Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday gifted a Gond art painting, a specimen of Sanjhi art form and a wooden hand-carved box to his fellow Quad leaders from Australia, the US and Japan, sources said.
It's a strategic approach in which the country's military and defence mechanisms evolve continuously in tandem with emerging threats. The new strategy anticipates events and prepares to counter those proactively.
Lisa Curtis, who served as deputy assistant to President Trump and as National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021, said she expected the same bumps for India and the US, as in Trump's first term, including tariff, dependence on Russia over arms supply and oil purchase from Iran. Curtis, however, said both countries could never enter an alliance but develop a partnership that is "short of an alliance". She hoped them to achieve a cooperation that deters China, but also prepares both countries in case of a crisis or conflict, be it in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, or another flare-up on the India-China border.
The value of foreign portfolio investment (FPI) in Indian equities was at $542 billion in the March quarter of 2023, a decline of 11 per cent from the preceding year, largely due to the exodus of foreign money from the domestic market, according to a Morningstar report. In comparison, the value of FPI in Indian equities was $612 billion in the January-March quarter of 2022. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the value of FPI in Indian equities fell by 7 per cent from $584 billion recorded in the three months ended December 2022.
Retail inflation hit an eight-month high of 6.07 per cent in February, remaining above the RBI's comfort level for the second month in a row, while wholesale price-based inflation soared to 13.11 per cent on account of hardening of crude oil and non-food item prices, government data showed on Monday. The previous high for retail inflation was 6.26 per cent in June 2021. The consumer price index (CPI) based retail inflation, which is taken into account by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) while deciding its monetary policy, rose mainly because of costlier food items, as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
The Indian startup ecosystem recently celebrated the 100th unicorn milestone. It came after a month of no big fund announcements. Compare this to 2021, when three to four unicorns were being added every month. Nevertheless, the 100th unicorn needs to be celebrated since the first unicorn was announced in 2011 - 11 years ago.
The military conflict around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine -- Europe's largest nuclear plant -- has raised fears of an accident worse than the Chernobyl accident in 1986.
Newly-elected Conservative Party leader and prime minister in waiting Liz Truss is among the senior British politicians known for championing deeper India-UK strategic and economic ties, describing them as a "sweet spot" of global trade dynamics.
India has a difficult relationship with China but it is 'perfectly capable' of managing it, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, rejecting the European construct that New Delhi's position on Ukraine could impact global support to it if its problems with Beijing increases.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China believes that state-to-state interactions should be in line with the trend of the time which is peace and development rather than exclusivity.
The domestic aviation industry is expected to report a net loss of Rs 25,000-26,000 crore this fiscal with elevated jet fuel prices and fare caps continuing to pose a major challenge for the airlines' profitability, domestic rating agency ICRA Ltd said on Thursday. The domestic airlines, however, are likely to post a reduced net loss of Rs 14,000-16,000 crore in the next financial year on the back of a "notable recovery" in air passenger traffic and lower level of debt, ICRA said. The ratings agency also estimates that the industry will require an additional funding in the range of Rs 20,000-22,000 crore during FY22-FY24.
'...and then get scaled down somewhat.' 'It will be difficult for any side to occupy meaningful territories, maybe just a bit here and there, and the destruction may vary on either side.'
Overcoming its initial concerns, national reinsurer GIC Re has contributed to the formation of an insurance pool to cover most imports from Russia. While it will be called the fertiliser pool with a corpus of Rs 500 crore, it can be used to cover the risks of oil and gas imports too. This was decided by a clutch of Indian insurance companies, led by the state-owned ones. GIC Re's share is about 40 per cent in the pool. Last month, GIC Re had shot off a letter to all non-life insurance companies that underwrite marine risks not to ask it for reinsurance of cargoes that originate from Russia.
'Putin is in danger of losing face in his Ukrainian adventure. His bluster is a response to this.'
'Trump will absolutely back New Delhi on its position that Pakistan must do more to crack down on terrorists that threaten India.'
Paris 2024 gearing up to face unprecedented cybersecurity threat
He said the border situation remained a big problem as the military has been holding its ground for two winters.
Would Ukraine be such a pushover if it had that nuclear stockpile?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
The Opposition MP pointed to a set of changes taking place in India that had caught the Congress and UPA government off guard, such as a shift from rural to urban.
India is trying hard to erase Indonesia's wariness about New Delhi, building security cooperation in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. If Indonesia decides to buy the Brahmos missile, it would further strengthen relations between the world's most populous nation and the most populous Islamic country.
