Department Financial News

British rice millers such as Tilda and Veetee Rice have thrived for decades by importing low-tariff unmilled brown rice from the likes of India and Pakistan and «polishing» the grains into the white product loved by UK consumers. But with India pressing for tariffs on white rice to be slashed, and little feedback from British trade officials, concerns are mounting for an industry that employs more than 3,000 people at 16 mills and processing plants scattered from Kent in southern England to Yorkshire in the north. «It is crucial that existing tariffs on milled (white) rice are maintained,» Alex Waugh, outgoing director of The Rice Association, said at a private event in the House of Commons last month attended by rice industry leaders and government officials.

Delhi's air quality turned «very poor» on Sunday for the first time since May 17 due to unfavourable meteorological conditions, according to monitoring agencies.

medical aid and 32 tonnes of disaster relief materials have been sent to Palestine that will reach Gaza via Egypt, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to reiterate India's long-standing position on the Palestinian question. Taking to X, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi wrote on Sunday, «An IAF C-17 flight carrying nearly 6.5 tonnes of medical aid and 32 tonnes of disaster relief material for the people of Palestine departs for El-Arish airport in Egypt.» The items will be sent to Palestine via the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Bagchi informed that the humanitarian aid includes «essential life-saving medicines, surgical items, tents, sleeping bags, tarpaulins, sanitary utilities, water purification tablets, among other necessary items». India's aid to Palestine comes three days after the PM spoke to Abbas. During their conversation on Thursday, Modi had said that India would keep sending humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

(Reuters) — A funeral will be held on Sunday for the president of a Detroit synagogue who was killed over the weekend, according to the funeral home's website, as police searched for a motive.

By Kanishka Singh

BJP chief JP Nadda on Sunday attacked the Congress, saying public service delivery may be an «alien concept» for it as its only interest is to keep «the poor in poverty». The reaction came on a day Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi objecting to a government order which, he claimed, stated that senior officers of ranks as high as joint secretary, director and deputy secretary are to be deployed to all 765 districts of the country as «Rath Prabharis» to «showcase achievements of the last nine years of Government of India».

Joe Biden told a crowd of Democratic donors over the weekend about a decades-old photo he took with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an aside that seemed intended to illustrate his long support of Israel and track record of speaking bluntly with the conservative Israeli leader. Biden said he'd written on the photo of himself as a young senator and Netanyahu as an embassy hand, «Bibi, I love you.

extremely severe cyclonic storm on Sunday and is headed towards the Yemen-Oman coasts, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. The cyclonic storm is predicted to move northwestwards and cross the Yemen-Oman coasts between Al Ghaidah (Yemen) and Salalah (Oman), close to the east of Al Ghaidah around noon on October 24 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 115-125 kmph, gusting to 140 kmph, it said.

The national cancer services industry body has collapsed over a disagreement about whether GenesisCare’s self-reported breaches are an industry-wide problem, as the latter’s negotiations with the health department about its bungled billings drag on.

China increased the deployment of forces and continued infrastructure build-up, including underground storage facilities near Doklam, a second bridge over Pangong Lake and a dual-purpose airport and multiple helipads, along the LAC in 2022 amid border tensions with India, a Pentagon report has said. The Indian and Chinese troops are locked in an over three-year confrontation in certain friction points in eastern Ladakh even as the two sides completed disengagement from several areas following extensive diplomatic and military talks.

suburban train in Mumbai got separated on Sunday morning and no passenger was hurt in the incident, a Western Railway official said. A Borivali-bound slow train departed from Churchgate station and uncoupled at Marine Lines around 11.02 am, the Western Railway's chief public relations officer Sumit Thakur said.

As artificial intelligence (AI) penetrates more sectors, at least half (49%) of the teachers feel unprepared for its impact, saying more must be done to empower and help them prepare students for an AI-enabled future, a new report has revealed. Governments should support schools to harness the potential of AI to transform education, according to a report by the Oxford University Press (OUP), which has also made recommendations for school leaders and education business leaders to support the use of AI in schools and prioritise quality resources in education.

IAF C-17 flight carrying nearly 6.5 tonnes of medical aid and 32 tonnes of disaster relief material for the people of Palestine departed for El-Arish airport in Egypt on Sunday from Ghaziabad's Hindon Air Base. The material includes essential life-saving medicines, surgical items, tents, sleeping bags, tarpaulins, sanitary utilities, water purification tablets among other necessary items. Ministry of External Affairs' Arindam Bagchi posted pictures of the IAF flight carrying the goods and informed about the mission on X.

IIT), Madras has established a first-of-its kind Centre of Excellence that is undertaking research to develop biomarkers for early detection of pancreatic cancer, according to officials. The sequence data from the «Centre of Excellence on Cancer Genomics and Molecular Therapeutics» will help develop an India-specific cancer genome database, which is critical to identify and develop biomarkers for early detection and understanding the drug response. The data developed could also help to identify drug targets for novel therapeutics, they said.

Cyclone 'Tej' brewing over the south-west of the Arabian Sea is very likely to intensify into an extremely severe cyclonic storm in the forenoon of Sunday morning, the India Meteorological Department has said. «VSCS (very severe cyclonic storm) Tej lay centred at 2330 IST on October Oct 21 over SW Arabian Sea, about 330 km ESE of Socotra (Yemen), 690 km SSE of Salalah (Oman), and 720 km SE of Al Ghaidah (Yemen).

Canada's National Department of Defence said on Saturday that Israel was not behind the Al-Ahli hospital strike in Gaza on Oct. 17. «Analysis conducted independently by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicates with a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the Al-Ahli hospital on 17 October 2023,» it said in a statement.

Nvidia, Foxconn to Develop New Class of Data Centers Focused on AI As per the report, China's natural resources department has initiated on-site investigations into the land usage of Foxconn enterprises located in Henan province, Hubei province, and other areas. The developments were disclosed in an exclusive report by Chinese media major, the Global Times.

Israel and Hamas, killing thousands of civilians. Dozens of leaders and senior officials from the Middle East, Europe, and Africa converged on Cairo, searching for ways to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from becoming a wider conflict. UN chief Antonio Guterres pleaded Saturday for a “humanitarian ceasefire" in the war between Israel and the Hamas terror group.

China's natural resources department also conducted on-site investigations on the land use of enterprises of Foxconn in Henan, Hubei provinces and other places, according to the exclusive report in the nationalist tabloid, the Global Times. It did not elaborate on the investigations or the timing of them.

BEIJING (Reuters) — Foxconn Technology Group, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)'s largest supplier of iPhones, has been subjected to tax audits at some of its key subsidiaries, suspected of violating laws and regulations, Chinese state media reported on Sunday.