Enthused by rising potato prices after a prolonged slump, Pradeep Sharma was planning to sow the crop on his 15-acre farm near Agra slightly earlier than usual. The delayed departure of the southwest monsoon also prompted his decision, since the good soil moisture would have saved at least one initial irrigation. But the acute shortage of diammonium phosphate (DAP), a crucial nutrient ahead of the sowing season for potatoes, nipped those hopes in the bud. DAP is the second-most used fertiliser in the country after urea.
Amid the scorching heat, with temperatures soaring between 47 and 50 degrees Celsius, irregular electricity supply has added fuel to the fire, aggravating problems for people, farmers, and the industrial sector. While the state's Bhajan Lal Sharma-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government claims to be improving the power supply, the opposition is trying to corner the government on the issue. Amid all this, undeclared power cuts are continuing in districts including the capital, that are already facing power cuts.
IndiGo on Monday said that around 30 aircraft are grounded due to "supply chain disruptions" and the country's largest airline is evaluating wet leasing of planes and other options to boost operations. At the end of September, the carrier -- also the world's seventh largest in terms of daily departures -- had 279 aircraft in its fleet. It operates more than 1,600 daily flights and currently flies to 100 destinations, including 26 international ones.
Time was when you turned on your car's ignition, all that happened was that the mechanical system fired up your engine and made it run. Today, the moment you do so, your stereo system probably lights up, connects to the Bluetooth on your smartphone, and lets you make calls through an audio assistant or play music from your phone, which you can hear on the car's speakers. All these smart features in a car are powered by semiconductors, or chips, as they are commonly called.
Over the weekend, many companies stepped in to ease the bottleneck in supply and transportation of oxygen, as demand ran high with the surge in cases.
The kin of the deceased created a ruckus at the entrance of the hospital alleging that the shortage of oxygen killed the four patients
The electric scooter juggernaut which has been picking up momentum with heady growth month-on-month is now slowing down. The combined number of registrations in April of eight electric two wheeler companies has seen a dip of over 1 per cent to 43,061 vehicles, according to data from the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways' site VAHAN. The reasons are the continuing shortage of chips, especially after the Ukraine-Russia war, and the spate of fires which have led to scooters being recalled by manufacturers.
More lives in Gaza are at risk from diseases than bombings, warns the World Health Organisation (WHO) amid the ongoing Israeli siege, Al Jazeera reported.
The plea, filed by Delhi's water minister Atishi, has made the Centre, Bharatiya Janata Party-governed Haryana and Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh parties to the petition and said access to water is essential for survival and one of the basic human rights.
Tata Motor's owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) on Tuesday reported a 68 per cent increase in retail sales for the first quarter ended June 30 at 124,537 units as compared with the same period of the previous fiscal, reflecting the continuing recovery in demand from the COVID 19 pandemic. The company had retailed 74,067 units in the April-June quarter of 2020-21. However, wholesales, in particular, were lower than demand would have permitted due to semiconductor supply issues affecting the global auto industry, JLR noted in a statement.
Responding to a question on the Rajasthan government's claim that there is a shortage in COVID-19 vaccine stock, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the central government regularly monitors the availability of vaccine supply in all states and UTs and their consumption on a daily basis.
The official said that the Centre needs to intervene as a large number of hospitals are affected due to the "stoppage of oxygen supply from Haryana".
At least 5,200 voters from three villages in Mehsana district of Gujarat on Monday boycotted the second and final phase of voting alleging the state government has failed to resolve their long-pending issues including water shortage.
Domestic passenger vehicle retail sales declined eight per cent in February as the companies continued to suffer production loss due to chip shortage, automobile dealers' body FADA said on Friday. The passenger vehicle (PV) sales dropped to 2,38,096 units last month, down 7.84 per cent from 2,58,337 units in February 2021. "Even though the passenger vehicle (PV) segment saw some launches and slight respite in supply due to better production, it was not enough to meet customer demand. "Vehicle waiting period thus remains similar to what it was in the past few months," FADA president Vinkesh Gulati stated.
Moody's Ratings on Tuesday said India's growing water shortage can disrupt farm and industry sectors and is detrimental to the credit health of the sovereign as rising food inflation and decline in income may spark social unrest. It said decreases in water supply can disrupt agricultural production and industrial operations, resulting in inflation in food prices and hence can be detrimental to credit health of sectors that heavily consume water, such as coal power generators and steel-makers.
Automobile dispatches from factories to dealerships across the country declined 23 per cent in February, as various supply-side challenges, including semiconductor shortage, and rise in vehicle prices due to the implementation of new regulations continued to impact demand scenario, industry body SIAM said on Friday. Wholesales of domestic passenger vehicles, two-wheelers and three-wheelers declined 23 per cent to 13,28,027 units last month, compared with 17,35,909 units in February 2021. Overall, passenger vehicle dispatches in February 2022 declined six per cent to 262,984 units, compared with 281,380 units in the same month of last year.
'The oxygen crisis is at its worst. It is adding more pressure on the functioning. No one is able to help'
The Delhi Jal Board has deployed patrol teams for the main water distribution network that carries raw water to the water treatment plants and then from them to the main underground reservoirs in different parts of the city, Atishi said in the letter.
