Debates on changing the name of India to Bharat continue to spark a crisis of identity without answering moot questions that stare us in the face. Ramesh Menon asks a few of those questions that do not have easy answers.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) said it is investigating two matches from this month's Wimbledon Grand Slam after bookmakers flagged "possible irregular betting patterns".
Reacting sharply to the Global Hunger Report 2021, the Women and Child Development Ministry said it is 'shocking' to find that it has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO estimate on proportion of undernourished population which is found to be 'devoid of ground reality and facts, and suffers from serious methodological issues'.
Many often stereotype Andhra Pradesh politics as being star-struck, but as Pawan Kalyan's political journey shows, stars are turning out to be a passing cloud.
Those who consider the rupee as a proxy for virility have started thumping their chests and dreaming of dethroning the dollar from its coveted position, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
For the banking system a new cycle starts in FY2024. It's fraught with fresh challenges on asset quality and profitability, warns Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'There appears to be no relation between a government with a majority and GDP growth as the stock market and its analysts seem to fear.'
India ranks 51st in annual appreciation in housing prices with a 2.1 per cent rise in rates during the October-December quarter of the last year, according to property consultant Knight Frank. In its latest research report titled 'Global House Price Index - Q4 2021,' Knight Frank said that India has climbed up five spots to the 51st rank in Q4 of 2021 against the 56th rank in Q4 of 2020. Turkey witnessed the highest annual price growth rate by 59.6 per cent in the year to Q4 2021, followed by New Zealand (22.6 per cent), Czech Republic (22.1 per cent), Slovakia (22.1 per cent) and Australia (21.8 per cent).
The world governing body of chess, FIDE, has postponed the Olympiad, scheduled for August 5-17 in Moscow, to 2021 owing to the coronavirus pandemic. The global chess body issued a statement saying that the Olympiad and the FIDE Congress, slated to be held in August in Moscow and Khanty-Mansiysk respectively, are rescheduled to the summer of 2021 at the same locations.
The number of serious incidents has more than doubled in the last seven years.
"We suspended the deal as a simple preventive measure, since there are complaints that could not be explained well by the complainant, so we opened a preliminary investigation last week," said Rosario, head of the Federal Comptroller General.
"Provide enough infrastructure and money to carry out surveillance and set up a robust routine surveillance machinery for the country to monitor any and every infectious disease'
'The phone numbers of over 40 Indian journalists appear on a leaked list of potential targets for surveillance, and forensic tests have confirmed that some of them were successfully snooped upon by an unidentified agency using Pegasus spyware,' report Anuj Srivas and Kabir Agarwal in The Wire.
Axis Bank was the top loser in the Sensex pack, tanking over 28 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, Maruti and L&T. NSE Nifty nosedived 1,135.20 points or 12.98 per cent to settle at 7,610.25.
If you are a budding developer and interested in Web3, chances are that you will be headed to one of India's largest-ever meetings of Web3 developers, being held by Polygon, a Web3 platform. The company's ongoing "Web3: Made in India Tour" is expected to see close to 4,000 developers coming together at the inaugural Polygon Connect event in Bengaluru on December 1. The event highlights the growing dominance of Web3 developers from India, as well as the sector's rising interest to investors, who continue to invest in startups despite a funds crunch.
The government, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it 'has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever'.
Bajaj Finance was the top loser in the Sensex pack, tanking over 10 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, Maruti, M&M, Tech Mahindra and ONGC. The gainers included ITC, Bharti Airtel, Kotak Bank and Hero MotoCorp.
'Any entrepreneur who wants to create companies on blockchain will have to move outside India.' 'A ban will also wipe out the entire asset investing class that has built up in India.'
"The concrete actions are a stern indication that Government of India is making all out efforts to increase vaccine production in the country as well as attracting foreign vaccine manufacturers to supply the required vaccine doses for national Covid vaccination programme," the ministry in a statement.
Addressing a press conference, NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr V K Paul said the question of the third wave keeps coming up because the population is still 'very vulnerable' to the infection.
The air of expectancy around the election outcome has kept things heated.
Currently, the country is using two 'made-in India' jabs -- Covishield and Covaxin -- to inoculate its billion-plus population and has administered 20 crore doses since launching the world's largest vaccination drive in mid-January. A third vaccine, Russian-made Sputnik V, has been approved by the government and is being used on a smaller scale at present.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan ceases to be the mascot for government's Incredible India campaign as the contract for it has expired.
In this pandemic, why can't we have multiple locations for various disciplines, all of it then merged into a virtual convergence called the Olympics instead of one massive event in one city, asks Shyam G Menon.
The UK judge who handed down his judgment on Thursday in favour of the extradition of Nirav Modi to face charges of fraud and money laundering in India said he had found no evidence of adverse political influence in the case, as claimed by the diamond merchant's legal team.
While the debate over the political, financial and health implications of holding the Tokyo Olympics in July rages around the world, triple jump gold medal hopeful Will Claye believes a crucial voice is not always being heard - that of the athlete.
Amid a raging debate over privacy offered by messaging platforms like WhatsApp, terrorist groups and their handlers from Pakistan are switching to new applications which include one developed by a Turkish company, officials in Srinagar said.
Such businesses outperform non-family firms by 3% in first six months of CY20, says Credit Suisse report.
Small stocks made a dashing comeback in 2020 after delivering negative returns in the last two years as increased retail investor participation in pandemic times saw small-cap index surging up to 31 per cent and outperforming the bigger benchmark gauge. This year turned out to be eventful for the equity market, witnessing bearish and bullish sentiments at different points of time. While the initial part of COVID-ravaged 2020 saw the bears in full force amid concerns related to the pandemic and lockdowns hurting economic activities, bulls made a comeback towards the latter half of the year. As the market swayed with many lows as well as highs, small and mid-cap indices emerged as markets favourites in 2020.
'In India, there's currently evidence the Centre has not managed a smooth vaccine rollout.' 'It is now falling back on blaming states, which are facing vaccine shortages,' points out Devangshu Datta.
The government said that the unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.
Beijing will be intently watching Washington's response for any hint of weakness. Xi Jinping, who feels China has a limited window of strategic opportunity, will be emboldened to take additional initiatives in the Indo-Pacific and specifically against India and Taiwan, warns Jayadeva Ranade, the former senior RA&W officer and China expert.
The government does not expect the stock markets to fall below the levels witnessed on Monday, which saw benchmark Sensex plunging by nearly 700 points during the intra-day trade.
'For the moment in Eastern Ladakh, it is unlikely there will be any more escalation of this conflict,' observes Colonel S Dinny (retd) who served as Commanding Officer of an infantry battalion deployed in the Pangong Tso area.
While three of the top five FPIs - Capital, Government of Singapore, and Vanguard - have seen their investment value more than triple, India's benchmark indices have risen just 70%.
India is currently under the 21-day lockdown since March 25, with only essential services exempted to contain the fast-spreading virus.
'Wine is an indicator of the quality of life,' says Alok Chandra.
The company faces fine of up to $18 billion in the US.
'This debate is going on all over the world and everybody is saying that only GDP cannot estimate the real (economic) situation of a country.'
'The first year of the Modi government's second term has laid the roadmap for the future and we will embark on it with gusto,' promises Gopal Krishna Agrawal, the BJP's national spokesperson on economic affairs.
