The effect of the subprime crisis that began to be felt around early 2007 hasn't affected domestic sales of super luxury cars priced between Rs 1 and 3 crore. Super luxury car manufacturers such as UK's Bentley grew by 20 per cent last year and expect to clock similar growth in the country this year.
The only real solution to the jobs crisis, whether in India or abroad, is to direct tech innovation towards job enhancing sectors, and disincentivising job-replacing ones, observes R Jagannathan.
It is rare for Cabinet ministers to tick off state-owned companies publicly, yet that was what then petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan did for ONGC. Speaking at an event on June 29, Pradhan said he has asked India's premier exploration company to find fresh oil acreages fast. "Do it yourself through some joint venture (or) through a new business model. But the government cannot permit you to hold resources for an indefinite time." The reason for this stricture is India's rising dependence on imported oil and gas. Or, to put it another way, falling domestic production (see chart: "Crude truth"), especially from ONGC, which faces a simple problem.
The Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan has said that India will resume work in at least 20 stalled projects in several provinces across the war-torn country.
Putin said work would be completed on building storage units for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on July 1, a move he likened to US nuclear deployments in Europe.
"Now we live in a completely independent Afghanistan. The new government will be announced very soon," said Anaamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, reported Tolo News.
'This funding provides support directly to some of the more than 18 million vulnerable Afghans in need in the region'
With the West Asian/North African crisis not likely to end soon and investors' appetite increasing for gold, it is expected to touch $1,600 an oz by the year-end.
Major General S C N Jatar, who passed into the ages on Monday night, thwarted anti-national forces at the peak of the Assam agitation. Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) salutes this officer and gentleman.
Message for India is that its key challenge has to be to avoid falling into the middle income trap.
Asian Development Bank has asked Dhaka to send a formal request by Sunday.
The recent issues dogging West Asia have become a major cause for concern due to the spike in the crude oil prices.
Air India, IndiGo, and SpiceJet have suspended flights to China and Hong Kong.
India must be prepared to deal with climate disasters, geopolitical confrontations, and social strife linked to global events, asserts Jayant Sinha, chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance.
Noting that the country could 'well experience the effects of an oil-price shock,' Deloitte said that political instability in West Asia and a payment crisis with Iran are causes for concern.
Israel temporarily put on hold a decision on a possible ground invasion of Gaza to give more time to Egypt's truce efforts, but seven days of incessant raids took the Palestinian death toll to 111 amid warnings by Hamas that it won't succumb to Israeli conditions.
Sources suggested that the Ministry of External Affairs had expressed reservations over Chidambaram's visit. The MEA believed that President-elect Barack Obama and his team were presently pre-occupied with the crisis in West Asia. Apparently, Washington had communicated the same to New Delhi.
India may see a structural shift in supplies of crude oil with Russia emerging as a key source of fuels, a development that reduces New Delhi's dependence on West Asian oil, gives Indian refiners better bargaining power with price-setter Saudi Arabia, and improves overall energy security. The unexpected surge in supplies of Russian crude in the last few months, unthinkable until the war in Ukraine, may also deliver other unforeseen gains such as boosting exports of refined fuels to Europe, which historically has counted on Russian shipments. India has jumped on to the bandwagon of opportunistic buying of Russian crude but if calibrated carefully, Urals crude can be a long-term asset for India refiners.
Referring to the impact of political turmoil in West Asia, he said the crisis would not hurt the economy unless the crude oil prices rise to 'abnormally' high levels.
Wipro Ltd, a provider of IT solutions and services including systems integration, information systems outsourcing and IT-enabled services, says it has not been affected by the crisis in West Asia and will continue to invest in the region. Wipro already has a company -- Wipro Arabia, formed in 2007 through a joint venture with the Dar Al Riyadh Group -- providing IT solutions and services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The IMF and World Bank have stopped loans, and the FATF warned its 39 member nations to block Taliban assets.
US President Barack Obama will meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon next week in Washington to discuss a host of issues, including the global economic crisis, Sudan conflict and situation in Afghanistan and West Asia
The Modi government has to embrace the history of Tamil conquests in South East Asia and stop obsessing about Babar/Humayun, argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is expected to visit Iran soon, said Manbir Singh, India's ambassador to Iran.
'If Trudeau chooses to repeat his allegations in his UN speech on Friday, it would create a whole new escalation.'
'The pay cuts have been very tough on those with entire families to support.'
An AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people aboard reportedly went missing on Sunday morning after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
The grotesque irony is that while Hussein was hanged for killing 148 people, the leaders of the US and its allies won't be tried for killing half-a-million Iraqi children through the post-1991 sanctions, nor for the death of 655,000 Iraqi civilians.
'US officials must grapple with the possibility that one of its closest partners attempted an extrajudicial killing on its soil.' 'This is not something that friends typically do to friends.'
After the Ukraine war, coke prices just soared and most units don't have money left to buy raw material. Customers are not absorbing the price escalation'
'Israel has received an extremely hard and rude reminder that it cannot go ahead and talk of normalisation of relations with other Arab countries without addressing the issues pertaining to Palestine.'
On February 24, when Vladimir Putin announced a military operation on Ukraine, few would have thought that Indian government-owned GAIL India would feel the impact. The tensions over gas supplies were essentially a Europe-Russia problem, related to the sanctions western economies imposed on Moscow. But the EU depends on Russian imports for 40 per cent of its gas stocks, an over-dependence that Russia has underlined with Kremlin-owned Gazprom cutting its supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 per cent, citing maintenance issues.
Unless the Taliban goofs up in a big way, which seems highly unlikely, we are looking at a regime that will be around for quite a long while and present a level of governance that the puppets of the richest and most advanced countries failed to provide, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Saudi Arabia's strategic review has UN and nuclear analysts worried, says 'The Guardian'
At a joint media briefing with Lavrov, Jaishankar listed issues such as "factors of instability" such as terrorism and its cross-border manifestation and said it remains a "major concern".
'...to prevent this episode from disrupting ongoing cooperation.' 'The discovery of this plot had the potential to derail much of what has been achieved in the relationship during this administration's tenure -- I don't think that fact has been sufficiently appreciated in India.'
India on Wednesday asserted there can be no military solution to the lethal Syrian conflict and societies cannot be "re-ordered from outside" as people have the right to choose their own destiny.
'The Weather Channel argues that India faces the gravest challenge: Climate change-induced health vulnerability.' 'This is an issue often neglected, alerts Claude Arpi: "Prolonged summers, unpredictable rains, floods, droughts, and rising sea levels are the harsh realities of climate change in the country. These factors increase the frequency and severity of illnesses, pushing people into poverty, and forcing migration".'
'...The more the Pakistan army becomes weaker, then there is every possibility that terrorist groups may create more anarchy in Pakistan.'
Speaking about the issue in India in March 2012 at a media conclave, Kissinger defended his use of unparliamentary language while referring to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
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