News on Indian Economy
The Indian side at the dialogue was led by Srikar Reddy, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce while SACU was led by Amb. Steve Katjiuanjo, Executive Director, Ministry of Industrialization,Trade and SME Development of Namibia.
Indian Railways’ first high-speed rail corridor project is expected to be completed on time, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a report quoted Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav.
The American companies, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has battered the world economy, have shown a great confidence in India and its leadership, said Mukesh Aghi, president of the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF), which keeps a track of the major US FDIs in India.
The National Pension System (NPS), a flagship defined contribution pension scheme of the Government of India, has released its subscription numbers for the first quarter of 2020-21. The scheme’s subscriber base has registered a growth of 30% whereby 1.03 lakh individual subscribers from the private sector and 206 corporates were enrolled during the 1st quarter, resulting in a total of 10.13 lakh corporate subscribers in the age group of 18 to 65 years.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has issued refunds worth Rs 71,229 crore in more than 21.24 lakh cases upto 11th July, 2020, to help taxpayers with liquidity during COVID-19 pandemic, since the Government’s decision of 8th April, 2020 to issue pending income tax refunds at the earliest.
As on 16.07.2020, actual rainfall received in the country is 338.3 mm against normal of 308.4 mm i.e. departure of (+) 10% during the period from 01.06.2020 to 16.07.2020. As on 16.07.2020 as per report of CWC, the live water storage available in 123 reservoirs in the country is 150 % of live storage of corresponding period of last year and 133% of storage of average of last ten years.
Department of Heavy Industry (DHI), Govt of India, has embarked on a mission to promote innovation, R&D and product development in India for various sectors. A step towards this mission is the creation of technology platform e-portals where such technology development, information exchange and innovation can be facilitated. There are five portals being developed for specific sectors by different organizations viz, BHEL for power sector equipment, HMT for machine tools, CMFTI for manufacturing technology, ICAT and ARAI for automotive sector.
In a review meeting of the CHAARDHAAM ROAD PROJECT in the State of Uttarakhand via Video Conferencing, Union Environment Minister, Shri Prakash Javadekar informed that the Zonal Master Plan(ZMP), prepared by the Government of Uttarakhand and appraised by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, has been accorded approval by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change(MoEF&CC) on 16th July,2020.
India has established ‘air bubbles’ with the US and France. On Friday, American carrier United Airlines will be flying 18 flights between India and the US till July 31.
The move signals Apple’s push to diversify its supply chain out of China. India is hoping to attract companies that are looking for alternative manufacturing bases and the government in April launched a slew of incentives including a Rs 41,000-crore production linked incentive (PLI) programme to incentivise large electronic manufacturers to set up production bases in the country.
