Trade talks between India and US are on the right track, says Piyush Goyal

Goyal told the forum that his ministry is also working to bring down the cost of logistics that have to be borne by manufacturing companies in India. Goyal's comments came a day after Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the US that she would prepare a blueprint for global companies looking beyond China to make India as their preferred destination to invest. 'I will make a blueprint with which I will approach them and put forward to them as to why India is a far more preferable destination and make every attempt to invite them to India,' she said. Goyal referred to the trade talks between India and the US and added that things are on the right track. He added that India is looking to the US for technology, innovation, skills, and quality education. India, on the other hand, offers an attractive market for US businesses and skilled labour that can add value to American companies, he said. Goyal told a business conference that he was hoping to meet US trade representative Robert Lighthizer soon. Goyal said that by now, India and the US would have announced the package, but for the preoccupation of his counterpart Robert Lighthizer first with US-Japan trade negotiations and later with discussions with the Chinese side. 'Therefore, probably, the finalisation of the trade package got a little delayed. But we have almost resolved the broad contours of what we are going to announce. I don't see any great difficulty in closing the gaps on the first announcement,' he added. However, speaking on the sidelines of the event, Goyal hinted that India may not rush to sign the RCEP trade pact, saying that it will ensure that its national interest in all sectors are protected before it does so. On RCEP, negotiations for which started in 2012 among the 10 member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and its six FTA partners, Goyal seems to suggest that unless all demands of India are met, it will not sign the deal, negotiations for which are nearing an end. 'Dates are for astrologers to decide. Every interest of the domestic industry and people of India has to be protected before we execute any free-trade agreement. India will ensure that on services, on investments, in every aspect our national interest is protected first before any agreement is entered into,' Goyal said. Speaking at another session of the forum, in a conversation with Tim Roemer, former US ambassador to India, petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that India is the 'hotspot in energy investment destination' in the world. 'I invite all energy players to bring their technology and investment here and become a part of India's growth story,' he said. Pradhan said that the country has moved to an open, transparent, process-driven policy atmosphere, and all are welcome to invest. The investing companies must bring technology, capital and good business models to India, he added. 'Energy is increasingly an important component of our bilateral trade. Our crude oil import from the USA was almost nil in 2014. The total import of petroleum products from the USA including LNG (liquefied natural gas) in 2018-19 stood at over $7 billion, and is likely to go up further this year,' Pradhan said. According to USISPF estimates, the India-US bilateral trade is projected to grow to $238 billion by 2025. Sectors like defence trade, commercial aircraft, oil and liquefied natural gas, coal, machinery, and electronics are areas of potential growth in the US investments and commerce in India. Indian industry has an opportunity to promote automotive, pharmaceuticals, seafood, IT and travel services to the US market. (Mint's Asit Ranjan Mishra and Reuters contributed to this story.) DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: Hindustan Timeshttp://ctendodontists.org/UserProfile/tabid/84/userId/807506/Default.aspx

From trickle-down to bottom-up, India needs to rethink its economics |OpinionFrom trickle-down to bottom-up, India needs to rethink its economics |Opinion

The truth is that India's problems are much deeper, and are not visible through the measurement of its GDP. India's citizens have been let down by a flawed economic model which both political dispensations have adopted. Its premise is that growth at the top will pull the bottom up. It has not. India's economic policymakers should consider the other way: The growth of human development at the bottom will push up growth at the top. It is worth noting that China reached the levels of human development (health and education), which India is still striving to, 30 years ago when China's economy was much smaller than India's is now. Human development provided the foundation for China's remarkable growth. The principal cause for the slump in India's growth is the slackening of consumer demand, even for basic things like packaged foods. Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party government has directed its efforts to improving the citizens' ease of living by providing them basic necessities like education, health care, electricity, and water at little or no cost. It computes that savings per family are ~4,000 per month. The increase in disposable incomes has resulted in additional consumer-buying power, estimated at ~24,000 crore per annum in Delhi. Employers in India complain about the poor quality of India's abundant human resources, a fundamental cause of which is poor education in government schools. The Delhi government's mission to improve education in government schools, which serves the masses, has produced impressive outcomes. Thus, its citizen-centric policies are improving the economic fundamentals for investors by increasing consumer demand and building human capabilities too. Delhi has the lowest power tariff among all Indian cities. The state government has also been expanding access to cheap power with special concessions to the poorest consumers. The consumer base of the distribution companies has expanded by over 20%. Despite constant reductions of tariffs for five years, the financial performance of the three (all private) distribution companies has improved, and they have been upgraded to stable by rating agencies. It is a win-win for citizens and businesses. Debates about the economy cannot reveal the fundamentals when ideas mooted are promptly dismissed with ideological labels, such as capitalist, socialist or populist. When the Delhi Metro proposed an increase in its fares, the Delhi government mooted a subsidy for women travellers. 'Populism again, and economic ruin!', some economists lamented. The government's case was that women find it very unsafe to travel by other public transport, such as taxis and three-wheelers, in which they are crammed in with men, groped and humiliated. The Metro is enabling more women to go to college and to work safely. Policies to improve citizens' ease of living may, prima facie, make it more difficult for the Metro to operate as a business. However, all economists agree, whatever their ideology, that education of women, and more women at work, are good for the economy. Better yardsticks are required to evaluate the health of economies than merely the ease of doing business. Only two women have won the Nobel Prize in economics so far, while 82 men have. The first was Elinor Ostrom, in 2009, for her work on 'the governance of the commons' — community management of shared resources. Some mainstream economists had sniggered that her work was not even economics. For them, good economic science must be about the macro picture represented in numbers and explained by mathematical equations. The work of the second woman who got the prize, Esther Duflo this year, is also about the behaviour of people in micro-systems. Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, who won the prize with her, have studied what actually happens on the ground in the delivery of education and health in some of India's poorest districts. They also worked with the Delhi government on its school system. India's commerce and industry minister has dismissed their ideas as Leftist and not relevant to India's macro-economic problems. India cannot muddle along with a failing economic paradigm any longer. Local systems solutions are required to solve global systems problems. The solutions must be formed with bottom-up perspectives of citizens on the ground, rather than top-down perceptions of investors and policymakers who try to understand the fundamentals of the economy through stock-markets data and movements of GDP. India must adopt a human-centric, and ecologically-sensitive, paradigm of development before it's too late. DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: Hindustan Timeshttp://holocaustmusic.org/UserProfile/tabid/57/userId/820539/Default.aspx

