Country Financial News

The ex-partner of former Argentine President Alberto Fernández has accused him of physically and emotionally abusing her

The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on a Paraguayan tobacco company for allegedly financing the country’s controversial former president

Impromptu conga lines at beach volleyball

interest rates have stayed steady since the end of 2023, showed Knight Frank India’s Affordability Index. Among key cities, Ahmedabad has emerged as the most affordable housing market with an Equated Monthly Instalment (EMI) to income ratio of 21% for an average household. Following closely are Pune and Kolkata, each with an EMI to income ratio of 24%. Mumbai was the only city that remained marginally higher than the threshold at 51%. “Stable affordability is essential to sustaining homebuyer demand and sales momentum, which, in turn, acts as a key economic driver for the country. As income levels rise and economic growth strengthens, end-users’ financial confidence is significantly bolstered, encouraging them to make longer-term financial commitments toward asset creation,” said Shishir Baijal, CMD, Knight Frank India.

The budget speech gave pride of place to the long-term goal of Viksit Bharat and also said that reforms in many areas would be needed to achieve it. This article focuses on one of those areas: trade policy. Policies should be tailored to specified targets, and in this respect, commerce minister Piyush Goyal has set an ambitious target.

rising unemployment, among other issues. Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has been in power consistently since 2009: a period that also marked the country’s economic transformation and political stability. However, Bangladesh’s economic turnaround met with mass political unrest as Hasina’s governance began appearing dictatorial and elections were seen internationally as a mere formality.

«Everything that we manufacture in our new plant, which is already operational, the module plant is fully operational, and the cell plant will become operational in this month and next month. So, we will become very-very resilient in terms of our supply chain and also consistency in terms of quality and the price of the modules,» says Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power. Let us talk about solar rooftops because you also are a very important player in that. Tell us, what is your current market share? What are the plans going forward? How is it that you plan to scale this up? Praveer Sinha: So, we have already completed more than 100,000 rooftop solar houses. We are the biggest in the rooftop business. In the organised sector, we have more than 20% market share. We have huge plans to work with the government, especially the PM Surya Ghar Programme, and we are enhancing our capability both in terms of our channel partners, as also in terms of the reach that we will have with our own teams and the supply chain. So, over a period of time, you will see that we will become one of the biggest players of the rooftop solar in the country.

Opposition Congress party on Wednesday raised in Rajya Sabha the issue of dropping of Preamble to the Constitution from certain NCERT textbooks saying this was an attempt to impose communal ideology on the country — a claim which Union Minister J P Nadda countered saying the government was committed to protecting the constitution. Raising the issue, Leader of the Opposition and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Preamble, which is the soul and foundation of the Indian Constitution, used to be published in NCERT textbooks. The objectives stated by the Preamble are to secure justice, liberty, equality to all citizens and promote fraternity to maintain unity and integrity of the nation, he said and went on to read the debate in Constituent Assembly in November 1948, where it was argued that political democracy in the country should also be made a social democracy. «Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life,» he quoted from the debate.

Mint in an exclusive conversation. Having doubled its headcount in India over the past three years, BT intends to scale up its presence in core engineering, data and AI. “We are looking at actually the digital part, helping the operations team accelerate both our efficacy and efficiency in the ops part using AI as well," Mehta said.

United Nations court on Wednesday to join South Africa's genocide lawsuit against Israel, a Turkish official said. The declaration of intervention will be submitted at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the official said on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations. Turkiye, one of the fiercest critics of Israel's actions in Gaza, will become the latest nation to seek to participate in the case. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has frequently compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, accused his country of genocide, called for it to be punished in international courts and criticised Western nations for backing Israel.

Bangladesh, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma raised concern on Wednesday over the illegal infiltration from Bangladeshi borders, stating that the situation can force some people to come to India. «On the situation in Bangladesh, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma says, „The incident that happened in Bangladesh is concerning; there are two angles. One is that if such unrest continues in Bangladesh, then some people will be forced to come to India so we have to secure our borders,“ Sharma said. Himanta Biswa Sharma also voiced the possibility of Bangladesh becoming a safe ground for terrorist activities in the future.

