Rapid strides in digital payments notwithstanding, the Indian economy will likely remain cash-dependent for many years to come, at least that's what the automated teller machine makers and cash logistics companies are betting on. After growing at over 20 per cent for most of 2020, currency in circulation growth fell to 8.5 per cent as of October 29 this year, shows data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The reason for the steep rise in currency last year was the uncertainties related to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, where people preferred to hoard cash to meet exigencies.
The best films are not necessarily the most successful -- that would be another list altogether -- although sometimes quality and commerce do converge.
Two years after the Centre's flagship village electrification scheme Saubhagya concluded with the government claiming 99.9 per cent success, several states have added close to 1.1 million rural households that remain to be connected to the electricity grid. This new list includes earlier unwilling households that have now agreed to have a metered connection and also those built or discovered in the states' surveys since 2019. Assam and Uttar Pradesh are the states that have the majority of such new additions.
Senior bureaucrat Pradip Kumar Tripathi has been appointed as secretary (coordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat as part of a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Monday.
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said the construction of a new Parliament building and redevelopment of the Central Vista Avenue, stretching from Rashtrapati Bhavan to the India Gate, will be completed in a time-bound manner.
The Centre is reportedly considering imposing an urban transport tax and a congestion tax on private cars to control gridlock on urban roads. Growth has increased incomes and car ownership -- but not road space.
The government has specific information that Naxals are trying to expand their bases in urban centre and may try to target cities, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said Thursday.
With the flood situation in Assam remaining critical on Monday and affecting a population of nearly 43 lakh in 33 of its 35 districts, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma directed air dropping of food and other relief materials in areas where there is heavy inundation, officials said.
Launched by the ministry of housing and urban affairs, the ease of living index (EoLI) is aimed at providing a holistic view of the country's cities. These will be done on parameters like services provided by local bodies, effectiveness of the administration, outcomes generated through those services in terms of liveability and citizens' perception of the outcomes.
Gota has to decide if he could order elder brother Mahinda's arrest as the agent provocateur of Monday's violence. Then he has to prepare for an interim government, in which no one would now want to become a cabinet minister leave alone prime minister, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP is not taking the AAP challenge lightly. Amit Shah has cautioned party insiders to ensure that AAP does not cross a vote share of 24%. He has always seen AAP as a much more significant challenge than the Congress, observes Ramesh Menon, author, Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The festival season has already begun in the west and south of India with Ganesh Chaturthi and Onam, respectively, and consumer companies are witnessing a pick-up in sales compared to pre-Covid levels. Retailers, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer durables companies expect their sales to grow in double digits this festival season compared to pre-pandemic times, as there are no curbs on movement now. Adani Wilmar expects sales volume to be higher by 15-20 per cent as rural India has largely witnessed good monsoon rains, and employment has picked up in urban areas.
'Some of the launches may get deferred due to the semiconductor shortage, which is unlikely to get resolved before the second half of 2022.'
Swedish furniture giant IKEA is set to launch its first small-format city store at Worli, Mumbai, on Thursday. IKEA, which is part of the Ingka Group, had set up its first store in the country in Hyderabad in August 2018, which was followed by a store in Navi Mumbai in December last year. The company has an online presence across Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Surat, Ahmedabad and Vadodara.
North Block is concerned that when India is trying to attract more investment, putting up restrictions on audit firms could create an avoidable bad advertisement.
In an apparent swipe at previous Congress dispensations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that attempts were made after independence to erase contributions of many great people besides India's culture and values, and asserted that the country is now correcting mistakes of the past.
Sukanya Verma lists everything you can catch in the world of streaming.
The Planning Commission has not been central to the policy making process since the mid-1960s, says Nitin Desai.
In terms of stock selection, India continues to benefit from two phenomena - the big getting bigger and availability of quality stocks in relative abundance compared with its Asian peers.
'The Indian economy has been subsidised by the poor.'
