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India's Q1 GDP grows at 8.2% on upswing in manufacturing and construction activity

Agencies
September 1, 2018

New Delhi, Sept 1: India's economy grew at 2-year high of 8.2 percent in the April-June quarter of 2018-19 on strong performance of manufacturing and agriculture sectors, increasing its lead over China to remain the world's fastest-growing major economy.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at constant prices (2011-12) had grown at 5.6 percent in the April-June quarter of last fiscal, according to government data released on Friday.

The size of the GDP in the first quarter of 2018-19 has estimated at Rs 33.74 lakh crore, as against Rs 31.18 lakh crore in Q1 of 2017-18, a growth rate of 8.2 percent, as per the statement of the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The previous high in quarterly GDP growth was recorded in the January-March quarter of 2015-16 at 9.3 percent.

The Chinese economy had expanded at the rate of 6.7 percent in the April-June period this year.

India's Gross Value Added (GVA) for the quarter under consideration has been estimated at 8 percent, up from 5.6 percent in the year-ago period.

The quarterly GVA at constant (2011-2012) prices for Q1 of 2018-19 has been estimated at Rs 31.63 lakh crore, as against Rs 29.29 lakh crore in Q1 of 2017-18, showing a growth rate of 8 percent over the year-ago period.

The CSO said that manufacturing activities expand at the rate of 13.5 percent in the quarter under review. The sector had witnessed a decline of 1.8 percent in similar period last year.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a tweet that the growth represents the potential of new India. "Reforms and fiscal prudence are serving us well. India is witnessing an expansion of the neo middle class."

Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar in a tweet said: "Excellent news of GDP hitting a 9-quarter high at 8.2 percent".

Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said it has been a remarkable speed of economic recovery in the last four quarters -- 6.3 percent, 7 percent, 7.7 percent and now 8.2 percent.

"The GDP growth rate of 8.2% for the Q1 (April-June) of fiscal year 2018-19 indicates clearly that several structural reforms introduced such as GST have started giving rich dividends.The growth in manufacturing sector (13.5%) also indicates broad based recovery of demand," he said in series of tweets.

The CSO data further said 'agriculture, forestry and fishing' segment of the economy posted a growth of 5.3 percent as against 3 percent year-on-year. Growth in the 'electricity, gas, water supply and other utility serives' was 7.3 percent and in construction activities it was 8.7 percent.

'Trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting' and 'financial, real estate and professional services' segements posted slower growth in comparison to the year-ago quarter.

The growth in mining and quarrying activities too was slower.

Talking to reporters, Economic Affairs Secretary S C Garg said that the robust performance in the April-June quarter "gives hope" that growth could exceed even estimates of 7.5 percent for the year as whole.

Excellent growth performance in I qrtr. 8.2 percent overall growth, 13.5 percent growth in manufacturing and over 10 percent in capital formation.

"V shaped recovery of growth in Indian economy is complete now. We should grow at robust and steady state in 18-19 remaining fastest economy in World," he said.

Industry chamber Assocham said the best part about an impressive GDP growth "is that it is being led by employment-intensive manufacturing".

"Same is true about the construction which again is job-generating sector and grew by 8.7 percent," said Sandeep Jajodia, President of the chamber.

Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said that multiple sectors register growth of over 7 percent reflecting holistic progress towards 'New India' under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In a tweet, Executive Chairman Mahindra Group Anand Mahindra linked the GDP growth number with the Asian Games, saying "...this is like receiving news of a medal... We've been sensing a strong recovery of the economy across our various businesses.This data supports that hypothesis. Now, to sustain momentum we need more reforms & swift decision making by policy-makers..."

The Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) at current prices is estimated at Rs 12.75 lakh crore in first quarter of 2018-19 as against Rs 11.20 lakh crore in similar quarter of 2017-18.

At constant (2011-2012) prices, the GFCF is estimated at Rs 10.65 lakh crore in April-June quarter of 2018-19 as against Rs 9.68 lakh crore in similar period of 2017-18.

GFCF is considered as a barometer of investment activities.

Anshuman Magazine, Chairman, India and South East Asia, CBRE said a strong GDP growth of 8.2 percent "builds expectations" and showcases that the economy is recovering much faster than expected from the implementation of policy reforms such as the GST last year.

