'The answer for a quicker boost to growth is simple -- run a much larger deficit, use the resulting public resources to ensure adequate price support for agriculture, subsidise wage costs of MSMEs and accelerate public sector construction-intensive activities,' advises Nitin Desai.
The appointment of new expenditure secretary comes a month-and-a-half ahead of the Budget for 2020-21 to be presented on February 1.
Violation of the provisions entails a punishment of a jail term up to five years or with fine up to Rs 1 crore or with both, the ordinance released by the Ministry of Law and Justice on Thursday said.
Climate change has hampered the ability of the forecasting agencies to accurately predict severe events and weather bureaus across the world are focusing on augmenting the observational network density and the weather prediction modelling to improve predictability, India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra has said.
Though agriculture ministry officials are confident of a bumper harvest due to record increase in kharif acreage, experts and farmers said the on-ground situation in some crops is not that encouraging as incessant rains since the last few weeks and pest attack could impact the final yield.
Bharat Krishak Samaj demanded that the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana should be replaced with a new crop insurance and compensation scheme.
India's exports to China have increased by 16.15 per cent to USD 20.87 billion in 2020 from USD 17.9 billion in the previous year on account of healthy growth in the shipments of ores, iron and steel, aluminum and copper, according to the data of the commerce ministry.
The Indian High Commission made its displeasure known despite the British government earlier reiterating that the three New Delhi laws on agricultural reform were a "domestic matter".
Nearly 45 per cent of this value is likely to be delivered by 3 sectors - consumer goods and retail, agriculture and banking and insurance, the Nasscom report said.
Monalisa Mondol, a law student from Tripura, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what she would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
The new cabinet, predictably, has a sizeable number of Yadavs and Muslims, though members of other sections of the society also find a place.
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.
A decision in this regard was taken in the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Fresh guidelines issued by the Union home ministry on Wednesday permit industries operating in rural areas to run from April 30 with strict social distancing norms.
The dark cloud of locusts, spread across two kilometres, crossed the suburban city, touched the Delhi-Gurugram border but did not enter Delhi.
In what is seen as the first sign of China's exasperation over Russia's Ukraine war, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday raised 'questions and concerns' over the conflict in his meeting in Samarkand with Russian President Vladimir Putin who thanked Beijing for its 'balanced position' on the crisis.
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.
The US on Thursday raised concerns over India's Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill and draft non-personal data governance framework, claiming these could potentially threaten innovation and economic growth. In its latest 'Special 301' Report, the US Trade Representative (USTR) kept India on the priority watch list, maintaining the country remains one of the world's most challenging major economies with respect to protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP). In December 2021, a joint parliamentary committee released a report recommending changes to the PDP Bill, 2019, that could undermine important IP protections in India.
The high-level panel also asked the government to work towards re-orienting subsidies in a targeted manner from the crop sector to the non-crop sector and redesign the electronic National Agriculture Market.
Recognising that peaceful protests are a hallmark of a thriving democracy, the United States has said that it encourages dialogue between the protesting farmers and the Indian government to resolve their differences.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a tweet said the rights to peaceful assembly and expression should be protected both offline and online.
The country's exports grew 5.37 per cent year-on-year to $27.24 billion in January 2021, mainly driven by healthy growth in pharma and engineering sectors, according to provisional data of the commerce ministry. Trade deficit during the month narrowed to $14.75 billion from $15.3 billion in January 2020. It was $15.44 billion in December 2020. Imports in January 2021 rose 2 per cent to $42 billion.
Tuesday's meeting at the PM's residence, attended by all the five secretaries in the finance ministry besides top officials of other economic ministries and NITI Aayog, cleared a five-year vision plan for the government to make India a $5-trillion economy by 2024.
Much of the rural recovery story is based on the premise of agriculture doing well. Even if it clocks a growth of 2.5-3 per cent this year, it is still just around 15 per cent of the overall GDP. The non-farm sector, which constitutes a bigger portion of the overall rural economy, is now hampered by disruptions and lockdowns.
India must be prepared for a big, fat fuel import bill in FY23 - barring any further avatars of the Covid virus - as refiners crank up runs, or crude processing rates, to meet the growing demand for fuels, and crude prices soar. Capacity additions by an Indian state-run refiner will reinforce the need for foreign crude. Demand for all fuels is expected to increase by 3-8 per cent next fiscal from 2021-22, reaching pre-pandemic levels, according to analysts and industry experts.
British lawmakers will debate the issue of press freedom and safety of protesters in India next Monday in response to an e-petition which had crossed the 100,000-signature threshold required for such a debate, the House of Commons Petitions Committee confirmed on Wednesday.
Banks have started refunding borrowers the compound interest charged on specified loan accounts during the moratorium period. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked all lending institutions, including non-banking financial companies, to ensure that the scheme of waiver of interest on interest for loans up to Rs 2 crore for the six-month moratorium period is implemented by November 5.
The agriculture ministry also reiterated it is ready to find a "logical solution" to the issues raised by protesting farmer unions.
The global body added that national meteorological and hydrological departments in both countries are working closely with health and disaster management agencies to roll out heat health action plans.
India's appetite for imported crude oil may wane in fiscal year (FY) 2023 from record levels in pre-pandemic 2019-20 fiscal as higher oil prices, a spillover from the conflict in Ukraine, and increasing use of biofuels affect domestic demand for petroleum products. Brent crude surged to a nine-year high, shy of a July 2008 record $147.50 a barrel, before declining to around $100 a barrel - but the volatility in commodity rates will slow global economic growth and use of fuels. Demand for all oil products may grow at only 2-3 per cent in FY23, slower than the current fiscal and nearly half the 5.5 per cent growth estimated by the petroleum ministry, according to industry officials.
Nitish Kumar has to make an existential choice: Between governance and politics, argues Aditi Phadnis.
The Centre on Wednesday announced a raft of post-retirement employment possibilities for 'Agniveer' like priority in recruitment to the central armed police forces (CAPF) and Assam rifles but that failed to assuage the concerns of the opposition Congress which warned the 'transformative' 'Agnipath' scheme will reduce the operational effectiveness of the armed forces.
Hours after the Joe Biden Administration reacted to the farmer protests, India on Thursday said the comments must be seen in their entirety and compared reactions to the violence at the Red Fort with those seen after storming of the United States Capitol.
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.
India has called the remarks by foreign leaders and organisations on protests by farmers as "ill-informed" and "unwarranted", asserting that the matter pertains to the internal affairs of a democratic country.
India summoned Canadian High Commissioner Nadir Patel, and told him that the comments made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others in his cabinet on the farmers' protest constituted an 'unacceptable interference' in the country's internal affairs and these actions, if continued, will have a 'seriously damaging' impact on the bilateral ties.
A group of Indian diaspora organisations launched a rose campaign on the occasion of Valentine's Day on Sunday in support of the farmers protesting against the new farm laws in India.
The government also proposed promoting 'one product one district' for better marketing and export of horticulture crops. It also called on states for early implementation of three key central model laws on land leasing, agriculture produce and livestock marketing and contract farming.
Fresh guidelines were issued by the government on Wednesday for enforcing the second phase of the coronavirus lockdown, with the Union home ministry barring all kinds of public transport and prohibiting opening of public places during this period.
China on Thursday told Pakistan's new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that it will always put its "all-weather ally" as a priority in its neighbourhood diplomacy as it praised his commitment to promote the USD 60 billion CPEC initiative.
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