The Agra administration on Tuesday ordered an enquiry after a video clip surfaced in which the owner of a private hospital in Agra is purportedly heard saying that he conducted a 'mock drill' in which oxygen supply was cut off for Covid patients for 5 minutes.
Sri Lanka on Tuesday deployed military personnel at State-run petrol pumps to monitor and manage fuel distribution amidst a shortage that led to serpentine queues of consumers outside filling stations.
Domestic exporters on Monday expressed concerns over the crisis in Bangladesh and said the developments in the neighbouring country would have implications on bilateral trade. However, exporters expect that the situation may normalise soon. According to exporters, they are already facing disruptions in exports to Bangladesh due to a shortage of foreign exchange in that country.
'It is not just the US and European opportunity, but it is a huge global opportunity.'
Petrol pumps in Mumbai, Nagpur and other parts of the state witnessed long queues on Tuesday as people came to fill up their vehicle tanks fearing shortage of fuel amid the protest by truck drivers.
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
Leading microchip providers Qualcomm and Intel say the chip shortage might last anything between four months to a year, perhaps even two years, depending on the various product categories - mobile devices, ICE, electric vehicles, appliances, data centres. Prakash Mallya, MD, Intel India and vice president, sales and marketing and communications group, said the spike in demand was huge, and cut across segments from PCs, phones, appliances and auto leading to the shortage.
In a series of tweets, the health minister said the availability of vaccines can be better understood by an "actual analysis of the facts".
A group of onion traders gathered at the Pimpalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), near Nashik, to inspect one of the season's final harvests of red onions as they look to place their bids. They were surrounded by farmers, who brought their produce here from different parts of the district. Farmers have reasons to be optimistic.
With just two days to go before the COVID-19 vaccination opens for the people above 18 years and only two days after Maharashtra administered the highest number of 5 lakh doese in a day, reports of the shortage of the vaccines poured in from various parts of the state on Wednesday including Mumbai, officials said.
'With the deployment of a higher degree of mechanisation, awarding contractual mining to MDOs and operational efficiency, we feel confident of achieving the desired target.'
Passenger vehicle retail sales in India witnessed an 11 per cent year-on-year decline in December as semiconductor shortage continued to impact the segment, automobile dealers' body FADA said on Wednesday. The passenger vehicle (PV) retail sales last month fell 10.91 per cent to 2,44,639 units from 2,74,605 units in December 2020. "The month of December is usually seen as a high sales month where OEMs continue to offer best discounts to clear the inventory due to change of the year.
Container prices have shot up by up to 300 per cent in the past one month owing to geopolitical tensions between Israel and Iran following the former's attack on Hamas, causing shortages and pushing consumer durables companies to increase prices. Companies have planned increases but some are yet to decide on the extent of the increase.
As India continued to record a huge number of new COVID-19 infections, hospitals in the national capital and other major cities complained of 'dangerously low' levels of oxygen that is needed for critically ill patients. The situation has been made worse by states that house oxygen manufacturing units restricting inter-state supplies.
The current power crisis is mainly on account of sharp decline in electricity generation from different fuel sources and not due to non-availability of domestic coal, a top official said on Sunday. The above statement assumes significance in the wake of reports of many states, including Maharashtra, facing power outages due to shortage of coal. In an interview to PTI, Coal Secretary A K Jain attributed the low coal stocks at power plants to several factors such as heightened power demand due to the boom in the economy post COVID-19, early arrival of summer, rise in the price of gas and imported coal and sharp fall in electricity generation by coastal thermal power plants.
With a million-odd electric vehicles (EVs) - two-wheelers, e-rickshaws, buses and passenger cars - expected to hit the road this calendar year, the shift from gasoline-powered vehicles has become irreversible. Now the question is whether the supply chain is ready for this shift. Key components - the high-powered lithium-ion battery and the cells which go with it, the electric motor, and the electronics powered by chips - account for nearly 60 per cent of the cost of an EV.
Battling an acute shortage of oxygen, some hospitals in Delhi on Sunday sent out desperate SOS calls to authorities to replenish their dwindling stocks, with one healthcare facility even requesting the government to shift out its patients.
"We are in a very comfortable situation today. The daily requirement of oxygen is 3.6 metric tonnes and we have about six tonnes available which will last for the entire day. It is quite a comfortable situation."
The hospital authorities said those patients died either due to their age or co-morbidities. "It is only hospital accepting critical patients in the area. Those patients died either due to their age or co-morbidities," said a doctor from the hospital.
France on Sunday delivered to India 28 tonnes of ready-to-use medical supplies including eight large oxygen plants while the US sent to India a third flight that brought over 1000 oxygen cylinders
Delhi Water Minister Atishi on Friday began her indefinite hunger strike in south Delhi's Bhogal to press on her demand for more water from Haryana.
The global semiconductor shortage is turning into a headache for automotive (auto) and appliance manufacturers. But it is proving to be a boon for equity investors. Semiconductor stocks are among the best performers this year. The PHLX Semiconductor Index has gained more than 35 per cent year-to-date.
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