During Hasina's visit, which is her first after Modi assumed office in 2014, the two sides will be signing at least 25 pacts in various key sectors including civil nuclear cooperation and defence, but any agreement on the Teesta water sharing is unlikely to be inked.
In a pre-Budget meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the corporate leaders highlighted several issues, including certain income tax matters which were coming in the way of mergers and acquisitions or slowing them down and roles that need to be played by state businesses to prosper at the ground level.
Heading G20 will give India a foreign affairs year like it has never had in history. You can trust Narendra Modi to exploit this to India's benefit. And, of course, to his own in his election year, explains Shekhar Gupta.
Few people know Ratan Tata as well as R K Krishna Kumar does. Widely perceived to be among the managers closest to Tata, Krishna Kumar assesses Ratan Tata, the man and business leader, in this exclusive interview to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
But use of that word -- privatisation -- is not encouraged. This seems to be a classic case of reforms through subtle signals, observes A K Bhattacharya.
China's GDP jumped a record 18.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2021, riding on strong domestic and foreign demand and aided by recovery from a low base in early 2020 when Covid-19 stalled the world's second-largest economy, according to statistics released on Friday.
'Their dharma propels them to pay their workers; otherwise, they know the boys would starve.' 'At the same time they will not allow their business to suffer,' observes Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The government will seek Parliament's approval for Rs 37,000-crore additional spending on infrastructure development in the second batch of supplementary demands for grant. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced additional budget of Rs 25,000 crore as capital expenditure (capex) on roads, defence, water supply, urban development and domestically produced capital equipment. Besides, the central government approved issuance of a special interest-free 50-year loan to states of Rs 12,000 crore for infrastructure development.
Perhaps the calculation is that economic recovery will have been achieved before the next general election comes around, but such assumptions can come unstuck if current directions are not reversed quickly, cautions T N Ninan.
In an unusual advice to Bharatiya Janata Party Members of Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his party MPs not to show him respect by touching his feet or greeting other senior leaders by touching their feet.
The hit to economic activity will be mostly confined to the first quarter. And a third wave, if it materialises, is unlikely to be hugely disruptive for the economy, predicts T T Ram Mohan.
We can make a beginning by openly acknowledging the Russian help in 1971 victory when President Putin visits India on 6 December 2021. Showing gratitude to a friend is part of our DNA, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt Ltd (SPNI) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) on Wednesday said they have signed definitive agreements for their merger following conclusion of an exclusive negotiation period during which both parties conducted mutual due diligence. In a joint statement, the two companies said they have "signed definitive agreements to merge ZEEL with and into SPNI and combine their linear networks, digital assets, production operations and program libraries". The agreements follow the conclusion of an exclusive negotiation period during which ZEEL and SPNI conducted mutual due diligence, it added.
Processes are at an advanced stage for a number of assets of the Centre and central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to be monetised. The assets include office space, apartments, factories, land, power transmission assets, sports stadia, gas pipelines, and telecom assets.
India's rank inched up by just one position to 130 in last year's Doing Business Survey by the World Bank.
SEZs account for just about a third of India's merchandise exports (and roughly the same proportion of services exports). Yet, the notion of creating global manufacturing centres of the kind that propelled China to superpowerdom retains a durable appeal within the Indian policy-making establishment, notes Kanika Datta.
Modi's critics will say that he has put up cement and steel structures, but weakened the institutions of governance whereas Nehru strengthened them, observes T N Ninan.
Though there have been no cancellations of contracts by invoking the force majeure clause, a number of clients - especially in the worst-affected sectors like travel and hospitality, oil and gas, as well as manufacturing - have started asking for reducing level of IT support.
It will bear fruit in the next five years, which is why FDI is so strong. The foreigners clearly know what Indians don't, asserts T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch his dream 'Swachh Bharat' campaign on Thursday.
The Survey noted that while women account for almost half of India's population, their participation in labour market is almost one-third and has been declining.
Replying to a short duration discussion on COVID-19 management in Rajya Sabha, the minister said technology transfer to several companies has started and they will begin production in the coming days to reduce vaccine shortage in the country.
If the fear of ED could drive the powerful people of today to be honest or at least be minimally corrupt, will it not be a great thing for our nation?, asks Sudhir Bisht.
An alert government in Delhi should have begun government-to-government discussions with Moscow the moment it came to know that Russians were developing a vaccine. That is to say, almost an year's time has been lost, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
We will find it difficult to exceed an average of 5 per cent growth in the medium term, warns Shankar Acharya, the former chief economic adviser.
The two sexual assault charges stem from an incident in 2012, court documents showed.
A look into the state of Dalit entrepreneurship in the country.
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.
The government has used four methods to value the assets that it is looking to monetise under its Rs 6-trillion National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP). The value of the assets on the block is indicative that the government is expected to realise either in the form of upfront accruals or by the way of private sector investment, NITI Aayog said in its report. Valuations are essentially estimates, so multiple methodologies are useful to get a range, said Manish Agarwal, infrastructure expert and co-founder of AskHowIndia.org. Different valuation methodologies depend on the different assumptions that are being considered for valuing a business, he said.
'Make in India' could suffer the same fate as did privatisation and the command economy, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce suggested discussions at the highest level between the India and the United States administration to sort out the issues relating to NJ Bill to prevent outsourcing of any work from public sectsector enterprises.
At present, the EPFO is mandated to invest 20-45 per cent of its incremental funds - of around Rs 1.5 trillion - in debt-related instruments.
While acknowledging Shivaji's naval contributions, questions are being raised about the inadequate acknowledgement of Chola sea-power in southern Tamil Nadu, which dates back by a few centuries, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan says the government should take advantage of the peaks in the Indian equity markets right now and sell stakes in PSUs while prioritising spending to get the economy back on track. The upcoming Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1 should look to provide "relief to the poorer households and small and medium enterprises," he said. And then move on to getting the economy back on track.
Rediff.com does a quick checklist on what the two manifestos have to say on hot-button issues of the day.
IT, FMCG and manufacturing sectors are less attractive to foreign portfolio investors
Of the seven surveys presented under Modi govt, predictions of three were quite close to the actual GDP growth rate, one saw the base year change in between, but the last three were way off the mark.
A government panel examined the records of employees surveyed by Labour Bureau's quarterly enterprises surveys and mapped it with the EPFO's subscribers and found "unexplained variations" between the two.
The proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, that are envisioned to protect consumer interests, may further compound the impact of multiplicity of regulations on the e-commerce sector, the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) had told the ministry of consumer affairs. IACC, the apex bilateral chamber for Indo-US business, had told the government that the proposed amendments would increase compliance liabilities that risk severely impairing the growth of the sector.
'You cannot fight a disease as complex as COVID-19 without a carefully calibrated, localised response.'
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