Salman Khan, Shilpa Shetty deride Scheduled Castes in TV shows; booked

New Delhi, Feb 9: Calling India a "long-standing friend", Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for visiting his country in the aftermath of last year's Easter Sunday terror attacks and outlined that New Delhi has always helped Colombo in its fight against terrorism.

In a joint press briefing with PM Modi, Mahinda Rajapaksa said he hopes that India will continue to help Sri Lanka fight terrorism.

Mahinda Rajapaksa expressed his gratitude to PM Modi for the neighbourhood first policy and the priority India gives to Sri Lanka.

"We had agreed that our cooperation is multifaceted and priority is given to a number of areas including security, economy, culture and social sectors. Part of our discussions centered on cooperation with regard to the security of the two countries. India has always assisted Sri Lanka to enhance our capacity, capabilities in intelligence and counter-terrorism. We look forward to getting continued support in this regard," he said.

"I thank the Prime Minister for visiting Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday terror attacks that provided us with immense strength to come to terms with the tragedy. We also appreciate Prime Minister Modi's $400 million line of credit to enhance the economy of Sri Lanka and another $50 million line of credit for fighting terrorism," he added.

The Sri Lankan president urged PM Modi to consider further assistance to expand housing projectS all over Sri Lanka to benefit people from rural areas.

"The Prime Minister and I discussed how Sri Lanka and India can work together in the field of economy. India is among the world's fastest growing economies. I discussed with PM Modi how Sri Lanka could benefit from certain economic sectors where India is in a strong position," he said.

Concluding his statement, Mahinda Rajapaksa said, "India is our closest neighbour and a long-standing friend. The close historical links...provided a solid foundation to our ties."

New Delhi, Jun 23: In an unexpected development, the pump price of diesel is all set to surpass the petrol price in the capital, making it the most expensive transport fuel for the first time in a long time.

Globally, diesel is priced slightly above petrol prices due to the very nature of the product that has a higher cost of production. But in India, due to the lopsided taxation structure, diesel attracts lesser of the tax between the two auto fuels keeping its prices lower than petrol for last several years.

Diesel is currently priced at Rs 79.40 a litre in the Capital, just 36 paise short of petrol price that is being retailed at Rs 79.76 a litre. Going by the trend of price movement in the two products for the last few days where diesel prices have consistently increased by 50-60 paise per litre while the daily increase in petrol prices have fallen to just 20 paise on Tuesday, it is set to surpass petrol prices in next few days.

"Diesel price movement is sharper in international market and if oil companies follow the global price trend, diesel prices will surpass that of petrol later this week. It will be after many years that this would happen and is expected to sustain for some time unless government changes the tax structure of the petroleum products again," said an oil sector expert from one of the big four audit and advisory firms asking not to be named.

Interestingly, even in India the base price of diesel is expensive than petrol. According to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), while the base price of petrol in Delhi currently comes to Rs 22.11 per litre, the same for diesel is higher at Rs 22.93 per litre (effective from June 16, 2020). This has been the case for a long time, but retail price of petrol can be higher than diesel due to central and state taxes.

What has now brought diesel prices to a whisker of petrol prices in the capital is the Delhi government's decision early May to increase the Value Added Tax on diesel from 16.75 per cent to 30 per cent and on petrol from 27 per cent to 30 per cent. This increased the retail price of diesel and petrol in Delhi by Rs 7.10 and Rs 1.67 a litre respectively. With Central taxes on the two products already reaching identical levels, the Delhi governments move hastened price parity between petrol and diesel.

Currently, the Central excise on petrol is Rs 32.98 a litre while that on diesel it is Rs 31.83 a litre. The VAT on petrol in Delhi is Rs 17.71 a litre and that on diesel is Rs 17.60 a litre.

While the movement of retail pricing is being seen with a sigh of relief by vehicle owners whose cars run on petrol, those buying the relatively expensive diesel cars are now repenting on their decision. The development is also being seen with caution by automobile companies who have spent millions to ramp up their facilities for diesel run vehicles. The expectation is that demand for such cars will now fall, causing more damage to companies where sales are already impacted due to persistent economic slowdown and now the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

"The pricing development would push automobile companies to strategies being followed by companies in the western markets where diesel run cars are not sold on fuel pricing differential, but on overall make and quality that puts them ahead of petrol run cars," the expert quoted earlier.

Yes, but for commercial vehicle sector the rising price of diesel had not been welcomed. In fact, the commercial transport sector had time an again threatened strike against the move to raise fuel prices.

With petrol and diesel retail prices closing, the case for adultering fuel has also gone down much to the relief of vehicle owners.

Kolkata, Jan 28: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee Tuesday said she is ready for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of Citizenship Amendment Act but the Centre has to first withdraw the contentious law.

Banerjee said protesting against the decisions of the centre doesn't make opposition parties anti-national and iterated that she will not implement CAA, NRC or NPR in the state.

"It is good that the prime minister is ready for talks but the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) must be revoked first. They (Centre) did not call an all-party meeting before taking a decision on Kashmir and CAA.

"We are ready for talks but first withdraw this Citizenship Amendment Act," Banerjee, a staunch critic of the BJP, said addressing a protest programme against CAA through paintings.

The West Bengal assembly had on Monday passed a resolution against the CAA to become the fourth state after Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan, to do so. The state assembly had on September 6, 2019, passed a resolution against the NRC.