The IMF on Tuesday cut India's economic growth forecast by 0.5 percentage points to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year, with its chief economist Gita Gopinath saying that the slight downgrade is mainly due to the impact of the spread of the Omicron variant. "If you look at the 2021-22 fiscal year, we have a slight downgrade of -0.5 percentage points and for the next fiscal year 2022-23 we have a slight upgrade of 0.5 percentage points. So, growth for the previous fiscal year is now nine per cent and for this year now is at nine per cent. We moved it up slightly," Gopinath told reporters during a news conference in Washington. In its latest update of World Economic Outlook on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund has cut India's economic growth forecast to 9 per cent for the current fiscal year ending March 31, joining a host of agencies which have downgraded their projections on concerns over the impact of the spread of Omicron on business activity and mobility.
Devas Multimedia has seized $87,457.47 cash that ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation held in the US as it looked to enforce a $1.2 billion compensation it had won over a cancelled satellite deal, its lawyer said on Wednesday. Devas Multimedia America Inc had sought seizure of $145,000 but the actual recovery was $87,457.47 (a little less than Rs 70 lakh). This came after it secured a favourable order from the Eastern District Court of Virginia, Matthew D McGrill said.
Airline executives said the rule is conflicting as regulator's own rules permits a passenger to carry multiple other things like laptop bag, ladies' hand bag, blanket, item bought at duty free shops, reports Arindam Majumder.
At the rally in Shimla's Ridge Maidan to mark the eighth anniversary of becoming prime minister, Modi said, "Now our borders are more secure than they were before 2014."
Since India is one of the largest vaccine producers in the world, it is the country's 'moral responsibility' to fast-track vaccine development process to break the chain of coronavirus transmission, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said referring to the two vaccine candidates developed indigenously.
In the Kashmir Valley, we need to begin to make a distinction between an insurgent who fights the security forces and a terrorist who murders unarmed civilians, suggests Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
A technical advisory group of the UN health agency which met on Tuesday has sought "additional clarifications" from Bharat Biotech for Covaxin to conduct a final "risk-benefit assessment" for Emergency Use Listing of the vaccine.
There is little that Andreas Schmid, the Swiss-born chairman of Flughafen Zurich AG (Zurich Airport International AG), and Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), could have in common. But Schmid, whose company is building the Noida airport in partnership with the UP government, finds himself on the same footing as the firebrand Hindutva leader who rules the state. Both hope the Rs 30,000-crore ($4 billion) project, hanging fire for 20 years, shows some progress when UP goes to the polls in 2022.
'Even the mafia has certain ethics and follow certain rules, but Abu Salem was so ruthless, so inhuman, there was no ethics at all. He had no basic humanity in him.' India's foremost crime writer S Hussain Zaidi on the dreaded gangster.
Australia's medicines and medical devices regulator on Monday formally recognised India's Covaxin, a vaccine against the coronavirus as the country's border was reopened for the first time in nearly 20 months.
While the CPI-M in a statement after the secretariat on Friday maintained that Balakrishnan, who is also a Polit Bureau member, had sought leave for further treatment which had been accepted, the leader of opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala dubbed the move as a delayed dawning of wisdom.
A confrontation with the Taliban in Kabul in this fading light of a twilight zone would have been sheer madness, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Our family philosophy is to build a bridge between India and Britain.'
The Biden administration has come under criticism from several quarters, including from members and supporters of the Democratic party, for not releasing surplus COVID-19 vaccines to India when the country is experiencing its worst-ever public health crisis.
The improved outlook on the Government of India announced by rating agency Moody's might need to be viewed with some scepticism. There is no doubt the performance of the Indian economy has sharply improved from the deep trough it hit last year. But the ability of the second largest global ratings agency to assess an upside and downside before events make everyone wise about India has been dismal for a long time, as the chart shows.
