RSS chief says Indian Muslims did not demolish Ram Mandir, vows to 'fight' for it

Feb 14: R K Pachauri, a former chief of The Energy and Resources Institute, passed away on Thursday after a prolonged cardiac ailment, TERI Director General Ajay Mathur said.

He was 79.

"It is with immense sadness that we announce the passing away of R K Pachauri, the founder Director of TERI. The entire TERI family stands with the family of Dr Pachauri in this hour of grief," Mathur said in a statement issued by the TERI.

"TERI is what it is because of Dr Pachauri's untiring perseverance. He played a pivotal role in growing this institution, and making it a premier global organisation in the sustainability space," said Mathur, who succeeded Pachauri at TERI in 2015. Pachauri was admitted to Escorts Heart Institute in the national capital where he underwent open heart surgery and was put on life support on Tuesday, sources said.

In the statement issued by TERI, its Chairman Nitin Desai hailed Pachauri's contribution to global sustainable development as "unparalleled".

New Delhi, Jan 31: Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian on Friday said India's GDP is expected to grow at 6-6.5 per cent next fiscal as the economic slowdown has bottomed out.

As per the first advance estimates released by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), the country's economic growth is likely to hit an 11-year low of 5 per cent in the current fiscal ending March 2020.

The Economic Survey 2019-20, prepared by a team lead by Subramanian, has projected the GDP to expand in the range of 6-6.5 per cent during 2020-21.

The Indian economy has hit the bottom and it will see an uptick from here, he said in a media briefing post the Economic Survey.

Amidst a weak environment for global manufacturing, trade and demand, the Indian economy slowed down with GDP growth moderating to 4.8 per cent in the first half of 2019-20, lower than 6.2 per cent in H2 of 2018-19.

Based on NSO's first advance estimates of GDP growth for 2019-20 at 5 per cent, an uptick in GDP growth is expected in the second half of the fiscal, it said.

According to it, the uptick in second half of 2019-20 would be mainly due to ten positive factors like picking up of Nifty India Consumption Index for the first time this year, an upbeat secondary market, higher FDI flows, build-up of demand pressure, positive outlook for rural consumption, rebound of industrial activity, steady improvement in manufacturing, growth in merchandise exports, higher build-up of foreign exchange reserves and positive growth rate of GST revenue collection.

The survey also emphasised that merger of public sector banks may increase the financial strength of the merged entities, lower the risk aversion and result in lowering of lending rates.

Further, as the implementation of GST further settles down, the increased unification of the domestic market may reduce business costs and facilitate fresh investment.

Reforms in land and labour market may further reduce business costs, said the survey, presented a day before Sitharaman's Union Budget 2020-21.

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.