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non-compete clauses as part of employment contracts by employers while making top management employee appointments. Yet lawsuits against employees for contract violations are not a frequent phenomenon in India. What happened?

India’s foreign minister has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said relations between the countries are progressing even amid turbulent times

Mark Cuban sees a future of NBA ownership where the advantages will be in real estate

It was a tumultuous 2023 for the Chinese economy

South Korea’s top court has ordered a third Japanese company to compensate some of its former wartime Korean employees for forced labor

Workers in several New England states are looking forward to a bump up in the minimum wage in 2024 while advocates in Massachusetts are pushing a ballot question aimed at phasing out the state’s subminimum wage for tipped workers

A civil rights leader was escorted by police out of a North Carolina movie theater after he insisted on using his own chair for medical reasons

Labour Codes and align them with the ones notified by the union labour ministry to minimise divergence and any possible legal issues after the roll out of codes. A senior government official told ET that the Centre will reach out to all states and deliberate with them about their rules under each code to ensure they are not in conflict with central rules. The move follows a recent study by the VV Giri National Labour Institute, an autonomous body under the ministry of labour and employment, which highlighted wide divergence in the rules, not only between the central and states and union territories but also among the states. For example, the central rule provides for the spread over of 12 hours a day while Assam and Kerala restrict the spread over to ten-and-a-half hours a day.

Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP) that has crippled all efforts to revive the sinking economy. The demand was raised by Pakistan army chief Asim Munir with the US leadership during his recent visit there.

What happened?

Indian banks have shrugged off exceptional monetary tightening in advanced economies, domestic rate hikes, wars and volatile commodity prices. Their notional losses in a major portfolio of securities are at a level to comfortably ward off the kind of threats that sank a few US banks in March 2023. «The notional loss in the HTM (held-to-maturity) book of scheduled commercial banks declined marginally to ₹70,497 crore as at end September 2023 as compared to a notional loss of ₹71,817 crore as at end March 2023,» the Reserve Bank of India said in its December 2023 Financial Stability Report. RBI's assessment of notional losses in the HTM portfolio — which it started publishing recently — assumes significance in light of the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and a few other US-based lenders in March 2023, stressed by huge losses incurred on holdings of American bonds. «If you look at the core capital of public sector banks, in our estimate, that is close to around ₹8 lakh crore.

Hafiz Saeed, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said on Friday. But she said that no bilateral extradition treaty exists between India and Pakistan.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday became the national president of the JD(U) before the crucial Lok Sabha polls. The decision was taken at the national executive meeting of the JDU in Delhi. During the meeting, JDU president Lalan Singh, citing his engagements over upcoming Lok Sabha elections, offered to step down as party president and proposed the name of Nitish Kumar.

ULFA) on Friday signed a peace agreement with the Centre and the Assam government and agreed to surrender weapons, shun violence, disband the organisation and join the democratic process. Union home minister Amit Shah, who was present along with Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the signing of the accord here, said it was a big day for the people of Assam.

Congress leadership has lined up a flurry of meetings to activate its Lok Sabha election preparations and seat-sharing talks with the INDIA bloc allies besides firming up the route programmes of Rahul Gandhi's up-coming North-West yatra, during which he is also expected to announce more «Congress guarantees» as the party's welfarist promises for the LS polls, party sources said. The AICC's National Alliance Committee has started meetings with various PCC leadership here to take their formal views/ suggestions on possible alliances formula, based on which the leadership will reach out to various INDIA bloc allies for formal seat-sharing negotiations. It is learnt that when the five-member National Alliance Committee met the West Bengal Congress representative, the state leaders said that for retaining the party's two sitting seats — Berhampore and Malda — the party would not need any prop of alliance as both the seats have been won twice in a row «on the basis of the Congress' own strength.

Bihar is going to be different this time because of the sheer weight of the caste census politics unleashed and the Domino-effect it is likely to have on the fates of CM Nitish Kumar, the RJD, Left and Congress. The 'Mahagathbandhan' of RJD, JD(U), Congress and the Left is trying to recreate Mandal politics through the census data, with the state government hiking the quota for OBCs, SC and STs up to 65%. Whether the backward castes will bite this bait and vote for the mahagathbandan is still a hazy proposition.

MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia's economy contracted by 1.2% last year, less than the 2.1% decline previously estimated, the state statistics service Rosstat said on Friday.

peace agreement with the pro-talks faction of ULFA has nothing new to offer, opposition parties in Assam on Friday slammed the BJP and said the pact is «merely a political gimmick» ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Asking the government to make the agreement with United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) public, opposition leaders stressed that many old points of earlier accords have been «re-written in a different language and tone». ULFA's pro-talks faction on Friday signed a peace accord with the central and Assam governments, agreeing to renounce violence, surrender all arms, disband the organisation and join the democratic process.

Barack Obama has shared his favorite songs of the year including Beyoncé's "America Has a Problem" featuring Kendrick Lamar, Tyla's "Water," and Mitski's "My Love Mine All Mine." His diverse list spans various genres, featuring tracks like Karol G and Shakira's Latin hits, country and folk tunes from artists like Zach Bryan and Jason Isbell, rap hits by Dave and Burna Boy, and indie rock selections including Blondshell, Big Thief, and Indigo de Souza.

(Bloomberg) — Membership of the BRICS group of emerging-market nations is set to double, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt to join its ranks on Jan. 1, South Africa’s envoy to the bloc said. 

Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday apologized for the incorrect translation of a verse from Bhagavad Gita on his social media post. Opposition parties including Congress, CPI(M) and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi attacked the post. Congress party questioned if the government of India subscribed to Sarma's view to the post which read that serving the Brahmins, Ksatriyas and Vaishyas is the natural duty of the Shudras. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Sarma wrote, “As a routine I upload one sloka of Bhagavad Gita every morning on my social media handles.