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Productive linked incentive scheme to stimulate and revive the covid-hit Indian economy is very thoughtful and a welcome development as it weaves in job creation in Modi government’s Atama Nirbhar Bharat. This critical factor that is usually lost while analyzing the possible impact of the scheme in boosting the economy. Majority of Indians still depended on agriculture for jobs. In India 45 per cent of the population still depended on farming which accounts for a mere 17 per cent of GDP. So the need of the hour is to provide jobs to these underemployed but educated youth as urbanization increasingly happens close to clusters of villages. This has twin advantages as the youth could still stay in their villages and work in nearby towns in non-farming industrial jobs.

Twenty years back on September 11 evening, I was in the news room of a leading newspaper, on Delhi’s Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. Following the normal rhythms of a newsroom in the evening, journalists were sitting down to slog on their copy, discussing news items, someone would occasionally look at the small little box of a TV set and watching the screen.

Recent weeks have been unsettling for the people in Afghanistan. A devastating bomb blast, on August 26, outside Kabul airport, killed United States soldiers besides injuring Afghans. Not the first of its kind, the region has seen umpteen number of bomb blasts, including the one at the Gwadar, just a few days earlier, targeting Chinese nationals. For an economy driven by the opium trade and ruled by tribal leaders, the new normal is bound to be governed by instability, fighting groups, and thereafter, boom, gloom, and doom.

The TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has to win the by election from the Bhowanipur assembly segment for her political existence. Though the prevalent political scenario and equations strongly project her as the eventual winner, even a politically naïve would count ten points favouring her victory, like BJP candidate being a light weight, the party lacking a strong support base and the constituency being the home turf of Mamata, Trinamool cadres have to work hard to snatch victory.

The Narendra Modi Government on Monday refused to file a detailed affidavit on its stand on the Pegasus snooping issue annoying the Supreme Court judges who reminded the solicitor general Tushar Mehta that the Court had earlier given opportunities to the centre to file affidavit twice but ‘ they don’t want to file”. The apex court in its crucial hearing was aghast at the statement of the SG that “ Statements on this issue cannot be made through affidavits and filing and then making it it part of the public discourse is not possible’.

India’s massive annual imports from China are known. But, little is told about India’s large unclear imports from the communist neighbour, a global nuclear heavyweight. Last year, India’s second largest category of import from China was under the grouping of nuclear reactors, boilers and machinery. The import was valued at $12.37 billion, accounting for well over 20 percent of the total cost of imports from China. Ironically, China has been a major stumbling block to India’s inclusion in the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) despite strong support from several countries, including Russia, the US, France, the UK, Germany and Switzerland.

Nobody outside Gujarat knew there existed a Bhupendra Patel in the Gujarat assembly till the other day. Then, this man with a fringe of grey running a half-circle round the back of the head, is handed the baton by outgoing Chief Minister Vijay Rupani who had resigned the day before and who himself had gotten hold of the baton from Anandiben Patel in 2016.

New Delhi: Hockey India on Sunday named 25 players, including 16 Tokyo Olympians, for the Senior Women's National Coaching Camp scheduled to begin in SAI, Bengaluru from Monday.

Chennai: Bengaluru-based Anish Damodara Shetty (Race Concepts) pulled off a well-deserved win, his first of the season in the premier Prostock 301-400cc category as the second round of the Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship concluded at the MMRT, here on Sunday.

New Delhi: Delhi Capitals' batsman Shikhar Dhawan feels that a winning start will go a long way to boost the morale of the team for the remainder of the IPL season, which will be played in the UAE from the third week of this month.