Department Financial News

Union Budget 2025 approaches, set to be unveiled in February, it’s a good time to understand the concept of strategic disinvestment and how it differs from disinvestment. Here’s a simple breakdown:

orthopaedic surgeries at AIIMS, Delhi has increased significantly from six months to 12 months. This dire situation is attributed to the alarmingly low functionality of the operation theatres, leaving countless patients in a state of despair and uncertainty, reported TOI. Officials said that only four or five of the seven OTs are functional due anaesthesia department's inability to man all the OTs. The number of surgeries per day has gone down from 30 to 20, leading to a backlog and longer wait times. Urgent cases like tumour operations and cauda equina in the spine receive emergency classification. The substantial delays in scheduled procedures particularly affect disadvantaged patients who travel from distant areas. Accoring to surgeons, the situation is because of the inability to maintain routine surgical schedules.

Chanchalguda Central Prison in Telangana on Friday following a stampede incident during the premiere of his latest film, Pushpa 2. For dinner, he had a simple meal consisting of rice and vegetable curry, with no special requests made to prison authorities, according to a senior official from the Telangana prisons department. The official added that Arjun was housed in a separate section of the prison along with other accused individuals involved in the case. As per court directives, he was treated as a special-class prisoner, which entitled him to a cot, table, and chair for added comfort. “He appeared calm and did not seem distressed. Dinner is typically served at 5:30 PM, but food is provided for late arrivals as well. The actor had rice and curry and was treated in accordance with the court’s special class prisoner order,” the official told PTI.

The U.S. Post Office, which has lost more than $100 billion since 2007, reported a net loss of $9.5 billion for its fiscal year ending September 30, a $3-billion bigger loss than last year, largely due to a year-over-year increase in non-cash workers’ compensation expense, as per a report on Reuters. When told of the agency's annual losses, Trump said the government should not subsidize the organization, according to the Washington Post.

Officials say roughly 70,000 gallons of oil from a pipeline spilled into the ground in Wisconsin

A federal appeals court has left in place a mid-January deadline in a federal law requiring TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States

Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday said the Department of Posts is going through a business process restructuring exercise to transition to a digital platform as he asserted that Dak Sewa is Jan Sewa (postal service is public service). Speaking on the occasion of the 50th Foundation Day of Indian Post & Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service, the minister said the shift is particularly relevant in the context of e-commerce growth, positioning the department to lead in this emerging business avenue. «Our department is going to go digital. Our department is going through a business process restructuring exercise, where we will transform ourselves in the days to come into a logistics corporation, where we must become the leaders in the world, with a new business avenue that is growing in terms of e-commerce,» he said. He noted that the Department of Posts today is the largest distribution network across the world, with 1,64,000 post offices.

e-commerce platforms such as Zomato, Ajio and Ola will adopt a Safety Pledge on National Consumer Day on December 24 as part of steps to enhance product safety for online shoppers. The voluntary commitment, announced by the Department of Consumer Affairs, aims to detect and prevent the sale of unsafe and spurious products on digital marketplaces, an official statement said. A committee chaired by consumer activist Pushpa Girimaji developed the pledge after extensive stakeholder consultations in November 2023. With India projected to have 500 million online shoppers by 2030 and currently hosting 880 million internet users, the initiative addresses critical challenges in the rapidly expanding e-commerce landscape. The pledge requires platforms to cooperate with statutory authorities and raise product safety awareness among sellers.

IndiGo flight en route to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was on Saturday forced to make an emergency landing at the Jinnah International Airport in Pakistan's Karachi city following a medical emergency onboard. The aircraft, which departed from New Delhi, was in Pakistani airspace when a male passenger fell seriously ill, according to sources from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). According to Geo News, the passenger was a 55-year-old Indian man.

president-elect Donald Trump, who was recognised as the 2024 Person of the Year, talked about Melania's plans for his second term. Trump was given the prestigious title by the magazine Thursday for the second time; the first time was following his election victory in 2016. In an interview with a Time reporter, the president-elect talked about his successful campaign, his goals for a second term, and Melania's intentions to run for president again, as quoted in a report by The Independent. Even though she accompanied Trump when he rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, the former first lady was conspicuously absent from the campaign trail.

The Commerce Department releases its monthly snapshot of U.S. retail sales Tuesday

McKinsey & Company consulting firm has agreed to pay $650 million to settle a federal investigation into its work for opioids manufacturer Purdue Pharma, according to court papers filed in Virginia

Floating-rate borrowers got their Christmas bonus from the Bank of Canada on Wednesday: a half-point drop in their borrowing costs.

Department of Posts and the Ministry of External Affairs have signed an agreement to set up an additional 600 passport seva kendras at post offices, Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday. Speaking at the India Economic Enclave 2024, the minister said India Post has about 6,40,000 points of sales across the country and no one in the world can match its scale. «In the next 3-4 years, we will become a citizen-centric service. We have signed an agreement with the MEA today where we will set up 600 more networks for passport seva kendras, hopefully servicing one crore citizens per year through our network,» the minister said. Launched in 2017, the Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) service has been instrumental in facilitating passport-related services to over 1.52 crore citizens.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: The department of consumer affairs is preparing to launch a “future-ready" platform to redressing consumer grievances through a new e-Jagriti app and an updated portal, which is expected to streamline the resolution of complaints, two people aware of the matter said. The new system looks to take into account changes in consumer behaviour resulting from, among other things, the launch of quick deliveries across segments, from groceries and medicines to cosmetics and fashion, they added.

The U.S. Department of Energy says $365 million is available to install solar and battery storage systems in homes and healthcare centers across Puerto Rico

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Trump transition team has started to explore pathways to dramatically shrink, consolidate or even eliminate the top bank watchdogs in Washington. In recent interviews with potential nominees to lead bank regulatory agencies, Trump advisers and officials from his newfound Department of Government Efficiency have, for example, asked whether the president-elect could abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., people familiar with the matter said.

Peter Navarro, Trump's incoming senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said the White House would not interfere with the Treasury Department's biannual review looking in to whether foreign trade partners are manipulating their currencies.

Trump transition team is exploring ways to significantly reduce, merge, or even eliminate the top bank regulators in Washington, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. In recent interviews with potential candidates for leading these regulatory agencies, Trump advisers and officials from the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have inquired about the possibility of the president-elect abolishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the WSJ said, citing people familiar with the matter. Advisers have asked the nominees under consideration for the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, if deposit insurance could then be absorbed into the Treasury Department, the report said.

former US President Bill Clinton actually discussed the possibility of US President Joe Biden preemptively pardoning his wife named Hillary Clinton amidst threats of further investigations from US President- elect Donald Trump ally Kash Patel, reported Daily Beast. According to Daily Beast, Bill Clinton eventually emphasized on the fact that Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong at all regarding the email controversy while noting that the State Department of Donald Trump actually found no evidence of her sending classified emails from her personal device. He also expressed his severe skepticism about the need for a pardon while suggesting that any accusations made by Kash Patel would likely be fabricated.