With the Omicron variant of coronavirus slowly spreading its tentacles in the country, a number of states enhanced surveillance to trace, track and quarantine contacts of COVID-19 positive persons while Delhi began genome sequencing of samples of all infected people and has prohibited Christmas and New Year gatherings.
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal's recent comments on large e-commerce players have reignited the debate about their impact on smaller offline retailers. On Wednesday, Goyal said that the rapid growth of e-commerce in India is a "cause for concern" and is diminishing the market share of small, mom-and-pop stores by offering high-margin products such as consumer electronics and apparel at discounted rates.
Meanwhile, Twitter users across countries on Saturday complained of facing issues accessing the micro-blogging website amid a buzz of a global outage.
India Inc on Thursday pitched for lowering income tax burden on common man, increase in capital expenditure, and firm steps to contain food inflation in their nearly two-hour long interaction with finance minister Nirmala Shitharaman ahead of the Union Budget. During pre-Budget consultation with Sitharaman, the industry leaders and associations also urged the government to focus more on infrastructure development with a view to maintaining the economic growth momentum. The industry leaders also laid stress on boosting the MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) sector, considered a backbone of the Indian economy and main employment generator.
'We need to be far more careful given the fact that while this is group lending, it's essentially unsecured.'
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said that vaccination against COVID-19, in the present scenario, is critical to break the chain of transmission.
The welfare schemes of the government, particularly Lakshmir Bhandar, have had a major impact on the electoral outcome.
Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan held a high-level review meeting through video conference with the chief secretaries, health secretaries and National Health Mission (NHM) directors of these states, the health ministry said. 'These states are witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases since the last three weeks as lockdown rules have been eased and inter-state migration has been allowed,' the ministry said in a statement.
As the triangular political contest in Telangana intensifies, many believe that for the regional major BRS, it is a battle for survival after being routed in the assembly polls held late last year. What is haunting the party this time is the scams, the 10-year anti-incumbency factor, and family dominance in the party.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
Driven by mega investment proposals from Tata Power, Adani group, Singapore's Sembcorp Industries and Leap Green Energy, among others, the two-day Global Investors Meet 2024 in Tamil Nadu is expecting an infusion of around Rs 6.64 trillion. This is likely to create around 2.69 million direct and indirect jobs in the state. "Due to our tireless efforts and your participation during this Global Investors' Meet, we have attracted an unprecedented Rs 6.64 trillion of investments.
FHe is the only one among 17 ministers from the outgoing council of ministers who lost the Lok Sabha polls to be reappointed minister.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Few finance ministers announce any taxation measure that could upset the stock market. Ms Sitharaman decided to take that risk, observes A K Bhattacharya.
The Biju Janata Dal on Wednesday announced its support for the candidature of Bharatiya Janata Party's Ashwini Vaishnaw in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in Odisha
The NHRC said that it has received several complaints regarding the ongoing farmers' protest.
The move will help industries in pushing authorities for exemption under various labour laws at a micro-level, along with demanding changes to bring greater flexibility in their operations related to retrenchment, safety standards, and collective bargaining.
Most of the pharma units are failing in documentation, and validation processes, and many don't have full-fledged quality control laboratories.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader and Fisheries Minister Anitha Radhakrishnan accepted the mistake on Thursday after the Tamil Nadu government was left red-faced after an advertisement for a new Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that featured a rocket with the flag of China.
The benchmark indices are set to end their five-month gaining streak, but the market breadth continues to hold strong So far this month, stocks gaining have outnumbered those declining, a sign that the bulls still have the upper hand, even as the pullback in the S&P BSE Sensex and the National Stock Exchange Nifty indicates otherwise. On the BSE, 2,126 stocks have advanced and 1,955 have declined in August, translating into an advance/decline ratio (ADR) of 1.1.
Hundreds of rural women who gathered to collect forms for a newly announced government scheme in Jorhat district of Assam left their queues to greet Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who was leading the 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' through the area on Thursday.
'I found it unbelievable that L&T said 45,000 jobs were waiting to be filled because of unavailability of suitable skillsets.' 'So, when the Opposition sweepingly says there are no jobs, I'm sorry... I'm not saying it's raining jobs, but there are jobs. The (skill) gap has to be bridged.'
The Arunachal Pradesh government has launched an ambitious plan to build 50 mini hydropower projects along the border with China for electrification of remote villages that are facing challenges of poor connectivity and mountainous terrain.
The two key messages of Modi's over 20 minute-long address was, however, to virtually rule out any immediate nationwide lockdown, a move that had triggered a massive migration of workers from big cities last year and hit the economy hard, and to reach out to migrants.
The government on Thursday imposed import restrictions on laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, ultra small form factor computers, and servers with immediate effect. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a notification said exemption from import licensing is provided up to 20 items per consignment for R&D, testing, benchmarking and evaluation, repair and return and product development purposes.
Indian cricket fraternity reacts to Silkyara tunnel rescue
'If you take any ministry of defence project, Nibe is up there, getting orders.'
Addressing a press conference on measures taken during 21-days lockdown imposed from March 25 to contain the spread of Covid-19, MHA joint secretary Punya Salila Srivastva said the situation of essential goods and services is under control. To strengthen this situation, the home ministry has written to state governments that both inter-state and intra-state movement of trucks and goods carriers should be allowed during the 21-day countrywide lockdown announced by the central government irrespective of the cargo being essential or non-essential.
Indian shoppers accounted for 13 per cent of the total hours spent by mobile users across the globe on their shopping apps in 2023, next only to China in this regard. According to the "State of Mobile -2024" report released a few days ago by data.ai (previously known as App Annie), which looks into various segments of the app economy across the world, in the last calendar year, users in India collectively spent 12.84 billion hours on shopping apps. This represents an increase of over 73 per cent from the time they spent in 2020 and of more than 3.5 per cent over 2022.
The decline in demand and rise in raw material prices due to high transportation costs are the major problems faced by micro, small and medium enterprises in the last 27 months, according to a survey. The report by Bhartiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) also said that though markets have stabilised, about 57 per cent of the units that participated in the survey are struggling to get new orders for their merchandise. "Lesser purchasing power of consumers lead to reduced demand and increased raw material cost due to higher transportation cost with increase in fuel prices have been cited among key problems faced by entrepreneurs during the last 27 months," Lakshmi Venkataraman Venkatesan, founding and managing trustee, BYST, said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
'ELECTION INTERFERENCE! NEVER SURRENDER!' Trump wrote while sharing the mug shot photo on X.
The new scheme may be announced before the Lok Sabha elections.
In her Budget 2023-24 presentation, she also said the Centre will launch the 'Dekho Apna Desh' initiative to promote domestic tourism.
Banks will also consider requests from MSMEs for restructuring their stressed standard assets. So far, only 25 per cent of the around 1 million eligible MSMEs have taken benefit of the RBI's special dispensation.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
In a video interaction with chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Maharashtra and Kerala, where many districts have been reporting a high number of cases, Modi said the country stands at a point in its battle with the pandemic where apprehensions about a third wave are being continuously expressed.
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
Gold prices hit record high in the third week of March as fears of bank collapses and high inflation led investors to the traditional safe haven. Gold prices are often inversely correlated to dollar strength because the international price is dollar-denominated. The Federal Reserve's (Fed's) stance indicates that the dollar may appreciate further since it is prepared to keep pushing up policy rates. But demand for gold is also up - the World Gold Council claims central banks are buying in addition to private demand.
