Piyush Goyal on Friday rejected reports suggesting that India is planning to hold off trade deal with the United States for several months.
New Delhi will substantially reduce tariffs on industrial and agricultural goods while continuing to protect sensitive sectors. Tariffs on some agricultural products that are not traditionally considered sensitive will be brought down to zero, while in the case of relatively sensitive items, duties will be reduced in a graded manner and quotas will be imposed.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced that an interim trade agreement between India and the US is likely to be signed in March and operationalised in April, with chief negotiators meeting in Washington to finalize the details.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched a strong attack on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party, accusing them of compromising India's interests on the world stage and selling out farmers and the poor during their time in power.
India and Russia are poised to sign multiple agreements to bolster cooperation in various sectors, including trade and healthcare, during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi. Discussions will also address the Ukraine conflict and efforts to increase Indian exports to Russia.
Next week's three-nation foreign tour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will see India and Oman sign a free trade deal. The visit will also pave the way for agreements with Ethiopia and Jordan to increase India's bilateral trade and investments.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his upcoming visit to India in December and expressed his intention to address the trade imbalance between the two countries, particularly concerning India's crude oil imports from Russia. He also lauded India's independent stance on international issues and highlighted the strong relationship between the two nations.
The letter by 'Sanyukt Kisan Morcha', which represents farmer bodies mostly from Punjab, comes against the backdrop of the government holding talks with several farmers organisations from different states who the Centre claimed have extended their support to the new agriculture laws.
At the PMO, policies are framed by factoring in analytical perspectives, implications, sustainability, and other dimensions.
The department of personnel and training has asked the Union Public Service Commission to recruit such specialists through "lateral entry" mode in 12 government departments/ministries, he said.
A eight-member central team, headed by Joint Secretary in Union Agriculture Ministry E K Majhi, will visit drought-hit districts of West Bengal on Wednesday.
Forty-five specialists will soon be joining key posts of joint secretaries, directors and deputy secretaries in different central ministries as part of the Modi government's ambitious plan to infuse fresh talent to further improve ease of governance.
In a letter to 40 union leaders, Union Agriculture Ministry Joint Secretary Vivek Aggarwal said the Centre is making all efforts with "an open heart" to find an appropriate solution to resolve all the concerns raised by farmers.
Johnson will be the chief guest at the event next month.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait said that the government, in its letter, mentioned that it wants to hold talks over its earlier proposal of amendments in the new agri laws.
Farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu had said that 32 farmer unions from Punjab held a meeting on Tuesday and discussed the next course of action.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The move to resume work in ministries comes nearly a month after the government issued work from home protocols in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has brought about a coup in North Block by bringing an Indian Foreign Service officer Venu Rajamoni as Joint Secretary to head multilateral institutions division.
According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research Director General Trilochan Mohapatra, the insects have attacked about 40,000 hectares of land.
This is the fourth such recruitment drive proposed to be undertaken by the Narendra Modi government which had in 2018 initiated lateral entry.
Here is an explainer on the functioning of the seven-year-old body.
Minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh said it is a major step to place the right talent for the right role.
Candidates will be short-listed for interview on the basis of the information provided by them in their online application, the statement said.
The initiative is being called lateral recruitment to senior positions in the government.
Puducherry has been battered by heavy rains since the beginning of November and officials have assessed that such a quantum of downpour had not been seen in the last 100 years.
Yield loss due to natural calamity is calculated based on field reports and assessment of crop-cutting experiments by district and block agriculture officers.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that primary schools will be closed from Saturday in view of spike in pollution levels in the national capital.
India and Australia would now implement the free trade agreement on a mutually agreed date as the Australian Parliament on Tuesday approved the pact between the two countries. "BREAKING: Our Free Trade Agreement with India has passed through parliament," Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a tweet. The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AI-ECTA) needed ratification by the Australian parliament before its implementation.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a joint front of almost 40 farmer organisations, wrote a letter to the ministry of agriculture and farmers' welfare accepting the Centre's offer for dialogue and proposed December 29 as the next date for the meeting.
Even as the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries remains hostile, there is growing coordination between India and Pakistan on one multilateral forum - the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both countries have made two joint submissions at the WTO as co-sponsors in the past two months. In June, Pakistan joined India, Cuba, and 44 African countries, seeking sufficient flexibility in intellectual property rights for developing countries to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a bid to pitch India as an uplinking hub, the government on Tuesday announced relaxation in guidelines for compliance for television channels and also made a 30-minute daily public interest broadcast mandatory, mainly for entertainment channels.
The statement of the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's office comes on the heels of India issuing a notice to Pakistan seeking a review and modification of the IWT in view of Islamabad's "intransigence" in complying with the dispute redressal mechanism of the pact that was inked over six decades ago for sharing of waters of cross-border rivers.
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
'It has been an ongoing process, talking to the relevant ministries about eliminating leakages and curbing non-core expenditure in various schemes.'
At present, perpetrators of such acts often get away unscathed as the penalty for the first time offender is just Rs 50 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960.
In the past, India strongly rejected references made to Jammu and Kashmir in a previous joint statement by Pakistan and China.
Rashtriya Janata Dal's Manoj Jha saw the move as an attempt to have a 'committed bureaucracy'.
With almost all opposition parties too backing the 'Bharat bandh' and many announcing parallel protests in support of the farmers, the Centre has issued an advisory directing the states and Union Territories to tighten security and ensure peace is maintained.
Making it clear that his party had not sought Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's removal from the post, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Friday said that he was, however, not averse to the idea. "NCP has not demanded (to Congress) that Chavan be replaced," Pawar said.
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