'It has been an ongoing process, talking to the relevant ministries about eliminating leakages and curbing non-core expenditure in various schemes.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has brought down the budgetary allocation for the fertiliser subsidy for FY21 to Rs 71,309 crore, from the RE of Rs 79,998 crore for FY20, while increasing food subsidy to FCI through "ways and means advance" to Rs 50,000 crore for FY21, from Rs 36,000 crore in RE for FY20, and under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to Rs 77,982 crore, from Rs 75,000 crore.
Five Congress legislators on Wednesday threatened to resign if senior party leader and minister K H Muniyappa's son-in-law Chikka Peddanna was given a ticket to contest from Kolar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, bringing into open the divisions in the outfit.
Vatsal Ramaiya draws wisdom from the Bhagvad Gita and correlates it to how you can build a decent corpus to achieve a peaceful retirement.
The chief minister met Shah on Wednesday night and held discussions regarding the supply of rice to the state, for its Anna Bhagya scheme, which provides an additional 5 kg of rice for each member of below poverty line families.
Wholesale price inflation remained in the negative territory for the fourth month in a row in July at (-)1.36 per cent, even though prices of food items, especially vegetables, skyrocketed. The inflation, however, has inched up from (-)4.12 per cent recorded in June fuelled by 62.12 per cent rise in vegetable prices. In July last year, wholesale price index (WPI) was 14.07 per cent.
Talks with government officials on VAT waiver fails.
The resumption of drilling with the auger machine is likely to speed up the rescue efforts.
Inflation in food articles during June stood at 2.04 per cent, as against 1.13 per cent in May.
Maximum cases of advertisement norms violations were reported from the healthcare sector during 2023-24, followed by illegal offshore betting and personal care categories, according to the Advertising Standards Council of India's (Asci's) Annual Complaints Report released on Wednesday. The healthcare sector accounted for a maximum 19 per cent or 1,569 of 8,229 advertisements scrutinised by Asci during the year. Illegal offshore betting accounted for 17 per cent, while the share of personal care advertisements was 13 per cent.
It would also be the fifth month of consecutive drops in the index.
The size of Reserve Bank's balance sheet increased by 11.08 per cent to Rs 70.47 lakh crore as on March 2024, leading to the highest-ever dividend payout to the government, according to the central bank's annual report. In actual terms, the increase was Rs 7,02,946.97 crore over Rs 63.45 lakh crore as on March 2023.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation on Wednesday said global commodity prices were far from easing in the short term owing to tight supply-demand situation and warned of flare ups over food shortage.The UN FAO director general said the world has 4-5 million tonnes (MT) of cereals stocks that can feed the global population for only 8-12 weeks.
Food inflation fell marginally to 16.24 per cent for the week ended September 25, on slight easing of supply side pressures, even as prices of cereals, fruits, select vegetables and milk remained high.
With fuel being the main input cost for the transport sector, rise in cost of operations is a given. The sector is unsure on the extent of being able to pass this on through rentals or to absorb it with higher volumes.
RBI in its monetary policy review on Friday is expected to suck out liquidity from the system to prevent spread of inflation to manufactured items.
The government on September 14 further reduced the stock limit on wheat traders, wholesalers and big chain retailers to 2,000 tonnes from 3,000 tonnes with immediate effect to control wheat prices, which are showing an uptick again after being stable for some time. Announcing the move, food secretary Sanjeev Chopra said that retail prices of key essential food items, especially wheat, rice, sugar, and edible oils, were unlikely to see any sharp rise in the upcoming festival season as the country had adequate supply and the government was keeping a close vigil on hoarders.
A dozen people lost their lives in various rain-related incidents in and around Chennai while personnel on fishing boats and farm tractors were engaged in rescuing stranded people on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday received Bhutan's highest civilian award, the 'Order of the Druk Gyalpo', making him the first foreign Head of the Government to receive the honour.
He also termed the draft notification issued by the state government providing Kunbi certificates to all Marathas as a mere 'eyewash', and said caste is determined by birth and not affidavits.
Fresh meat and seafood delivery unicorn Licious is intensifying its talent acquisition endeavours as it pursues profitability and readies for an initial public offering (IPO) within the next 24 months. Delightful Gourmet, Licious' parent company, has named 39-year-old Karishma Gupta as its new chief financial officer (CFO). Her appointment aligns with Licious' drive for profitable growth through an omnichannel strategy.
The cloud kitchen market in India will hit $1.05 billion by 2023. Just 13% of the total market has been utilised so far.
It is important to increase your intake of vitamin C through natural food sources, says Aarti Gill.
While there was a brief respite from the incessant downpour on Tuesday, collaborative efforts from the defence, national, and state disaster response forces took the lead in executing rescue and relief operations.
'I could not see my husband in the video...Whenever I get to see my husband, then only I can say he is safe'
'The private sector believes that some enablers in labour-intensive sectors like apparel, toys, tourism, and media retail, can unlock a lot of jobs.'
The trial of the Russian soldier was the first that Ukraine has conducted since the invasion related to charges that could be considered war crimes.
Residents grappled with stagnant water and power disruption in parts of Chennai and its suburbs on Wednesday, two days after Cyclone Michuang wreaked havoc in the metropolis and neighbouring districts, even as civic agency personnel stepped up relief and rehabilitation efforts.
Russia and Ukraine agreed last week to allow critical food supplies to flow to millions of impoverished people facing hunger worldwide.
'aris can be boiling hot in July. The choice of viscose over cotton was deliberate. Cotton would have crushed badly. We used viscose because it is a wood pulp fibre and lets you breathe. It is cooler than silk. We had to consider breathability because the athletes would be on a barge, in the heat, for up to five hours.'
The hapless voters fervently hope that they get to make a more equal choice in the next election and political discourse in the country becomes positive and more enlightened. One wonders if the masses would become more politically aware to discern good intent and performance from gimmickry, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
An ultra-violent film about violence, Kill's greatest accomplishment isn't its death count alone but to challenge our perception of violence, observes Sukanya Verma.
Why did Karnataka's economic prosperity fail to influence the nature of electoral promises made by political parties in the run-up to the assembly elections? asks A K Bhattacharya.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday underlined the need for not promoting any restrictions on the supply of energy and called for ensuring stability while once again emphasising on resolving the Ukraine conflict through diplomacy.
"Decision is already there that whichever commodity will be in short supply, to maintain demand-supply mechanism, we shall go for imports," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said addressing state agriculture ministers here. Already, there is a short supply of pulses and edible oil, he pointed out.
GDP growth of 7.7 per cent in the first half of this fiscal has "left sceptics gasping and woefully behind the curve", an RBI article said on Wednesday. It also stressed the buildup in the growth momentum is likely to be sustained. The article on the state of the economy published in the Reserve Bank's December Bulletin on Wednesday also said CPI-based retail inflation is expected to ease to 4.6 per cent in the first three quarters of 2024-25 from 5.6 per cent in November.
8 out of 10 households are planning to cut their tomato consumption if prices stay in the Rs 75-150 kg range over the next three months.
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
