Kancheepuram, May 3: Former union minister Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss was arrested on Friday by Kancheepuram police in connection with an alleged hate speech case filed against him in 2012.
According to police, a case under Sections 143, 147 and 188 of IPC has been booked against the PMK leader.
Dr. Anbumani was picked up from his Chennai residence on Friday morning by a special team and was likely to be produced before the Judicial Magistrate court at Thirukazhukundram.
Mar 11: In a bid to keep its flock together, the crisis-hit Madhya Pradesh Congress has decided to shift its 92 MLAs either to Jaipur or some other place.
The move comes after 22 Congress MLAs loyal to former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned on Tuesday, pushing the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government to the brink of collapse.
"We are going to take our 92 MLAs and those supporting our Madhya Pradesh government to a hotel," a senior Congress leader said on Wednesday.
The legislators would be taken either to Jaipur or some other Congress-ruled state like Chhattisgarh, a party source said.
Apart from its own MLAs, the Congress is also keeping a close watch on four Independents who are supporting the party-led state government.
On Tuesday, 22 Congress MLAs from Madhya Pradesh resigned soon after Scindia quit the party.
The development reduced the Congress government in the state to minority.
The state Congress unit is now making all efforts to save the Kamal Nath-led government.
The BJP on Tuesday night shifted its MLAs to Manesar at Gurugram in Haryana, sources in the saffron party said.
The Congress, whose tally before the rebellion was 114, has a wafer-thin majority in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly whose current effective strength is 228.
It also has the support of four Independents, two BSP legislators and one SP MLA, but some of them are now likely to switch sides to the BJP.
The BJP has 107 seats in the state Assembly.
May 18: Goldman Sachs expects India will experience its deepest recession ever after a poor run of data underscored the damaging economic impact of lockdowns in the world’s second-most populous nation.
Gross domestic product will contract by an annualized 45% in the second quarter from the prior three months, compared with Goldman’s previous forecast of a 20% slump. A stronger rebound of 20% is now seen for the third quarter, while projections for the fourth quarter and first of next year are unchanged at 14% and 6.5%.
Those estimates imply that real GDP will fall by 5% in the 2021 fiscal year, which would be deeper than any other recession India has ever experienced, Goldman economists Prachi Mishra and Andrew Tilton wrote in a note dated May 17.
India’s government has extended its nationwide lockdown until May 31, while further easing restrictions in certain sectors to boost economic activity, as coronavirus cases escalate across the country. The announcement followed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fifth briefing in as many days, in which she outlined details of the country’s $265 billion virus rescue package, which is equivalent to 10% of India’s GDP.
“There have been a series of structural reform announcements across several sectors over the past few days,” the Goldman economists wrote. “These reforms are more medium-term in nature, and we, therefore, do not expect these to have an immediate impact on reviving growth. We will continue to monitor their implementation to gauge their effect on the medium-term outlook.”
Infections are surging across the South Asian nation of 1.3 billion people, with more than 91,300 infections, including 2,897 deaths as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
New Delhi, Jul 30: India's gold demand in 2020 is expected to fall to the lowest level in 26 years with domestic bullion prices hitting a record high and as falling disposable incomes could curtail retail purchases, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday.
Lower demand by the world's second-biggest bullion consumer could limit a rally in global prices, which hit a record high earlier this month, although it could also reduce India's trade deficit and support the ailing rupee.
"Fast rising gold prices could act as headwinds," said Somasundaram PR, the managing director of WGC's Indian operations.
Local gold futures have jumped 35% so far this year after rising a quarter in 2019.
India's gold consumption in the first half of 2020 plunged 56% on-year to 165.6 tonnes. Meanwhile, the coronavirus-triggered lockdown also slashed demand by 70% in the June quarter to 63.7 tonnes, the lowest in more than a decade, the WGC said in a report published on Thursday.
Millions of Indians have lost their jobs or taken a pay cut after the country imposed a lockdown on its 1.3 billion people to curb the spread of the virus that has infected more than 1.5 million Indians.
Consumption is generally high during the June quarter due to weddings and key festivals such as Akshaya Tritiya, but lockdown restrictions kept shoppers indoors this year.
The weak demand in the first half could drag down India's gold consumption in 2020 to the lowest since 1994, when demand stood at 415 tonnes, Somasundaram said, adding that it is still difficult to provide an estimate for full-year demand as the coronavirus crisis is still unfolding.
"Indian demand has previously jumped as much as 300 tonnes in a quarter. Latent demand could come out in the second half," Somasundaram said.
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