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed ways to strengthen cooperation in key areas such as defence, trade and investment with India expressing keenness on setting up industrial bases for it to boost ties.
'The Shaheen Bagh model of bullets and biryani won't work. The RSS looked at a template that would play to Bengali pride and harp on the state's development. Mamata's slogan to defeat the Left Front was 'Bengal awake and arise'. She promised to check the flight of capital from Bengal to far-flung states and usher in a renaissance. The RSS wants the BJP to pitch this line because it feels Mamata hasn't delivered on her promises.'
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The CPI(M) on Thursday slammed the Planning Commission estimates on poverty levels in the country, saying these made "a mockery of life and death struggles" of the people, amidst continuous rise in prices and "massive" slashing of subsidies for the poor.
Extreme rainfall that occurred in Tamil Nadu is "highly localised" and is part of the natural variability of the monsoon system and its attribution to global warming is "not established", the Rajya Sabha was told on Monday.
'I play an urban girl after a very long time.' 'What I saw in her was that she was very, very, gutsy.'
While both politicians tweeted about a slew of issues, they focused less on developmental issues related to the rural poor -- with Modi devoting a mere three per cent and Gandhi five per cent of his tweets to development, Abhijit Mazumdar, an assistant professor at Park University in Missouri said.
Mumbai, India's financial capital, is set for a mega transformation with a massive patch of land opening up for redevelopment; a new metro railway ready to start services by the year-end; and the country's oldest railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, going for modernisation with private sector participation. Work on Mumbai's second airport will start from next month, while construction of the sea link connecting central Mumbai to Navi Mumbai has already moved into a fast lane despite Covid-induced lockdowns. Also, a coastal road project, connecting Nariman Point to Worli, is under way and will help decongest the city to quite an extent. Of all these mega infrastructure projects, the one that has a huge potential to change the city's skyline is the Eastern Waterfront project - to be built on the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land.
I thought Saudi Vellakka a glancing, loving depiction of the judicial system as a pageantry filled with performers trying to do right by everyone, do everything by the book, and failing despite their best attempts, observes Sreehari Nair.
Jio-BP, the fuels and mobility joint venture between Reliance Industries and UK's BP, on Thursday announced a partnership with BluSmart - India's first and largest all-electric ride-hailing platform - to set up a network of commercial large-scale EV charging stations. As part of the partnership, Jio-BP will set up these stations for passenger electric vehicles and fleets across the country, the company said in a statement. "Through this partnership, both companies will collaborate in planning, development and operation of EV charging infrastructure, at suitable locations across cities where BluSmart operates," it said.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
The humiliation for the Telugu Desam Party was such that it could cross the double digit in only five urban local bodies while other opposition parties Bharatiya Janata Party and Jana Sena Partymade little gains.
The Centre directed Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on Sunday to prevent dumping of dead bodies in the Ganga and its tributaries, and focus on their safe disposal and a dignified cremation after corpses were seen floating in these rivers following a spurt in the number of coronavirus cases.
India is currently home to 52 unicorn startups and one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems.
Indian companies are expecting generous tax incentives from the Union Budget that will help them invest more in building capacities in the coming years. While the productivity-linked incentives (PLIs) are a good start to spur local manufacturing, the government should also take steps to boost consumer demand, which is not showing encouraging signs, say chief executive officers (CEOs) of India Inc. Statistics released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that Indian banks had sanctioned loans worth Rs 75,558 crore in 220 new projects - a record low - in the pandemic-hit financial year ending March 2021. This is not showing any signs of a significant pick up in the last nine months of the ongoing financial year.
The CBI has said the mall belongs to Yadav who has made investment in the project through a company.
Mandaviya said this is the second phase of the Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package as the Central government had given Rs 15,000 crore earlier for setting up Covid-dedicated hospitals and health centres across the country.
Supertech Managing Director Mohit Arora said the company will file a review petition in the SC.
Land acquisition costs have gone up to almost 50% of total project cost.
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