The key is to act and not wait and watch before the limited window of opportunity shuts, argues Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
A partial United States government shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the US-Mexico border entered its 23rd day on Sunday making it the longest shuttering of federal agencies in the country's history, with no end in sight. The closure, which began on December 22, broke a decades-old record by a 1995-1996 shutdown under former US President Bill Clinton that lasted 21 days.
Lavasa, a career bureaucrat, joined as Election Commissioner on January 23, 2018, and being senior most on the poll panel would have become CEC in April next year after the term of incumbent Sunil Arora ends.
Given the costs, you would need to be a high-value target for a government agency to spend this sort of money, points out Devangshu Datta.
Anil Pahwa, Logan-Fetterhoof chair professor of electrical and computer engineering, Kansas State University, was last month named among the 13 Jefferson Science Fellows. The prestigious program is administered by the National Academies and supported through partnerships with the science, technology and engineering academic community, professional scientific societies, the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development.
In charge of dope control at the IPL for the very first time, the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) might have to outsource the task of sample collection given the high cost of handling the exercise when the event is held in the UAE later this year. The next best option for NADA will be using the services of UAE's National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO) or contact Sweden's International Dope Test and Management (IDTM) which has done sample collection and testing for the last 12 seasons of the IPL.
First a scientist and then a businessman, founder chairman Krishna Ella quit his faculty position at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, United States, in 1996 to return to India.
Qatar, Iran and Kuwait on Sunday summoned India's Ambassadors and the key Gulf nations expressed their strong protest and condemnation of the controversial remarks of a BJP leader against Prophet Muhammad.
India's economy is unlikely to see double-digit growth and may grow between 8 per cent and 9 per cent this fiscal year (2021-22, or FY22), against the estimated 11.5 per cent, according to leading economists and rating agencies. The downward revision of growth projections to as low as 10 per cent is mostly on account of stringency in restrictions by states, relatively slow vaccination pace, and the possibility of a third wave of the pandemic. However, they say the impact will not be as severe as the first wave, and expect the first quarter to see positive growth.
India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti said India remains on the side of peace.
The balloon, which was being used by the People's Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters.
Joe Biden's B3W proposal aims to bring democracies together. India should come up with its own plans to contribute to the initiative, states Rahul Mishra.
'India needs offensive and defensive security measures to protect itself.'
Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath tells Indivjal Dhasmana high-frequency indicators for the third quarter of 2021 indicate momentum in economic recovery in India.
In a hard-hitting statement, Shah said that the report about the alleged snooping has been amplified by a few whose only aim is to do whatever is possible to humiliate India at the world stage.
The perfunctory management of external affairs has left India's foreign policy establishment largely unprepared to manage the consequences of dramatic international developments, says Nitin Pai.
The PFI is alleged to have been continuously involved in anti-government propaganda and spreading the narrative that Muslims were being persecuted in India.
The Congress is likely to enforce the 'One family, one ticket' formula granting exemption to only another family member who has been doing 'exemplary work' for the party for a period of at least five years, as the grand old party promised big ticket changes while acknowledging that it had not kept pace with changing times.
India has not only been decked in tricolour hues in the lead up to the 76th Independence Day celebrations, but also put under a heavy security blanket, right from Delhi, the epicentre of the mega celebrations, to Jammu and Kashmir.
"The president pledged America's steadfast ongoing support for the people of India, who have been impacted by the recent surge in the COVID-19 cases," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily news conference.
Corporate social responsibility rules that kicked in on Friday also set a three year time-limit for any CSR project, among a series of other amendments introduced by the government.
While its operating radius remains secret, a back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates it can easily strike targets 1,000 kilometres away and return to base.
Investigators searching for clues in the sighting of two drones over an Army station on the outskirts of Jammu city on Monday had pinned hopes on a CCTV image suspecting it to be of the remote control but it turned out to be of a bundle of newspapers.
'By killing innocent people, they are using Sun Tzu's tactics of 'kill one, terrify thousands.'
