Visa on arrival list expanded to woo tourists

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.

Mar 28: A 69-year-old patient, hailing from Chullikal in Ernakulam District, passed away at Kalamasserry Medical College at 8:00am.

The patient had come from Dubai recently and was quarantined.

He arrived in Kerala on March 16 and was tested positive for Coronavirus on March 22, Medical College nodal officer A Fathahudeen said.

He was undergoing treatment for heart ailment and blood pressure. He had earlier undergone a bypass surgery.

Forty nine passengers in the flight he came are under quarantine.

A close relative and the driver who picked him up from the airport are coronavirus positive.

Since the deceased had no contact with any others in the state since his arrival, his route map was not processed.

Kerala reported 39 fresh cases of coronavirus on Friday, taking the total number of people under treatment to 164. The total number of confirmed cases from the state is 176, but, of this, 12 had recovered.

Of the 39 cases, 34 are from the worst affected northernmost district of Kasaragod, two from Kannur and one each from Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kollam.

With a positive case being reported from Kollam, all 14 districts in the state have been affected by the pandemic.

The worst affected Kasaragod has 76 positive cases, the highest and most of the affected are Non Resident Keralites from the Gulf.

A total of 1,10,299 people are under surveillence and 616 are in isolation wards of various hospitals.

New Delhi, Feb 12: Delhi Chief Minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal was on Wednesday elected as the leader of AAP legislative party, a day after he led the party to an emphatic victory in the Delhi Assembly elections.

Kejriwal was elected as the AAP legislative party leader during a meeting called by him with the newly-elected party MLAs. The meeting was held at the AAP chief's residence.

Atishi, AAP's winning candidate from Kalkaji constituency said after the meeting, "It is definitely a validation of the work that has been done by AAP in the last five years, be it education, health care, water or electricity."

Kejriwal is slated to take oath as the Delhi Chief Minister for the third time at Ramlila Maidan on February 16.

AAP galloped to a landslide victory by winning 62 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections in the face of a high-voltage campaign by the BJP, which fielded a battery of Union Ministers and Chief Ministers in its electioneering, spearheaded by Home Minister Amit Shah.

The BJP marginally improved its tally, managing just eight seats from its 2015's tally of three seats. The Congress, which drew a blank in the previous elections, failed to open its account yet again.