PM urges for 'festival tourism' in Mann Ki Baat address on Diwali

Dubai/Washington, Jan 6: Tens of thousands of Iranians thronged the streets of Tehran on Monday for the funeral of Quds Force commander Qassim Suleimani who was killed in a US air strike last week and his daughter said his death would bring a "dark day" for the United States.

"Crazy Trump, don't think that everything is over with my father's martyrdom," Zeinab Suleimani said in her address broadcast on state television after US President Donald Trump ordered Friday's strike that killed the top Iranian general.

Iran has promised to avenge the killing of Qassim Suleimani, the architect of Iran's drive to extend its influence across the region and a national hero among many Iranians, even many of those who did not consider themselves devoted supporters of the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers.

The scale of the crowds in Tehran shown on television mirrored the masses that gathered in 1989 for the funeral of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In response to Iran's warnings, Trump has threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites, including cultural targets, if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets, deepening a crisis that has heightened fears of a major Middle East conflagration.

The coffins of the Iranian general and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was also killed in Friday's attack on Baghdad airport, were passed across the heads of mourners massed in central Tehran, many of them chanting "Death to America".

One of the Islamic Republic's major regional goals, namely to drive US forces out of neighbouring Iraq, came a step closer on Sunday when the Iraqi parliament backed a recommendation by the prime minister for all foreign troops to be ordered out.

"Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically," said Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who resigned in November amid anti-government protests.

Iraq's rival Shi'ite leaders, including ones opposed to Iranian influence, have united since Friday's attack in calling for the expulsion of US troops.

Esmail Qaani, the new head of the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards' unit in charge of activities abroad, said Iran would continue Suleimani's path and said "the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region."

ALLIES AT FUNERAL

Prayers at Suleimani's funeral in Tehran, which will later move to his southern home city of Kerman, were led by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Suleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran behind Khamenei.

The funeral was attended by some of Iran's allies in the region, including Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Palestinian group Hamas who said: "I declare that the martyred commander Suleimani is a martyr of Jerusalem."

Adding to tensions, Iran said it was taking another step back from commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, a pact from which the United States withdrew in 2018.

Washington has since imposed tough sanctions on Iran, describing its policy as "maximum pressure" and saying it wanted to drive down Iranian oil exports - the main source of government revenues - to zero.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Washington from Florida on Sunday, Trump stood by his remarks to include cultural sites on his list of potential targets, despite drawing criticism from US politicians.

"They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way," Trump said.

Democratic critics of the Republican president have said Trump was reckless in authorizing the strike, and some said his comments about targeting cultural sites amounted to threats to commit war crimes. Many asked why Soleimani, long seen as a threat by US authorities, had to be killed now.

Republicans in the US Congress have generally backed Trump's move.

Trump also threatened sanctions against Iraq and said that if US troops were required to leave the country, Iraq's government would have to pay Washington for the cost of a "very extraordinarily expensive" air base there.

He said if Iraq asked US forces to leave on an unfriendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

Jan 24: India’s economy appears to be shaking off a slump, as activity in the services and manufacturing sectors expanded for a second straight month in December.

The needle on a gauge measuring so-called animal spirits signaled the economy may be taking a turn for the better, as five of the eight high-frequency indicators tracked by Bloomberg News came in stronger last month. The dial was last at the current position in August.

“Animal spirits” is a term coined by British economist John Maynard Keynes to refer to investors’ confidence in taking action, and the gauge uses the three-month weighted average to smooth out volatility in the single-month numbers.

The nascent recovery would need a helping hand, with expectations building that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will provide some stimulus when she presents the budget Feb. 1. Official forecasts show the economy is set to expand at 5% in the year ending March 2020 -- the weakest pace in more than a decade.

Here are the details of the dashboard:

Business Activity

The dominant services index rose to the highest level in five months in December as improving new work orders helped boost activity. The seasonally adjusted Markit India Services PMI index climbed to 53.3 from 52.7 in November, helping post a strong end to the calendar year.

India’s manufacturing PMI also rose -- to 52.7 from 51.2 a month ago -- boosted by the fastest increase in new orders since July. A reading above 50 means expansion while anything below that signals contraction.

The uptick in business confidence was accompanied by a rise in inflationary pressures, the survey showed. That trend may keep monetary policy makers from resuming interest-rate cuts anytime soon, leaving most of the heavy-lifting to boost growth with the government.

“The relative stability in macro indicators over the past two months suggests that the worst is behind, but the recovery is likely to be prolonged,” said Teresa John, an economist at Nirmal Bang Equities Pvt. in Mumbai. “Still, sluggish growth and rising inflation indicate that India may well remain in stagflation for most of 2020.”

Exports

Exports remained a laggard, falling 1.8% in December from a year ago. The drag was mainly because of a fall in export of engineering goods, which constitute a third of India’s non-oil exports.

Capital goods imports continued to contract and was lower by 16.5% year-on-year in December after a 22% drop in November. This was the seventh consecutive month of continuous decline, underscoring the weakness in the capex cycle, according to IDFC First Bank.

Consumer Activity

Weakness in demand for passenger vehicles persisted, with local sales falling 1.2% in December from a year ago, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. That capped the worst yearly passenger vehicle sales on record. A Nielsen study on demand for fast-moving consumer goods showed volume growth dropped to 3.5% in the last quarter of 2019 from 3.9% in the same period of 2018.

Funding conditions held out hope, showing considerable improvement in December, according to the Citi India Financial Conditions Index. Credit growth remained tardy though, with demand for loans rising at a slower 7.1% pace from a year ago compared with a nearly 8% growth in November.

Industrial Activity

Industrial output rose for the first time in four months in November. The pick up was broad-based, led by mining, manufacturing and electricity. Mining and manufacturing, in particular, posted a second month of sequential growth. Production of consumer goods also rose after a few months of contraction.

The index of eight core infrastructure industries, which feeds into the index of industrial production, however, declined 1.5% in November from a year ago -- the fourth straight month of contraction. That was on account of shrinking production of electricity, steel, coal, natural gas and crude oil. Both the core sector and industrial output numbers are reported with a one-month lag.

New Delhi, Jul 1: Jet fuel or ATF price on Wednesday was hiked by 7.5 per cent, the third increase in a month, while petrol and diesel rates were unchanged for the second day in a row.

Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price was hiked by Rs 2,922.94 per kilolitre (kl), or 7.48 per cent, to Rs 41,992.81 per kl in the national capital, according to a price notification by state-owned oil marketing companies.

This is the third straight increase in ATF prices in a month. Rates were hiked by a record 56.6 per cent (Rs 12,126.75 per kl) on June 1, followed by Rs 5,494.5 per kl (16.3 per cent) increase on June 16.

Simultaneously, non-subsidised cooking gas LPG rates were increased by Re 1 to Rs 594 per 14.2-kg cylinder in the national capital. Prices were up by Rs 4 in other metros mostly because of different local sales tax or VAT rate.

On the other hand, petrol and diesel prices were unchanged for the second day in a row.

This, after diesel rates scaled a new high after prices were hiked 22 times in just over three weeks.

In Delhi, a litre of petrol comes for Rs 80.43 per litre, while diesel is priced at Rs 80.53 per litre.

Rates vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.

While the diesel price had been hiked on 22 occasions since June 7, petrol price had been raised on 21 occasions.

The cumulative increase since the oil companies started the cycle on June 7 totals to Rs 9.17 for petrol and Rs 11.14 for diesel.