Country Financial News

climate change and clean energy supply chains, and on infrastructure through the Quad Infrastructure Fellowships Program and the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience," said the joint readout of the meeting. “We continue to advance the development of a secure and trusted telecommunications network with a network modernization project and Open Radio Access Network deployment in Palau, progress on Quad cybersecurity initiatives — and explore avenues to share Earth Observation data to monitor extreme weather events and support climate adaptation.

Long waits to receive new passports haven't yet eased from earlier this year, as the U.S. State Department works through a backlog of applications amid high demand for international travel.

Union Health Ministry officials on Friday said reducing the qualifying percentile for NEET PG 2023 to zero will increase the pool of qualifying candidates but not dilute the merit system for admission to PG medical courses. Only those scoring the highest marks will get admission for PG medical courses, they said. The admission will be done through a transparent counselling process and will do away with alleged backdoor entry that was offered by some private colleges, the officials said. They dismissed as imaginary the speculation that students with zero percentile can also become specialist doctors. The reality is that students with the highest marks will be eligible for admission to their choice of courses and colleges, they said. There are 68,142 PG medical seats in the country. Till now, candidates scoring above 50 percentile were eligible to participate in the counselling process for medical PG admission through NEET.

Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Friday raised the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in his address to the UN General Assembly, saying that Kashmir is the key to peace between New Delhi and Islamabad. Pakistan consistently rakes up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir at various UN platforms, irrespective of the agenda and topic of discussion at the meetings. Addressing the General Debate of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Kakar said Pakistan desires peaceful and productive relations with all its neighbours, including India. «Kashmir is the key to peace between Pakistan and India,» he said. «Development depends on peace. Pakistan is situated in the least economically integrated region in the world.

King Charles III has traveled to the southwestern French city of Bordeaux to focus on climate and the environment

Australia’s government has reported a $14.2 billion budget surplus for the last fiscal year

The U.S. Treasury Department and China’s Ministry of Finance have launched a pair of economic working groups in an effort to ease tensions and deepen ties between the nations

A top official of upcoming international climate negotiations hopes to prove critics wrong and surprise them with a “course correction” for an ever-warming world

British competition regulators has signaled that Microsoft’s restructured $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard is likely to receive antitrust approval

Massachusetts has about 184,000 people on a waitlist for the state’s public housing

Across New York City, civil society groups and large philanthropies meet on the sidelines of the United Nations while world leaders gather at the annual General Assembly

Russia's fuel export ban counteracted fears that slowing economies and high interest rates could crimp demand. Brent futures were up 78 cents, or 0.84%, at $94.08 a barrel by 1443 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) futures rose by $1.02, or 1.14%, to $90.65 a barrel. For the week, both benchmarks were relatively flat, after rising more than 10% in the previous three weeks on concerns about tight global supply. Russia's Transneft suspended deliveries of diesel to the key Baltic and Black Sea terminals of Primorsk and Novorossiysk on Friday, state media agency Tass said. Russia temporarily banned exports of gasoline and diesel to all countries outside a circle of four ex-Soviet states with immediate effect to stabilise the domestic fuel market, the government said on Thursday, without a specified end date. The ban will «bring new uncertainty into an already tight global refined product supply picture and the prospect that the impacted countries will be seeking to bid up cargoes from alternative suppliers,» RBC said in a note. Russian wholesale gasoline prices were down nearly 10% and diesel down 7.5% on Friday on the St.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whose killing led to a major diplomatic row between India and Canada, reached the North American country using a counterfeit passport and Canada did not take any action against him despite being informed that he faced over a dozen criminal cases of murder and other terrorist activities, sources said on Friday. Nijjar was killed by unidentified assailants on June 18 at a parking lot of a gurdwara in British Columbia.

Morgan Stanley has offloaded stake in Gurugram-based hotel operator SAMHI Hotels, which debuted on the exchanges on Friday. SAMHI Hotels listed at a mild premium of 8% on the NSE over its issue price. However, the stock rallied and closed at Rs 146 per share on the NSE, which is 16% higher than the IPO price of Rs 126. According to bulk deals data available with the exchanges, Morgan Stanley, through its various funds, sold a combined shares of 64.6 lakh. It is unclear how much stake in the company these shares amounted to as the shareholding pattern was not yet available with the exchanges. Post the listing, analysts recommended investors to book profits, mainly because of poor financials in the last three financial years. For the year ending March, the company's revenue from operations more than doubled to Rs 738 crore.

government securities in the JP Morgan emerging market debt index has the potential of making the rupee stronger and reduce the government's borrowing costs, chief economic advisor in the finance ministry V Anantha Nageswaran told reporters on Friday. JP Morgan on Friday said it plans to include Indian government bonds, or government securities, in its benchmark emerging market index from June next year. The inclusion of government securities will be staggered over a 10-month period from 28 June 2024 to 31 March 2025, indicating one per cent increment on its index weight.