'There were moments when you didn't know if you will get out of there alive.'
The Maltese resolution envisages a win-win situation, which the two parties fail to see in their mood to bring each other to book. It may well mark the beginning of the end of war, predicts Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Unsurprisingly, Trump shared Modi's podcast with Fridman on his Truth account.' 'The intentions of Trump, a transactional president, are never easy to tell.' 'We will know in the next fortnight if and when he unfolds reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods, whether Modi's flattering words made any significant difference to Trump's compass,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The external affairs minister reiterated India's position on Afghanistan and highlighted its humanitarian support to the war-torn country, including the supply of wheat, medicines, vaccines and clothing.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday that he would like to have a TV debate with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to resolve differences between the two neighbouring countries.
Equity investors have become poorer by more than Rs 18.74 lakh crore as the market continued to remain bearish for the fifth session on the trot on Thursday. The 30-share BSE Sensex tumbled 1,158.08 points or 2.14 per cent to end below the 53,000-level at 52,930.31 points on Thursday. Markets have been falling for five straight sessions and the BSE benchmark has tumbled 2,771.92 points or 4.97 per cent during this period.
IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), in its Q4FY22 results, said the company's banking, finance services and insurance (BFSI) crossed the $10 billion milestone. This includes revenue from financial products, services and platforms. For Suresh Muthuswami, who recently took over as Chairman of North America, one of the focus will be to grow this percentage going ahead. The first step to grow the US market is hiring. Muthuswami said that the company will be hiring more in the US, especially from the campuses. In FY22 TCS hired over 7,000 people in the US and going ahead too the numbers will be similar.
A sharp sell-off in the Indian equities markets after a spike in crude oil prices should not be surprising. Historically there is a negative correlation between stock valuations in India and the price of Brent crude oil, which is the benchmark for the Indian crude oil basket. Between 2011 and 2014, crude oil traded above $100 a barrel for an extended period, the Sensex-trailing price/earnings (P/E) was 18X, on average, during the period, nearly 22 per cent lower than the current index P/E of 23X.
The Russian defence ministry said that Ukrainian forces hit six rockets of HIMARS at the temporary deployment point of one of the units of Russian armed forces in Makiivka region of Donetsk.
'The clean break between Russia and Europe that this foolish attack is creating may actually last long.' 'It will undermine Europe and benefit the US and China.'
India's total purchase of oil from Russia in a month is probably less than what Europe does in an afternoon, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.
'It makes sense to have gold in one's portfolio keeping the political and economic risks of 2024 in mind.'
India has been at the forefront of the years-long efforts to reform the security council, saying it rightly deserved a place as a permanent member.
An escalation in the already simmering tensions between North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, and Russia and Ukraine could prove to be a bigger worry for the markets over the next few months rather than central bank policy action, said analysts. The markets, they said, are still not fully factoring in this possibility. "The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia is another geopolitical worry.
Out of 24,230 IIT and NIT grads, about 8,000 students didn't find any takers during campus placement drives this year.
India's net oil import bill could widen to $101-104 billion in current fiscal from $96.1 billion in 2023-24 and any escalation in the Iran-Israel conflict could impart an upward pressure on the value of imports, ICRA said on Tuesday. The domestic rating agency said based on its analysis, lower value of Russian oil imports is estimated to have led to savings of $7.9 billion in 11 months (April-February) of 2023-24, up from $5.1 billion in 2022-23.
Former world number one Andy Murray said he would donate his prize money won from tennis tournaments in 2022 towards aid efforts for children affected by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un met at a remote space centre in Russia's Far East region Amur on Wednesday, September 13, 2023.
Several German government websites,including Chancellor Angela Merkel's official page, have been crippled in an unprecedented cyber attack claimed by a pro-Russian group demanding that Berlin sever ties with the regime in Ukraine, just ahead of their leaders' meet.
India decisively withstood global headwinds in 2023 and is likely to remain as the world's fastest-growing major economy on the back of growing demand, moderate inflation, stable interest rate regime and robust foreign exchange reserves. Despite widespread pessimism witnessed among the developed nations and the worsening geopolitical situation, India recorded a gross domestic product (GDP) expansion of 6.1 per cent in the March quarter. The growth moved up to 7.8 per cent in the June quarter and was 7.6 per cent in the September quarter. For the first six months of this fiscal, the growth was 7.7 per cent.
