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global GDP grew by about 3%. The early signs suggest progress is continuing at the same rate this year. Data from Goldman Sachs, a bank, indicate that global economic activity is about as lively as it was in 2019.

The white paper brought out by the government last week is an excellent document from a campaign perspective. As an assessment of the economic performance of the Congress-led UPA government (2004-2014), however, it falls short.

kiwi dollars were subdued in holiday thinned trade on Monday, while traders looked ahead to a central bank speech in New Zealand that could make or break market bets for another hike given the huge shift in market pricing last week. Most of Asia including China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia are closed for holidays.

Satya Nadella told ET during his annual visit to the country last week. In an interview, the 56-year-old chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation called AI the new factor of productivity and said it will aid India's goal of being a $5-trillion economy. Edited excerpts: Congratulations on completing ten years at Microsoft. You're being talked about as the 'GOAT' of tech CEOs, the greatest of all time. Your success is partly due to the fact that you placed the right things at the heart of Microsoft 10 years ago, in terms of mobile, cloud, and so on. So, what is going to be Microsoft's paradigm ten years from now?

Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation. Emphasising the role of artificial intelligence in driving increased productivity, the Hyderabad-born technocrat said it gives him “tremendous optimism” that it (AI) will further accelerate India’s growth as it races towards its goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047. “At the end of the day, what's the difference between being a developed country and a developing country? It’s just the rate of growth over long periods of time,” 56-year old Nadella told ET in an interview, last week. He cited the example of the digital public goods, which when “scaffolded or daisy-chained with a large language model” can create several innovative solutions for various sectors of the economy.

NEW DELHI : The final report on farm laws by a government-appointed committee will only be ready in a few months, said a member of the panel, as farmers geared up for a protest this week to press long-standing demands over MSP and other farm-related issues. The member who did not wish to be named said the committee that was constituted two years ago to address farmers’ grievances, including on minimum support prices (MSP), is trying to forge a consensus at the earliest. Because of the delay, farmers from Punjab and Haryana are planning to march to Delhi on Tuesday.

By Judy Hua and Kevin Yao

Guwahati: The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, drew a Lotus, the symbol of BJP, as part of the BJP Wall Painting program at the Jyotikuchi area in Guwahati. As part of this national campaign, the Party's senior leader joined enthusiastic party workers and common people to draw a lotus, where everyone cheered for ‘Ek Bar Phir Se Modi Sarkar.’

By Andrea Shalal

World Governments Summit in Dubai, Georgieva said the IMF would publish a paper on Monday that shows phasing out explicit energy subsidies could save $336 billion in the Middle East, equivalent to the economies of Iraq and Libya combined. She added that in addition to savings, eliminating regressive energy subsidies "discourages pollution, and helps improve social spending," in a copy of the speech published on the IMF website.

The Biden administration is announcing an investment of $5 billion in a public-private consortium aimed at supporting research and development in advanced computer chips

India's net direct tax collection stood at Rs 15.60 lakh crore as of February 10, reaching approximately 80 per cent of the revised target set for the entire financial year, the official government data showed on Sunday. On February 1, 2024, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman revised direct tax collection aim to Rs. 19.45 lakh crore for the current financial year, higher than Rs 16.61 lakh crore collected in fiscal 2023 and Rs 14.08 lakh crore in fiscal 2022. In January, India's net direct tax collection had witnessed a 19 per cent increase on an annual basis to Rs 14.70 lakh crore.

gold closed with a loss of 0.48% at $2025 Friday as the US yields chugged higher to close 0.47% up at 4.177%. Spot gold was down nearly 0.70% on the week. The ten-year US yields firmed up by around 3.70% on the weekly basis, whereas the two-year yields were up roughly 2% on the week as the yields settled at 4.48% Friday. The US Dollar Index, which is up nearly 3% from its cyclical low, was up by 0.12% on the week to close at 104.08. The Index was unable to capitalise fully on surging US yields as risk appetite remained healthy. Although the last week was light on data, a major theme has emerged, which is likely to influence gold prices in short term. Resilient US economy and hawkish stance of the Federal Reserve officials are slowly driving this point home that most of the US Federal Reserve officials are in no hurry to cut rates anytime soon. They would like to see inflationary pressure subside further in a broadening manner before they gain enough confidence to cut rates later this year. It means that a March rate cut is virtually off the table, which is in line with the the post FOMC statements of the Fed Chair Powell.

