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gift ideas that will be loved by the recipients as they cater to basic, everyday needs and aspirations. With a Christmas reindeer on top and five personal care items in it, Atulya, one of the fastest-growing names in Ayurveda and nature-oriented personal care, has created a gift box just in time for Christmas and the end of the year. This includes the Onion and Bhringraj range of shampoo, conditioner, hair oil, natural toner and cleanser in the shape of Atulya rose water soap.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke Tuesday alongside FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker in Arlington, Virginia.

By Georgina McCartney and Arathy Somasekhar

Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order threatening penalties for financial institutions that help Russia circumvent sanctions, the White House said in a statement, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Moscow. The order also gives Washington the ability to broaden import bans of certain Russian goods, such as seafood and diamonds, the White House said.

White-collar hiring in the country declined 6% on year in 2023, pulled down by sectors such as IT services, BPO/ITeS, retail, FMCG, education, and healthcare, show data put together by online jobs platform Naukri.com exclusively for ET. Companies in several sectors tightened their hiring funnel amid global macroeconomic headwinds and prolonged geopolitical uncertainties even as sectors that have seen business growth in the last one year, including oil & gas, power, infrastructure, energy, BFSI, travel, and real estate, recorded double-digit growth in hiring numbers, data showed.

Given the delayed winter, many retailers have now started discounting early to attract shoppers. Retail sales in October and November 2023 showed a growth of 7% compared to the sales levels during the same period in 2022, according to the survey by the Retailers Association of India (RAI). «The last two-three months have seen muted growth despite being the festive season and the way things are going, we don't expect any major uptick in demand for the next two quarters.

Christmas and year-end season? Pretty much everywhere! Going by most accounts, the October to December quarter this year is likely to be a bumper quarter for the travel and hospitality sector with most companies claiming to have an even better momentum than in 2019. «There is a lot of talk about high airfares but the important thing to note is that people are travelling,» said Rajesh Magow, cofounder and group CEO of MakeMyTrip. «Typically, international travel bookings, even for short-haul travel, are made a couple of weeks or more in advance. However, with markets such as Thailand and others making the entry process a lot easier, we are seeing advance purchase windows for these destinations becoming shorter, in many cases, stretching to a couple of days,» he said. As per MakeMyTrip data, the top destinations for the last week of December in the domestic sector include Goa, Rajasthan, Varanasi, Kerala, Rishikesh and Kashmir. In terms of international flight bookings, popular destinations such as the UAE, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia continue to be favourites.

Gujarat Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) by the state government has drawn sharp criticism from opposition Congress. Congress President Shaktisinh Gohil in a late night video message called this an attempt to relax prohibition in Gujarat through the backdoor. It may be mentioned here that one Friday, Gujarat Government declared that the employees of the GIFT City as well as authorised visitors to the companies within GIFT City will be lawed to consume alcohol in designated areas in a bid to facilitate “wine and dine” services offered by the restaurants. However the restaurants will not be allowed to sell liquor bottles, the government added. Gohil said that Gujarat has retained good law and order due to prohibition and it is because of prohibition that women can move on the streets late in the night.

But Noshirwan Mistry, who has a large mango orchard in Dapoli in Ratnagiri district, tells me of a less happy reason to make fruit wine. Ratnagiri is ground zero for Alphonsos, the mangoes most prized in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Because of their good travelling properties and early proximity to shipping networks from Mumbai, Alphonsos have also become the Indian mango variety best known abroad.

During the holidays, the airways and roads are going to be busy to a great extent. This is because over 115 million people are predicted to be travelling 50 miles or greater than that from their homes starting from Christmas to New Year’s Day as reported by AAA.

The National Park Service is offering free admission to U.S. national parks on six days in 2024.

Delhi airport operator DIAL on Friday said its excess baggage service has handled around 1.7 lakh kilograms of luggage and has helped passengers save around Rs 7 crore on excess baggage since the initiative started in 2020. Under the service, prices start at Rs 99 per kilogram.