Indian High Commission in Bangladesh has said that it continues to remain operational and released helpline numbers for Indian nationals who reside there. According to sources, the diplomats and officials of the Indian High Commission continue to remain in Bangladesh, while non-essential staff and their families returned on Wednesday morning. The sources said, «To reiterate all the helplines of HCI Dhaka are working. The helpline numbers are being shared again below for reference: +8801958383679 +8801958383680 +8801937400591.»

Piyush Goyal on Wednesday suggested the seven member countries of the BIMSTEC bloc to relook at the progress of Free Trade Agreement talks which are moving at a very slow pace. He said that the members can think of negotiating a preferential trade agreement instead of a full-fledged free trade pact. BIMSTEC stands for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. Its seven members are five South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka) and two Southeast Asian countries (Myanmar and Thailand). The bloc has been negotiating a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) since 2004.

Groww experienced a technical glitch this morning, disrupting users' ability to place orders and access their Demat balances. The outage has caused widespread difficulties, leaving many users unable to use essential platform services. Taking to platform X (previously known as Twitter), one user wrote, “@_groww unable to use my Demat Balance, what's wrong?”

dyers and weavers, in uplifting the sector, applauding their invaluable contributions. I fully recognize and respect the contributions of traditional communities and especially women across the country, without whom the handloom sector would face great disadvantage. Treating them with dignity and respect is imperative to sustain and enhance their contributions.

Bangladesh deteriorates following Sheikh Hasina's resignation, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President, AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, has urged India to arrest the former Prime Minister and her sister, Sheikh Rehana, and return them to Bangladesh, as reported by Dhaka Tribune. At a press conference held at the SCBA auditorium, Khokon stated, «We want to maintain a positive relationship with the people of India. Please arrest Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, who fled the country, and send them back to Bangladesh.» He also accused Hasina of causing numerous deaths in Bangladesh, adding, «Sheikh Hasina has killed many people in Bangladesh.»

Indian expats, including those at the CXO level ,looking to relocate to India primarily from the US, UK and Canada over the last year, recruitment agency Randstad India told ET. However, Randstand did not quantify the size of the surge of Indian expat applicants. The manufacturing industry is expected to double in size over the next five years from employing around 2.5 to 3 million people to around 5 million by around 2030, Yeshab Giri, Chief Commercial Officer, Operational Talent Solutions at Randstad India, told ET. Government emphasis with big ticket incentives in addition to benefiting from the China plus one strategy has seen the electronics manufacturing sector in particular opening up more opportunities for these expats. The government boosters are seen aiding local manufacturing to get stronger.

Mumbai: Seven years after losing the tax edge that had made it India's second-biggest source of capital, Mauritius is eyeing a comeback, this time through the GIFT City route. The island nation's International Financial Centre (IFC) is considering opening an office in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), a top Mauritius minister said. A large Mauritius delegation currently visiting India will meet officials of the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) to discuss areas of collaboration, including equivalence between the two.

With countries around the world trying to rein in Big Tech, the latest antitrust ruling in the US against Google marks a big victory for regulators—the last big one having come when the US Justice Department took Microsoft to court in 1998. On Monday, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google had violated antitrust laws through an illegal monopoly in the search engine market.

Luana Alonso, was sent back home from the ongoing action at the Paris Olympics after reports that her breathtaking beauty was distracting the players in her own team. She lost her Olympics village privileges after being called back by her home country from the Paris Olympics, as she was apparently distracting her own teammates during the events. Alonso, due to her beauty, had won many hearts at the Paris Olympics, mostly, the athletes at the Paris Olympics, and that proved quite costly for her, as her teammates could not handle her beauty, says a Blast report. After her return to Paraguay, Alonso shocked everyone by announcing her retirement from swimming. What her future plans are, have still not been extensive revealed yet.

Digital payments major PhonePe is looking to set up retail payment operations in new geographies, including Southeast Asia and the Gulf region, two people aware of the company's plan told ET. Places like Singapore, the Gulf region and some countries in Europe are on the agenda, but the plan is still in the early stage and implementation will be done slowly, they said. “The plan is to apply for a payment licence in these geographies and set up retail payment operations there,” said one person, requesting not to be named. «The expertise that the team has built scaling up business in India will be handy there and there is a large opportunity as payments get digitised in these places.»