Tradeoffs between strong growth and a healthy environment are not dominating the headlines in the runup to the Feb. 14 presidential election in Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy

financial landscape can be akin to a thrilling yet complex journey. Amid the buzz around stocks and real estate, there lies a less talked about, yet crucial, investment avenue: debt instruments. For the discerning Indian investor, understanding and leveraging these instruments can be a game-changer.

Piyush Goyal, Commerce & Industry Minister, says “the more we are criticised, the more power this government and particularly Prime Minister Modi gets. We are an aspirational government. We are a hungry government, hungry as in not in the belly, but hungry for more. As they say in Hindi, yeh dil mange more, or dil jitna zyada mangega, utni zyada mehnat karega. The more you desire, the more you work hard for meeting those aspirations, those goals, and I think it is very fair to say that we have miles to go before we sleep and I would think till the last breath of every human being that should be the spirit.”

Raymond T Dalio, Founder, CIO Mentor, says “avoid indebtedness, debt assets, minimize the debt assets and then to diversify into various locations. No one asset class, no one country, no one currency should be concentrated in because of the nature of that. So, look at those good places and then look for good leadership. Dalio further says: “Should the United States weaken its currency status, other countries also will have weaker currencies and then there would be an emergence of alternatives such as most importantly likely gold or currencies that tend to depreciate together. If you have a lot of debt and the United States has a lot of debt that most importantly results in a lot of sales of debt, that money probably has to be printed. For the US dollar to lose its status relative to other countries would require another currency to become dominant. You always look at the world based on five factors – economy and credit, internal peace and conflict, external issues between countries, climate change and technology. If you have to look at the mechanics of the world, rather than giving an audience a fish to eat, if they have to know the trick of how to catch the next fish, how would you put your thoughts into play and explain some of these pointers, the number one being economy and credit? Raymond T Dalio: Yes, you are right.

Bangladesh close on the heels of a similar campaign in Maldives has its origin in anti-liberation and radical sections in the neighbouring country that enjoys patronage of Pakistan and pro-Pak parties including BNP and outlawed Jamaat-e-Islami. The campaign has the potential to rock Bangladesh economy as citizens are being encouraged to boycott Indian products that dominate daily lives, Dhaka-based sources told ET. The campaign, sources claimed, is aimed at weakening Bangladesh economy and subsequently the Hasina government akin to the artificial crisis that was created in early 1970s to weaken the then Sheikh Mujib government.

artificial intelligence and becomes a beacon for the world amid a tough geopolitical scenario, a panel consisting of Bill Winters, chief executive officer, Standard Chartered Bank, Ravi Kumar S, CEO, Cognizant, Jenny Johnson, president and CEO, Franklin Templeton and Rizwan Sajan, founder and chairman of Danube Group said Friday. Speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Fissures, Faultlines and Future – In Search of an Equilibrium’, they observed that the next few decades were India’s to take the lead as the economic driver of the world.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman Saturday said lack of leadership lay at the heart of the "scam-driven" United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as well as mismanagement of the economy during its tenure. Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi ran the government as «super Prime Minister» without being accountable, she said. «Sonia Gandhi-ji was the super Prime Minister as the chairperson of the National Advisory Council and an extra-constitutional and unaccountable person,» Sitharaman said in her reply to a short-duration discussion on the white paper on the Indian economy in the Rajya Sabha. The white paper was presented in Parliament on February 8.

US inflation likely continued to slow at the start of the year, helping to feed expectations that the Federal Reserve will find interest-rate cuts more palatable in the coming months. The core consumer price index, a measure that excludes food and fuel for a better picture of underlying inflation, is seen increasing 3.7% in January from a year earlier. That would mark the smallest year-over-year advance since April 2021, and underscore the inroads Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues have made in beating back inflation.