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in UK court to fight extradition

Assange wore a blue sweater and a blue sports jacket for the hearing and wore his silvery-grey hair slicked back. After the judge turned down his bid for a three-month delay, Assange — speaking very softly and at times appearing to be near tears — said he didn't understand the proceedings. He said the case is not "equitable" because the US government has "unlimited resources" while he doesn't have easy access to his lawyers or to documents needed to prepare his battle against extradition while he is confined to Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London. "They have all the advantages," the 48-year-old Assange said. Lawyer Mark Summers, representing Assange, told the judge that more time was needed to prepare Assange's defence against "unprecedented" use of espionage charges against a journalist. Summers said the case has many facets and will require a "mammoth" amount of planning and preparation. He also accused the US of illegally spying on Assange while he was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy seeking refuge and taking other illegal actions against the WikiLeaks founder. "We need more time," Summers said, asking for a three-month delay. He said Assange would mount a political defense that will be laborious to prepare. Summers said the initial case against Assange was prepared during the administration of former President Barack Obama in 2010 but wasn't acted on until Donald Trump assumed the presidency. He said it represents the administration's aggressive attitude toward whistleblowers. Representing the US, lawyer James Lewis said the U.S. opposed any delay to the proceeding. The case is expected to take months to resolve, with each side able to make several appeals of rulings. The public gallery was jammed with Assange supporters, including former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, and outside the courthouse, others carried placards calling for Assange to be released. There were chants calling for him to be set free. The judge said the full hearing will be heard at Belmarsh Court, which would make it easier for Assange to attend and contains more room for the media. Assange's lawyers said the five days wouldn't be enough for the entire case to be heard. Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed an order in June allowing Assange to be extradited. US authorities accuse Assange of scheming with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break a password for a classified government computer. Assange claims he is a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection. DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: The New Indian Expresshttps://www.vox.com/users/neptunemaars

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Bengaluru: Road rage up, thanks to bad traffic

Exhibiting a greater degree of rancour, 16 per cent of those surveyed said they 'were more likely' to misbehave with other drivers or traffic police and disobey traffic laws. While most people think of road rage as violent assault, it also includes tailgating, abrupt lane changes, speeding, and verbal threats, according to the survey, which covered Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Pune, and Lucknow and Hyderabad. Going by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), around 4,255 incidents of road rage were reported in Bengaluru in 2015 and 50.1 per cent of those involved were injured in such incidents. While the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) - 4 makes no reference to traffic induced stress, it says 10 per cent of men in Bengaluru between the ages of 15 and 49 suffer from hypertension and 5.6 per cent of women in the same group suffer from the disease Emphasising that stress-related disorders due to driving are a serious health concern, the Tata Lite survey laments there isn't any focused study in India to monitor commuting stress affecting an individual's physiology. 'It's a serious concern, and more people are succumbing to stress brought on by staying in their vehicles for too long in traffic, leading to all sorts of trouble like depression, hypertension, anxiety, rage, diabetes, fatigue, and even heart disease,' it adds. Dr Aviva Pinto Rodrigues, fertility consultant, Nova IVF Fertility, who acknowledges that some day to day situations in traffic can be a contributing cause for hypertension, warns that the condition in men can lead to poor semen quality and in women, affect the lining of the uterus, which could potentially affect the healthy implantation of the embryo. DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: Deccan Chroniclehttps://itsmyurls.com/neptunemaars

