Mallikarjun Kharge to be on CIC selection panel

New Delhi, Jul 16: The Rajasthan High Court will hear Thursday afternoon a petition filed on behalf of the Sachin Pilot camp, challenging a move to disqualify dissident MLAs from the state assembly.

The plea against the disqualification notices sent from the Speaker’s office to Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs will be heard by Justice Satish Chandra Sharma.

The 19 MLAs were sent notices Tuesday by the Speaker after the Congress complained that the MLAs had defied a party whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings. 

New Delhi, May 7: Food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy on Thursday said its co-founder and CTO Rahul Jaimini will move away from active role in the company during the month to pursue another entrepreneurial venture.

Jaimini will be joining Pesto Tech, a career accelerator start-up, as their co-founder, Swiggy said in a statement.

He will continue to be a shareholder and board member of Swiggy, it added.

Functions currently led by Rahul, including platform engineering, analytics, IT and labs, will be realigned to Dale Vaz, Head of Engineering and Data Science, who has been with the company for close to two years, the statement said.

"Technology was crucial to what we set out to build when we started Swiggy. Nandan (Reddy) and I could not have asked for a better partner to handle this aspect of the company," Swiggy co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety said.

It was Rahul's immense passion to 'build for the billions' that drove technological innovations that set Swiggy apart as we grew phenomenally over the years, he added.

"Working with technology that has large scale impact is what excites me, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do just this at Swiggy and grow tremendously over the years," Jaimini said.

New Delhi, May 17: Following the COVID-19-induced economic disruptions, up to 135 million jobs could be lost and 120 million people might be pushed back into poverty in India, all of which will have a hit on consumer income, spending and savings, says a report.

According to a new report by international management consulting firm Arthur D Little, the worst of COVID-19's impact will be felt by India's most vulnerable in terms of job loss, poverty increase and reduced per-capita income, which in turn will result in a steep decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"Given the continued rise of COVID-19 cases, we believe that a W-shaped recovery is the most likely scenario for India. This implies a GDP contraction of 10.8 per cent in FY 2020-21 and GDP growth of 0.8 per cent in FY 2021-22," the report said.

India's COVID-19 tally has crossed 90,000 and the nationwide death toll has touched nearly 2,800 so far.

The report titled "India: Surmounting the economic challenges posed by COVID-19: A 10-point programme to revive and power India's post-COVID economy" said the 'collateral damage' of the forecasted GDP slowdown, will be felt most acutely in employment, poverty alleviation, per-capita income and overall nominal GDP.

"Unemployment may rise to 35 per cent from 7.6 per cent resulting in 136 million jobs lost and a total of 174 million unemployed. Poverty alleviation will receive a set-back, significantly changing the fortunes of many, putting 120 million people into poverty and 40 million into abject poverty," the report said.

"India is headed towards a W-shaped economic recovery with a potential GDP contraction of 10.8 per cent in FY21. An opportunity loss of USD 1 trillion is staring India in its face," said Barnik Chitran Maitra, lead author of the report and Managing Partner & CEO of Arthur D Little, India and South Asia.

Maitra further said "for its USD 5 trillion vision, a radical economic approach is needed, centred on an immediate stimulus and structural reforms. The Prime Minister's visionary 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan' is a good start to this new approach."

The report lauded the steps taken by the government and the Reserve Bank of India, but said a far more assertive approach may be required given the magnitude of the adverse economic output.

The report suggested a 10-point programme to accelerate the recovery which include strengthening the 'safety net' significantly for the most vulnerable, enable survival of small and medium businesses, restarting the rural economy and providing targeted assistance to at-risk sectors.

It further said the government should launch "Make in India 2.0" to capture global opportunities, build 'Modern India', accelerate Digital India and Innovation, strengthen global investment corridors with the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Japan and the UK, debottleneck land and labour and transform banking and financial markets in a bid to secure a sustainable economic future for 1.3 billion Indians.