Can hold national and state elections together from Sept 2018: EC

Agencies
October 5, 2017

New Delhi, Oct 5: India could witness national and state elections being held simultaneously in 2018.

The Election Commission of India, on Wednesday, said that they are logistically capable to conduct state assemblies and Lok Sabha polls together by September 2018.

“After purchase of new machines we would be logistically ready by Sept 2018 to hold parliamentary and assembly polls together,” said Election Commissioner OP Rawat.

“However it is up to the government to take a decision and make required legal amendments,and all parties to be on board,” he added.

The Centre has been mulling over aligning the upcoming state elections, scheduled to be held in November-December 2018, with the Lok Sabha elections 2019.

If implemented, the general elections - due in April 2019 - could be preponed while the state elections will be postponed.

The government is exploring possibilities on how to conduct the elections over a period of time, and not in one go.

The idea is to reduce financial burden and help conduct elections over certain frame of time that doesn't disturb governance at state levels, a view reiterated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

To pull it off, the BJP-led Centre needs to procure a political consensus across all regional and national parties.

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Agencies
June 22,2020

Mumbai, Jun 22: After downgrading India's outlook to negative from stable, Fitch Ratings on Monday revised the outlook on nine Indian banks to negative.

The outlook on the Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) was revised to negative from stable due to the banks' high dependence on the Centre to re-capitalise them.

Accordingly, the IDR outlook of the Export-Import Bank of India, the State Bank of India, the Bank of Baroda, the Bank of Baroda (New Zealand), the Bank of India, the Canara Bank, the Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank Ltd have been downgraded to negative.

"At the same time, Fitch has affirmed IDBI Bank Limited's (IDBI) IDR while maintaining the outlook at negative," Fitch said in a statement.

The rating actions follow Fitch's revision of the outlook on the 'BBB-' rating on India to negative from stable on June 18, due to the impact of the escalating coronavirus pandemic on India's economy.

"The IDRs for all the above Indian banks are support-driven and anchored to their respective SRFs," the statement said.

"They are based on Fitch's assessment of high to moderate probability of extraordinary state support for these banks, which takes into account our assessment of the sovereign's ability and propensity to provide extraordinary support."

According to the statement, the negative outlook on India's sovereign rating reflects an increasing strain on the state's ability to provide extraordinary support, due to the sovereign's limited fiscal space and the significant deterioration in fiscal metrics due to challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The rating action does not affect the banks' Viability Rating (VR). EXIM does not have a VR as its role as a policy bank makes an assessment of its standalone credit profile less meaningful."

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News Network
June 3,2020

New Delhi, Jun 3: India registered its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases on Wednesday with 8,909 more cases reported in the last 24 hours, taking the country's tally to 2,07,615, while the death toll rose to 5,815 according to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood to 1,01,497 while 1,00,303 people have been cured/discharged/migrated.

According to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, out of all the states, Maharashtra has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases with 72,300 patients followed by Tamil Nadu with 24,586 cases.

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Agencies
March 22,2020

Mumbai, Mar 22: The total number of coronavirus positive patients in Maharashtra has risen to 74 with 10 more positive cases reported in the last 24 hours, officials said.

Of the 10 new cases, 6 are in Mumbai and 4 in Pune, they said on Sunday.

Earlier this week, a Covid-19 patient died in Mumbai.

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