Christmas Eve is on Sunday this year. Like every year consumers will be hurrying up to the stores for last-minute holiday shopping. While traveling or picking up gifts for loved ones, they will look for places to eat out to grab a quick evening snack or a cup of warm coffee. It is that time of the year that people wait eagerly for with Christmas bells ringing and children waiting to unpack their gifts and meet their Santa Claus. Celebrating Christmas by eating out is something many look forward to. Now not all restaurants are open on Christmas Eve such as Chick-fil-A which will remain closed on December 24 this year. For others, the Christmas Eve hours will vary depending on the location.

₹135.9 apiece, which was 4.3% lower than the IPO price of ₹142 per share. At current levels, the stock is still trading 1.40% below its issue price. However, according to recent projections from brokerage house Investec, there may be a potential reversal of this trend going forward, driven by the company's increasing market share.

Many airline passengers still don’t know how to behave. A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight waiting at the gate in New Orleans last month opened an emergency exit, climbed onto the plane’s wing and jumped to the ground, police said. An American Airlines customer service manager was hospitalized late last month after a passenger being removed from a flight in Miami punched her in the face and pushed her down, her head striking the jet bridge.

Narendra Modi's call for a "wed in India" movement, the Union Tourism Ministry is gearing up to launch a new campaign, «India says I do», on a large scale for not only encouraging affluent Indian families to host weddings within the country but also to draw foreign couples to tie the knot on Indian soil, a TOI report stated. According to a report by KPMG, the Indian wedding market was estimated to generate Rs 3-4 lakh crore annually a few years ago, and the current figures are believed to be even higher. A considerable portion of this spending occurs during lavish destination weddings held abroad. Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) had predicted a staggering expenditure of Rs 4.7 lakh crore on 38 lakh weddings during the period from November 23 to December 15, marking a 25 per cent increase from the previous year.

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and state minister Ahmed Khan saying that at a time when their party is asking for donations, the two leaders are travelling in a 'private jet'. Responding to a question on the video of himself and Karnataka minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan travelling on a chartered flight, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah says, "Ask BJP people in what Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels in." The video was first posted by the Karnataka Minister Zameer Ahmad Khan himself.

Pannun reportedly called himself the spokesperson of the Kashmir-Khalistan Referendum Front and said the recent ambush on Indian soldiers was a "consequence of India’s violence against Kashmiris". Three soldiers were killed and three other were injured after an Army vehicle was attacked by terrorists in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, news agency PTI had reported on Thursday. The report added that top Intelligence sources said Pannun’s declaration clarifies his association with designated terror groups of Pakistan who killed Indian soldiers.

On the tarmac of a Moscow airport in late August, Yevgeny Prigozhin waited on his Embraer Legacy 600 for a safety check to finish before it could take off. The mercenary army chief was headed home to St. Petersburg with nine others onboard.

Karnataka minister showing videos of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other ministers returning from Delhi in a luxurious chartered flight has kicked up a storm with the BJP questioning the propriety of the opulence by the CM & his colleagues while the state reeled under drought. Housing Minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan had, on Thursday, posted a video on social media platform X showing the interiors of the luxurious private jet CM, himself and other ministers travelled from Delhi. The CM had gone to Delhi to press for funds to take up drought relief programmes in Karnataka. BJP Karnataka Unit President BY Vijayendra on Friday took pot-shots at Siddaramaiah for flying in a plush jet to submit a memorandum requesting funds for drought relief. In a post on social media platform X, Vijayendra said when the state had been reeling under drought, farmers were committing suicide, and the life of the common man had become unbearable, Siddaramaiah and his team of ministers were flaunting opulence by spending tax payers’ money. It was Karnataka’s misfortune that Siddaramaiah too had been part of this luxury.

Catch all the LIVE updates on Covid and the sub-variant JN.1 hereWith JN.1 variant fueling another COVID surge in India, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, former WHO chief scientist, said that the new strain should not be dismissed as a ‘common cold’ and warned saying ‘let's not take things lightly’ this time. Read more hereCovid news LIVE updates: A Noida resident has tested positive for Covid, in a first case of the infection in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar after several months, officials said on Thursday.The patient is a 54-year-old male who lives in Noida but works at a multinational company in Gurugram, Gautam Buddh Nagar Chief Medical Officer Dr Sunil Sharma said."His test sample has been sent to Delhi for genome sequencing.