NASA has announced the first crewed flight by a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to take place in June 2019. It will be the first manned U.S. launch to the orbiting research laboratory since the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, forcing U.S. astronauts …

Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg on Friday said the GDP growth is expected to be higher than the RBI’s projection of 7.4% for the current fiscal. “Government welcomes MPC statement and decision to keep the rates unchanged. Government’s assessment of inflation is in line with the MPC’s assessment. We …

‘Focus on equity for long-term funding’ The on-going crisis in IL&FS has made Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to consider tightening the norms of asset-liability management (ALM) of non-banking finance companies (NBFCs). The RBI observed that those entities were relying heavily on short-term funds for lending to long-term projects. “I …

As new data comes in, we would look into changing our policies, says RBI Governor It is important that the fiscal deficit target is maintained, says RBI Governor Urjit Patel, in an interaction with the media. Edited excerpts: Is there a risk to fiscal deficit in an election year as …

‘The agencies seem to have gone by names of IL&FS’ shareholders, overlooking the cash flow situation’ The role of credit rating agencies has come under the scanner in the wake of the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) imbroglio. IL&FS and its subsidiaries were rated AAA for their commercial …

Changes policy stance to ‘calibrated tightening’ to indicate that rates can only rise or stay stable hereon in this cycle Contrary to market expectation, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to hold the key policy rate at 6.5% in the fourth bimonthly policy …

Blackwater founder is pushing for privatisation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan A new crop of senior American officials in Afghanistan has raced to contain a dual crisis on the battlefield and in a potentially explosive election dispute. But it is a different U.S. figure — the mercenary executive Erik …

Analysts say China will be forced to dig in for a prolonged multi-front battle with the U.S. U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence’s accusations in a stinging speech on Thursday, warning of a tougher approach towards Beijing may have been familiar to China’s leaders. But until now such remarks were delivered in …

‘Separate ministry for Himalayan States’ A separate ministry should be created at the Centre to resolve the common issues of the Himalayan States as the problems of this region are different from those faced in the plains, Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Dev Vrat said on Friday.PTI Source :  https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/hp-governor-advocates-separate-ministry-for-himalayan-states/article25140172.ece

A conglomerate of major civil society and students’ organisations in Mizoram has said that the Bru families who declined the rehabilitation package within the deadline of September 30 should not be allowed to return from refugee camps in Tripura. Only 45 of the 5,407 Bru families comprising 32,867 individuals returned …