Economic Times on 22 September. According to the report, Apple shipped 49 percent of the country's total 12 million smartphone shipments in the June quarter, compared to Samsung's 45 percent export. LiveMint couldn’t verify the report independently.

Kovind for simultaneous elections will be held here on Saturday to discuss the roadmap and how to go about holding consultation with stakeholders. Kovind had recently told reporters in Odisha that the meeting will be held on September 23. The government had on September 2 notified the eight-member «high-level» panel to examine and make recommendations at the earliest on the issue of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, municipalities and panchayats. People aware of the details said the meeting will be «introductory» in nature and members will discuss the roadmap on how to go about the mandate given to the panel. The panel, they said, will also discuss on how to go about holding consultations with stakeholders, research on the subject and preparation of working papers. Home Minister Amit Shah, former leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and former finance commission chairman N K Singh are among the committee's members. Congress' leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was also a member.

sovereignty and territorial integrity underpin the development of the Indo-Pacific region and expressed serious concern on the militarisation of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels, and efforts to disrupt other countries' offshore exploitation activities. The Quad or the Quadrilateral coalition is a plurilateral framework comprising India, Australia, Japan and the US formed in 2017 to counter China's aggressive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region. Foreign ministers of the four-nation bloc — External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko — met on the margins of the high-level 78th session of the UN General Assembly for the Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting and reaffirmed their commitment to uphold the principles of the UN Charter. «We reaffirm our conviction that international law, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the maintenance of peace and security in the maritime domain underpin the development and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific,» a joint readout of the Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting said. The ministers emphasised that disputes should be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law, without threat or use of force. «We emphasise the importance of adherence to international law, particularly as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to address challenges to the global maritime rules-based order, including with respect to maritime claims, and in the South and East China Seas,» they said in the joint statement. The ministers emphasised the importance of maintaining freedom of navigation and

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has asked for industry opinion on ways to encourage and better the research and development ecosystem for telecom, broadcasting and information and communication technology (ICT) in the country in a new discussion paper released Friday. Issues like the role of telecom operators in facilitating R&D in the country, steps to improve government-industry-academia dynamics, simplifying patent application and encouraging private sector R&D through incentives are among those raised in the paper titled «Encouraging R&D in Telecom, Broadcasting, and IT (ICT) Sectors». “The consultation paper is aimed at understanding the present ecosystem of R&D in India, identify and learn from practices adopted by R&D leaders across the globe and account for issues to be consulted with the stakeholders for enhancing the R&D scenario in India,” Trai said in the paper. Trai also asked for industry opinion on why multinational companies (MNCs) focus on software rather than hardware in India and the measures that could be taken to promote basic/applied research by MNCs strengthening the current R&D efforts in software and improving R&D efforts in hardware. “How can awareness about IPR be increased among the researchers and industry in ICT sector?.. Is there a need to reduce the cost of filing patents in India? If yes, how can it be done?” the sector regulator asked.

Sale of Apple's iPhone 15 is estimated to have registered a 100% growth compared to that of iPhone 14 series on the first day with high demand for made-in-India iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models, according to industry sources. Apple has, for the first time, made available 'made-in-India iPhone on the same day it started selling the devices in the country and other parts of the globe. «Till evening, 6 pm IST, the sales of iPhone 15 series have recorded over 100% growth on Day 1 compared to the sale of iPhone 14. There are long queues everywhere and more people have started coming after their office hours,» an industry source, who did not wish to be identified, told PTI.

Danish Ali on Friday described BJP parliamentarian Ramesh Bidhuri's derogatory remarks against him in the Lok Sabha as "hate speech" and demanded the suspension of the ruling party's lawmaker from the House. Bidhuri made certain objectionable remarks targeted at Ali on Thursday night during a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. «This is unprecedented.