GDP in 2015-16.
'What's the point in lamenting widespread toxic work culture, and the capitalist system that gives rise to it if there is no alternative?' 'Actually, there is,' says Ashish Sharma.
I kept insisting that Rs 100 notes were in short supply and there was an urgent need to augment the supply of 100 rupee notes while also rapidly bringing into circulation the proposed new Rs 500 notes. But this was easier said than done because all the note printing machines of the RBI were programmed for printing Rs 2,000 notes and required at least three weeks before the machines could print the new Rs 500 currency notes. The availability of currency paper posed another major bottleneck, and it had to be imported. It was decided to immediately start printing the Rs 500 notes. It was only when the supply of the new Rs 500 notes started improving and the process of change of cassettes at the ATMs gathered momentum that the situation began limping back to normal. A fascinating excerpt from former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar's The Custodian of Trust: A Banker's Memoir, five years after demonetisation, November 8.
'This is happening regardless of the Budget.'
She needs to find innovative ways to at least match the growth during Gehlot's rule.
The weekend lockdown will start from 8 pm on Fridays and last till 7 am on Mondays. Besides, prohibitory orders will be in force during daytime on weekdays, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said in a statement.
Tech giant Google on Thursday said it has reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India that were flagged by users and government agencies and those found to be violating its user safety policies were immediately removed from its Play Store.
He rued that people who work hard and honestly are put through enormous difficulties and Indians excel in making an ordinary task into an extraordinary one.
Ahead of India's annual budget presentation next week, IMF's chief economist Gita Gopinath has favoured the extension of the pandemic support measures, thrust on investment in infrastructure and expanding health sectors programmes like Ayushman Bharat, and a very credible divestment path for commercially viable companies. The Indian government has provided a lot of schemes for small and medium enterprises, most of which is in the form of liquidity support, Gopinath told PTI on Tuesday. "And you want to revisit it and see how effectively that is working and see whether additional support may need to be provided," she said while responding to a question on her recommendations to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ahead of her presentation of the annual Union Budget on February 1. It would be a good time for banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) to raise capital given the attractiveness of financing conditions at this point, she said.
The government will create an EV Venture Capital Fund, for financial support to start-ups in the segment. The overall aim is to make Tamil Nadu the preferred destination for EVs and component makers.
The disease could go down several paths. One possibility, the least likely, is that it will just disappear. The most likely is that it will have seasonal impact, says Devangshu Datta.
The government has opted for the RuPay debit card over the Aadhaar-based platform for "last-mile" authentication in its Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
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