(PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah described the gas leak at a chemical plant in Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam as “disturbing” and said the central government is closely monitoring the situation. He said he is praying for the well-being of the people of Visakhapatnam. “The incident in Vizag is disturbing. Have spoken to the NDMA officials and concerned authorities. We are continuously and closely monitoring the situation,” Shah tweeted. Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy spoke to Andhra Pradesh’s chief secretary and director general of police and took stock of the situation. Reddy instructed teams of the National Disaster Response…
Author: Aruna Sharma
(ET) Niti Aayog and the Department of Biotechnology have launched the Consortium for Affordable & Rapid Diagnostics (CARD) to scale up India’s capacity to make coronavirus testing kits. The move comes after India faced quality issues with Chinese-made antibody testing kits, which are used for disease surveillance and to find out how many people have developed immunity to a disease. Project CARD’s first goal is to roll out at least 10 million rapid antibody tests for Covid-19 by July. Additionally, capacity will be expanded to make reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and other paper-based tests for Covid-19 in the country. “While…
(FE) Grappling with low revenues following the outbreak of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown, the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday hiked the value added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel and increased the excise duty on liquor to help generate an additional revenue of Rs 4,500 crore annually. Briefing news persons after a Cabinet meeting, finance minister Suresh Khanna said the retail price of petrol has been raised by Rs 2 per litre and diesel by Re 1 per litre. “As a result, petrol will now cost Rs 73.91 a litre, while diesel prices will stand at Rs 63.86 per…
(PTI) The government has earmarked 215 railway stations for the deployment of railways’ isolation coaches to be used as ‘COVID Care Centres’ for suspected or confirmed patients categorized as mild or very mild cases. These stations will be deployed across 23 states and Union Territories, a health ministry document has stated. “Considering the possibility of increase in cases of COVID- 19, a view is taken to utilize Railway coaches for COVID care centre,” the guidelines issued by the Health ministry on Wednesday, said. According to a ‘guidance document on appropriate management of suspect/ confirmed cases of COVID-l9: Railway Coaches – COVID Care…
(PTI) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd has transferred money directly to the accounts of 93,000 PMUY beneficiaries in Uttarakhand to help them get three free refills of LPG under the Pradhan Mantri Gharib Kalyan package. PMUY beneficiaries are to be given three free LPG refills between April-June under the package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Money was transferred directly to the accounts of 93,000 out of a total of 98,759 active PMUY customers in Uttarakhand during the month of April, BPCL state head Vineet Singh said. Free LPG refills have also been provided to 79.5 per cent of these customers already and the process to…
(LiveMint) With the Centre lacking resources to provide a large fiscal stimulus to the virus-battered economy, experts recommended pledging of shares of state-run companies with either the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or a consortium of banks to raise funds, a suggestion that a finance ministry official said the government will explore. In a Mint column on Tuesday, economist Ajit Ranade proposed that the government pledge its shares of state-run units, including the Life Insurance Corp. of India and Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India, with RBI to garner resources amounting to around 10% of gross domestic product (GDP)…
(PTI) Tata Steel Ltd has withdrawn its membership from the Indian Steel Association (ISA), an apex steel industry body. Subsequent to it, the company’s CEO and Managing Director (MD) T V Narendran has also stepped down from the President ship of the Association, tenure of which was scheduled to end in August. An ISA President is elected for a period of two years. Confirming the development, a Tata Steel spokesperson said, “Tata Steel has withdrawn its membership from the Indian Steel Association (ISA) owing to various considerations.
(LiveMint) The government has extended the due date for filing GST annual return for FY18-19 to September 30, 2020. “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 44 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (12 of 2017) (hereafter in this notification referred to as the said Act), read with rule 80 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 (hereafter in this notification referred to as the said rules), and in super session of notification No. 15/2020-Central Tax, dated the 23rd March, 2020, published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, Section 3, Sub-section…
(PTI) Jindal Stainless Limited has resumed partial operations at its Jajpur facility in Odisha. In a statement issued on Tuesday the company said it will “enforce all the guidelines set by government authorities to ensure health and safety of the employees and all other stakeholders involved in the manufacturing process.” All the employees will mandatory follow social distancing and prescribed safety guidelines enforced by the company, the statement added.
(TNIE) Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said he has requested External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for direct repatriation of Odias stranded abroad to Bhubaneswar. Expatriate Odias residing in Gulf Coordination Council (GCC) countries had requested Pradhan to facilitate their return during a video conferencing on Sunday. “Yesterday, I had interacted with the Odia community members in the GCC countries; would urge to consider their request for repatriation directly to Bhubaneswar; also request to similarly bring back Odia brothers and sisters from other regions of the world,” he tweeted. He said the Centre has decided…