A stable and visionary political leadership, young talented population, vast AI and startup community and innovations across businesses will help India reach its $30 trillion GDP growth goal by 2047, Paul Marriott, President for Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) of cloud software major SAP said in Mumbai on Monday.
The Indian government got ‘individuals’ killed in Pakistan as part of Delhi’s larger strategy to eliminate wanted terrorists living on foreign soil, ‘The Guardian’, a UK-based newspaper, claimed in a report on Thursday quoting some “intelligence operatives of India and Pakistan”. The London-based daily claims to have some documents that “shed light on how India’s foreign intelligence agency allegedly carried out operations to eliminate the individuals abroad”.
The popular social media platform ‘X’ owned by Elon Musk, has issued a statement saying that it has blocked some accounts and posts on its platform after the executive orders issued by the Indian government. “The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment. In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts,” the Global Government Affairs of ‘X’ posted.
The President of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC), Atul Keshap, congratulated India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Government of India on its “confident, pro-growth” Union Budget 2024-25.
“With elections due this spring, this is, in effect, a mini-budget, with another set of announcements likely to come in July once a new government is in place. The budget contains several notable programs and milestones that build on the momentum from prior years. India’s focus and execution on budget consolidation, including beating its fiscal deficit target for this past year, is important to maintaining and enhancing its credibility with foreign investors. This is likely to have a net positive impact on the ultimate allocation that Indian sovereign bonds receive as they are incorporated into benchmark international indices in 2024, which, in turn, would deepen the country’s capital markets and reduce public financing costs,” said Keshap.
Government of India bonds are likely to get a further boost with global financial advisory firm Bloomberg, proposing their inclusion in its index, a development that comes close on the heels of JPMorgan’s decision to include these bonds in its global index from June 2024.
American tech giant Google on Thursday said it is committed to share its expertise and knowledge with the Indian Government and industry stakeholders towards developing responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI). The company’s statement came after Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw met representatives from large social media platforms and other stakeholders, saying the government will draft new rules to spot and limit the spread of deepfakes.
Justice Markandey Katju writes: It is time that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comes clean. He should either disclose the evidence he has, or else render an apology to India for jumping the gun.
The Union Cabinet of India on Wednesday approved the expansion of the Digital India program with an outlay of ₹14,903 crore or $180 million. India’s Minister for Railway, Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw, while addressing a press conference after the meeting of the Union Cabinet, said that 625,000 IT professionals will be re-skilled and up-skilled under FutureSkills Prime program.
The Indian government is likely to come out with a draft of the much awaited e-commerce policy soon. The prospects of the policy being unveiled soon looked brighter as Union Minister for Commerce Piyush Goyal on Wednesday held a final round of consultations with industry players like Amazon, Flipkart, and Tata Digital, among others.
India showcased its growing commitment to the semiconductor industry at the SemiconIndia 2023 Conference held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The three-day event served as a platform for industry leaders, academics, and government representatives to strategize India’s path toward a robust presence in the global semiconductor ecosystem.
The Indian government on Thursday amended the rice export norms putting the non-basmati white rice in “prohibited” category. The export policy relating to non-basmati white rice (Semi-milled or wholly milled rice, whether or not polished or glazed: Other) has been revised from “free” to “prohibited” and it has come into force immediately, a Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) notification said.
Justice Markandey Katju writes: There is a Mark Twain aphorism that describes this best: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” This squarely applies to India, as it is a pretty disorganised country. Moreover, it is so vast — with 1.4 billion people — that it is difficult to get accurate figures, even by a neutral unbiased body, what to say of a Government of India agency.
India’s Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday discussed with United States Ambassador Eric Garcetti about advancing cooperation between both countries to check terrorism, drug trafficking and security domains. The discussion was held during a meeting between Shah and the US envoy at the North Block office of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Cyber-criminals have allegedly stolen data of thousands of people in India, including health workers, from a government server (that has even been indexed in Google Search), which includes name, mobile number, address and Covid test results. The data leak allegedly happened on the CoWin portal, which is used for vaccination.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new parliament building, while 21 opposition parties boycotted the event on Sunday morning, May 28. President Droupadi Murmu and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar were also not present at the event on Sunday morning as they had not been invited. Congress party accused the government of ignoring the country’s two highest constitutional functionaries by leaving them out of the list of invitees.
As the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, meet in Goa on May 4 and 5, there are no expectations of any significant bilateral engagement between India and Pakistan on the sidelines.
Pioneering industrialist and one of India’s oldest philanthropists, Keshub Mahindra, Chairman Emeritus, Mahindra Group passed away on April 12. The 99-year-old, philanthropist had redefined good corporate governance in India and was an exemplary statesman.
The tourism industry of India is showing signs of revival after the pandemic. According to the latest data released by the Bureau of Immigration, India received 6.19 million Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) during 2022 as compared to 1.52 million during the same period in 2021. Though the increase may seem appreciable, the foreign tourist inflow is still not up to the pre-pandemic levels – there were 10.93 million Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India in 2019.
The Sikh Delegates of California, a statewide organization of Sikh delegates, has issued a statement about what it calls “India’s ongoing human rights violations and the suspension of democratic principles in Punjab.”
MeitY Startup Hub, an initiative of India’s IT Ministry, and Google on Tuesday announced training and development support to 100 Indian early to mid-stage startups, as part of Appscale Academy’s Class of 2023.
US Senators Bill Hagerty and Jeff Merkley have introduced a bipartisan Senate resolution reaffirming the US’ recognition of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as an “integral part of the Republic of India”.
The India Dialog organized by Institute for Competitiveness and US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University on February 23 and 24, 2023, drew a gamut of experts from various fields to take a look at Indian economic status and share their experiences. One eminent speaker was Dr. Arvind Virmani, member, NITI Aayog, who has worked in the Government of India in various capacities over the last 50 years.
The World Bank has sanctioned $ 1 billion to support India’s health sector. The government of India and the World Bank signed two complementary loans of $500 million each to support and enhance India’s health sector development.
The Indian government has made significant efforts to detect, disrupt, and degrade the operations of terrorist organisations, according to the US Bureau of Counterterrorism’s ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: India’.
An Indian student from Telangana was killed in the US when a gun he was holding went off accidentally, as per his family here. Mahankali Akhil Sai, 25, from Khammam district lost his life in the incident that occurred at Auburn in Alabama state on Monday night (local time).