President of PHDCCI Anil Khaitan said the growth of agriculture, forestry and fishing is reflecting the focus of the government on farm and rural economy during the last few years which would go a long way to strengthen the economy and put it on USD 5 trillion economy by 2025.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

Rajouri, Aug 3: Ashfaq Mehmood Choudhary, a 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' which would enable users to share audios, videos, images, and texts between two devices without Internet access.

While speaking to media persons, Ashfaq Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' application is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app. "The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files.

Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said.

Ashfaq said that it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on August 1 this year. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use.

"Users can transfer data comprising photos, videos, audios, apps, texts, etc. between two devices with no Internet access. The transfers are fully encrypted and secure," he added.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

"We support and cooperate with him. He generates his own income by working on some projects and utilises it. We will continue to support him," said Parvez Ahmed Choudhary, Ashfaq's father.

In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included SHAREit Lite, Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite.

The 59 apps had been banned by the Centre in June in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies.

The ban came amid border tensions with China in the Eastern Ladakh region.

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Agencies
February 29,2020

New Delhi, Feb 29: Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said slowdown in growth is due to the current government focussing more on meeting its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economy.

India can still reverse its slowing economic growth by paying attention to key issues, he said. "It's a sad story, I think most recently, it is politics," Rajan said in response to a question on what was stopping India's growth which remains below potential.

In an interview to Bloomberg TV, Rajan said unfortunately the current government after a massive election win has "focussed more on fulfilling its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economic growth".

"Unfortunately, this drift has continued a pace of slowing growth, which was precipitated initially by some actions the government took such as the demonetisation and a poorly rolled out Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform," Rajan said.

India's GDP growth hit nearly 7-year low of 4.7 per cent in the December quarter, as per official data released on Friday.

The GDP growth for the quarter is the lowest since January-March of 2012-13.

In the interview, which was telecast before the official numbers were released, Rajan said India has not paid sufficient attention to cleaning up the financial sector and unfortunately, that is leading to the slowing growth.

"These are things that they can change if attention is paid to them and appropriate actions are taken," Rajan, Professor of Finance at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said.

On being asked about the spread of the coronavirus globally and its impact, he said there will certainly be some legacy issues in terms of business rethinking in the global supply chain.

"If it is disrupted anywhere, the entire supply chain is held ransom and companies are going to start rethinking that should we actually have these really spread out global supply chain or to bring them back closer home and how much diversification should we have. Should we have multiple production sites across the world rather than have it focussed primarily in Asia," he said.

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News Network
May 21,2020

Srinagar, May 21: Two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed and their weapons snatched by militants in the Pandach area on the outskirts of Srinagar yesterday.

According to IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar, the two BSF jawans, who were on road surveillance deployment, were fired upon by two of the three terrorists on a motorcycle around 5:15 pm on the 90-Ft Road at Pandach, near Soura. 

They were critically injured and later succumbed to injuries. The terrorists escaped after taking away one AK rifle and one INSAS. Efforts were underway to trace the terrorists.

He said that two jawans, Constable Rana Mandol and Constable Ziaul Haque of ‘C’ company of 37th battalion, were injured and they later succumbed.

“The terrorists managed to take away the weapons of the martyrs. Area has been cordoned off and the search for the terrorists is on”, he said.

Residents around the spot said that the two soldiers were buying chicken for Iftar from a mutton dealer, around 300 meters away from their deployment location when three militants on a motorcycle stopped and opened fire on them.

Medical Superintendent SKIMS Dr Farooq Jan said that both the jawans were brought dead to the tertiary care hospital.

Senior Police officials said it was a “clear case of security lapse” as the two jawans had left their spot of deployment on Srinagar-Kargil-Leh road and gone to a shop 500 metres away on a different road.

They said that possibility of terror attacks and subsequently claims by the new outfit TRF had been flashed to all forces earlier this week.

The terror strike in the capital city has occurred a day after an encounter in downtown Srinagar, where two Hizbul Mujahideen militants, including the top wanted Junaid Sehrai, had been killed on Tuesday.

In the last one month, five Army and Police personnel and two militants had got killed in an encounter in Handwara area of Kupwara, a day before three CRPF men were killed in another attack.

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