Devastation struck Venezuela when oil prices started collapsing in 1982, following a global oil glut. The country's economy contracted overnight.
The challenge is to convince productive sectors that a lower general rate would benefit all and remove the prevalent system of favours targeted towards narrow industry and service sector groups.
Ratul Narain -- the entrepreneur behind Bempu -- tells Shobha Warrier that despite the challenges and frustrations, he is living his dream.
Modi, 68, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind at a glittering ceremony at the forecourt of majestic Rashtraparti Bhavan.
'China's growing nexus with Pakistan and the two countries' unresolved territorial disputes with India continue to pose a formidable national security threat to India,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) led by Nobel laureate R K Pachauri on Wednesday has commissioned a solar micro-grid connection (SMG) in Tanda village of Jagdishpur block (about 80 km from Lucknow) in Rahul Gandhi's Amethi parliamentary constituency.
Haley also said there was a plan for her to travel to India by the end of this year.
A Narendra Modi administration would believe more in decentralisation than would a Rahul Gandhi administration, says Arvind Panagariya.
'And Sir, you are at fault if they don't like you. 'You don't boast of your government's efforts to be the first one to bring in thousands of Indians back home without thinking for a second about their race, religion, language, orientation, or even citizenship,' says Sarang, a reader of Rediff.com.
From India's fight against COVID-19 to China face-off, Kovind spoke on several issues during the televised address.
While inaugurating the leadership summit of the US-India Business Council in Washington, DC, US Vice President Joe Biden said that there was no reason why the two largest democracies in the world should not continue to have a more productive relationship. Aziz Haniffa/ Rediff.com reports.
The CBSE will declare the date of re-examination probably on Monday or Tuesday.
'The majority of the spread is by people coughing, or sneezing or talking loudly, in a very short distance, two metres from one another, and a mask will prevent that sort of transmission.'
Of the nearly 4.6 crore people living as slaves globally, two-thirds, or 3.04 crore, are in the Asia-Pacific region, with the highest number in India.
The visit of Park Geun-Hye to India, though a symbolic one, will certainly give a further impetus to the strategic partnership between the two countries says Rup Narayan Das.
For the first time in our economic history a government has thought about more than 50 per cent of our economic activity instead of the five per cent represented by the Sensex companies, observes IIM-B professor R Vaidyanathan.
India scored a remarkable win on food security, but trade partners will now put pressure on New Delhi to provide meaningful openings for industrial goods and services and be more accommodative on liberalising tariffs.
Aditi Phadnis and Archis Mohan take a state by state takedown of the party's chances in the poll-bound states.
'When Hindus converted through inducements there was no hue and cry, but when reconversions took place, everyone cried foul. If re-conversions are bad, so are conversions.' 'Our government is not getting involved either in conversions or re-conversions. The BJP has nothing to do with it.' Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu in a candid interview.
The success story of Adani's Mundra Port in Gujarat, in terms of efficiency, technology and management, should be replicated at Vizhinjam to ensure that this ambitious project does not fail, say Shehzad Poonawalla and Riya Sinha.
'We eat first, they later; we sit on chairs and they on the floor; we call them by their names and they address us by titles,' writes Tripti Lahiri, author of Maid in India.
According to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an independent, think tank dedicated to shifting the world's focus to peace as a positive and tangible measure of progress, India ranks 143rd
Union Minister Shashi Tharoor's video address to an Indo-Pakistan entrepreneurs' event in Islamabad was abruptly cut off after he lambasted the Pakistani government for ceasefire violations on the Line of Control and suggested the civilian administration did not control the military.
ADB pegs India's GDP growth at 7.8 per cent in FY 2015-16
'The economy will pick up in 2020 or a little later... When it picks up, will it reach 10%, 8% or still lower? It all depends on how realistic are the diagnosis and the prescriptions that follow,' says Professor K J Joseph.
Modi's'Make in India' drive launched last September included laying out a model of "port-led" development that would support industrial growth.
The concept of social security is experiencing a renaissance in developing and emerging markets.
'The India-France relationship has been that of the elites of two countries, who appreciate each other's philosophical traditions -- whether it is ancient Indian civilisation and Sanskrit texts or the French tradition of Rene Descartes, Albert Camus, (Jean-Paul) Sartre... This is a drawback. It doesn't create the buzz, the excitement necessary for a relationship. We need more people-to-people contact, especially among students,' says former Ambassador to Paris, Rakesh Sood.
China continues to hold out on fingering Pakistan as the 'mothership of terror,' declaring Masood Azhar a terrorist at the UN, and India's membership of the NSG, says China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
'The threat that India faces and the threat the United States faces is not just to the homeland, but to our people and to our institutions wherever they may be.' In an exclusive conversation with Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com, US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal outlines the importance of Prime Minister Modi's visit for America.
An MoU on sharing hydrological information of the Brahmaputra River by China to India and another pact on amendment of the protocol on phytosanitary requirements for exporting rice from India to China to include non-Basmati rice were signed after the Modi-Xi talks in the eastern Chinese port city.
Making it easier to do business is a key element of our strategy, says Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.
Since the US and India broadly share similar interests in Sri Lanka, they should coordinate closely to ensure that the country preserves its democratic institutions, says Lisa Curtis
'Studying History, we come close to all of the messiness of human life -- we understand what motivates people, what makes them get along or go to war, what dreams they had for themselves and their futures.'
India has some ability to influence what the world order will look like, but it needs to make structural changes to the ministries of external affairs and commerce, and evolve formal coordination mechanisms with the ministries of finance and home, says Nitin Pai
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
'I went to slums in India which were quite destitute, where people were clearly really struggling, but typically there is a sort of sense of purpose.' 'People are hustling.' 'What that tells you is that if the country was so organised in a way to give these people opportunity, then they would make something of it.'
Donald Trump on Wednesday started his maiden visit to Beijing with both sides inking deals worth $9 billion.
'Everybody says 5G and communication is important.' 'Everybody says automation, robotics, human computing interfaces -- people and machines working together -- is the future.' 'Everybody agrees that cybersecurity is something that is here to stay.' 'Everybody agrees that synthetic biology is important.' 'Instead of outlining thinking about industries for tomorrow and the future, let the evolutionary pathway be built in a way that it promotes robust, creative, thinking.'
"This is part of our policy to empower minorities with dignity and without appeasement," Naqvi said.
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