BJP MLA and son publicly assault on duty civic official with cricket bat; arrested

New Delhi, Feb 29: India’s economy expanded at its slowest pace in more than six years in the last three months of 2019, with analysts predicting further deceleration as the global Covid 19 coronavirus outbreak stifles growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The gross domestic product (GDP) data released yesterday showed government spending, private investment and exports slowing down, while there is a slight upturn in consumer spending and improvement in rural demand lent support.

The quarterly figure of 4.7% growth matched the consensus in a Reuters poll of analysts but was below a revised - and greatly increased - 5.1% rate for the previous quarter.

The central bank has warned that downside risks to global growth have increased as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, the full effects of which are still unfolding.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has taken several steps to bolster economic growth, including a privatisation push and increased state spending, after cutting corporate tax rates last September.

In its annual budget presented this month, the government estimated that annual economic growth in the financial year to March 31 would be 5%, its lowest for last 11 years.

Modi’s government is targeting a slight recovery in growth to 6% for 2020/21, still far below the level needed to generate jobs for millions of young Indians entering the labour market each month.

The annual GDP figure for the September quarter was ramped up from an earlier estimate of 4.5%, while the April-June reading was similarly lifted to 5.6% from 5%, data released by the Ministry of Statistics showed on Friday.

Capital Investment Drop

In the December quarter, private investment grew 5.9%, up from 5.6% in the previous quarter, while government spending rose by 11.8%, against 13.2% in the previous three months.

However, corporate capital investment contracted by 5.2% after a 4.1% decline in the previous quarter, indicating that interest rate cuts by the central bank have failed to encourage new investment. Manufacturing, meanwhile, contracted by 0.2%.

“It appears growth slowdown is not just cyclical but more entrenched with consumption secularly joining the slowdown bandwagon even as the investment story continues to languish,” said Madhavi Arora of Edelweiss Securities in Mumbai.

Many economists said that the government stimulus could take four to six quarters of time before lifting the economy and the impact of those efforts could be outweighed by the global fallout from the coronavirus epidemic that began in China.

“The coronavirus remains the critical risk as India depends on China for both demand and supply of inputs,” said Abheek Barua, chief economist at HDFC Bank.

Indian shares sank on Friday for a sixth session running, capping their worst week in more than a decade. The NSE Nifty 50 index shed 7.3% over the week, while the Sensex dropped 6.8%, the worst weekly declines since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Separately, India’s infrastructure output rose 2.2% year on year in January, data showed on Friday.

A spike in inflation to a more than 5-1/2 year high of 7.59% in January is expected to make the RBI hold off from further cuts to interest rates for now, while keeping its monetary stance accommodative.

New Delhi, Jun 17: AAP MLA and national spokesperson Atishi has tested positive for COVID-19, her party colleagues said on Wednesday.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter to wish her speedy recovery.

"Atishi ji has played an important role in the fight against corona. I hope that she will get healthy soon and again get involved in serving the people," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.

According to sources, Atishi was tested on Tuesday for COVID-19 and her report came positive today.

She is presently under home quarantine, the sources said.

"Get well soon Atishi, recover soon from Corona," AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj tweeted.

Atishi represents Kalkaji assembly constituency.

New Delhi, May 25: The pending class 10 and 12 board exams will be conducted by CBSE at 15,000 centres across the country instead of 3,000 centres planned earlier, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' announced on Monday.

The exams, which were postponed due to a nationwide lockdown imposed on March 25 to contain the spread of COVID-19, will now be held from July 1 to 15.

"The class 10, 12 exams will now be conducted at over 15,000 exam centres across India. Earlier, CBSE was slated to hold exams at only 3,000 centres," Nishank said.

The decision has been taken to ensure social distancing at exam centres and minimise travel for students.

The HRD ministry has already announced that students will appear for exams at schools in which they are enrolled rather than external examination centres.

According to home ministry guidelines, there will be no exam centre in COVID-19 containment zones and states will be responsible for making transport arrangements for students to reach their respective centres.

Usually, board examinations are held at designated test centres to ensure minimum bias from schools and enable independent external invigilators to monitor the examination process.

While Class 12 exams will be conducted across the country, the Class 10 exams are only pending in North East Delhi, where they could not be held due to the law-and-order situation in the wake of protests against the amended citizenship act.

The CBSE class 10 and 12 board exam evaluation is being carried out from home.

The HRD ministry had earmarked 3,000 evaluation centres from where answer sheets would be distributed to teachers at their homes for evaluation and then collected.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Later, a 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. It has now been extended till May 31. The board was not able to conduct class 10 and 12 exams on eight examination days due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Due to the law-and-order situation in North East Delhi, CBSE was not able to conduct exams on four examination days, while a very small number of students from and around this district were not able to appear in exams on six days.

The board had last month announced that it will only conduct pending exams in 29 subjects which are crucial for promotion and admission to higher educational institutions.

The modalities of assessment for the subjects for which exams are not being conducted will be announced soon by the board.

The schedule has been decided in order to ensure that the board exams are completed before competitive examinations such as engineering entrance JEE-Mains, which is scheduled from July 18-23 and medical entrance exam NEET that will be held on July 26.