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India's first Alexa built-in smartphone, Redmi Note 8 Pro goes on sale today

With a powerful 64MP quad camera setup paired with an equally capable chipset, Redmi Note 8 Pro is an absolute beast. The camera setup extends to the front with a 20MP selfie shooter. The octa-core Helio G90T mobile platform brings unprecedented gaming capability to this segment. With a refreshed Aura Design featuring an exquisite Gamma Green colour and dual Corning Gorilla Glass 5, Redmi Note 8 Pro is a rare combination of a beautiful, ergonomic design with beastly insides. A full HD+ 16.5 cm (6.53) Dot Notch display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio headlines the front with thin bezels across all sides. The rear facade of Redmi Note 8 Pro sports 3D curved glass, creating an ergonomic hand feel with a thickness of only 8.8 mm. All-day battery life has been a hallmark of the Note series and this time a 4500mAh battery 18W charger in box ensures one gets the best of gaming and photography all day long. Big on computing prowess Helio G90T features a 6+2 architecture comprising of six ARM Cortex-A-55 cores, clocked up to 2.0GHz, while two Cortex-A76 cores clocked 2.05GHz ensure the heavy lifting is done without breaking a sweat. This is paired with a quad-core Mali G76 GPU clocked at a mighty 800MHz to ensure gaming performance that sets new benchmarks in this segment. This allows Redmi Note 8 Pro to post an impressive AnTuTu V8 score of 284,872 points. Xiaomi's improved LiquidCool Technology ensures that peak performance stays for a longer duration by reducing the operating temperature. Paired with up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, Redmi Note 8 Pro makes for a formidable gaming smartphone. An additional WiFi X antenna allows for uninterrupted gaming, and means that Redmi Note 8 Pro ships with TÜV Rheinland's network latency certification. 64MP Quad Camera setup that goes across perspectives For the first time ever, the Redmi Note series features a camera array consisting of four cameras. This includes a 64MP main camera, an ultra-wide angle lens with a 120-degree field of view, a depth sensor and a macro lens that allows you to go as close as 2cm to the subject, for photos as well as videos. This makes Redmi Note 8 Pro an extremely versatile imaging tool, allowing users to capture a multitude of perspectives and scenes. As the first 64MP smartphone in the world, Redmi Note 8 Pro makes use of sophisticated imaging technology to ensure pictures are captured in a sharp, detailed and extremely colour-accurate manner. In low light, Redmi Note 8 Pro's main camera automatically triggers Super Pixel, thereby combining information from four pixels into one, giving users 16MP shots with incredible details. 4500mAh battery with 18W charging out of the box Redmi Note 8 Pro features a larger capacity 4500 mAh battery, but also comes with support for 18W fast charging over USB Type-C out of the box. What's more, users will be able to take advantage of 18W fast charging right out of the box. ... DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: Deccan Chroniclehttps://wanelo.co/kaanewilloms

Gourmands, go the distance!

These small shops are nestled en route to Nandi Hills.' Meanwhile, Vijetha Viswanath says there's nothing more satisfying than a plate of soft idlis. She says, 'With absolutely no added preservatives or components to fluff them up, Bidadi serves one of the best thatte idlis I've ever eaten. Served with multiple options of chutneys including red chili chutney, coconut chutney and lentils curry, this certainly is the perfect combination for a great Indian breakfast. You can also try the crispy and hot vadas with a glass of strong filter coffee to relax after the drive. The best part is, all of the aforementioned dishes add up to just about `60.' She and her biker friends wake up as early as possible on some weekends to get to this eatery on time. Anand Srinivasan, a self-proclaimed biryani connoisseur, began his food journey in the search for the best biryani served in the country in 2007. He believes that biryani is certainly one dish that ensures a smile on anybody's face. Anand says, 'In my search for the best, I tried the biryani at Mani's Centre in Hoskote and surrendered myself to it. Served in eco-friendly plates, this dish is spicy and delivers a host of flavours on your palate at the same time. Several food lovers take their biryani cravings very seriously and travel to Hoskote from as early as six am to feast on this scrumptious dish. This particular place has strict and short timings. They are open just between 7.30 am and 10 am on Monday to Friday, closed on Saturdays and are open from six am to 10.30 am on Sundays.' Biker Alisha Wilson shares her favourite pitstop. 'The Lakshmi Tiffin Centre, in Mulbaglu, around 96 kms from Bengaluru, has a dish that's worth travelling for. They serve the best crispy dosa, smeared with an aromatic and spicy garlic and red chilli paste with mashed masala potato,' she describes with relish. ... DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: Deccan Chroniclehttp://warafanapharmaceuticals.com/warafana/UserProfile/tabid/57/userId/238806/Default.aspx

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Kim Kardashian turns 39: Throwback to her most iconic fashion moments

She teamed a white crop top with her sheer skirt which added to the lengthening illusion and teamed the entire outfit with clear heels. (Source: @kimkardashian/ Instagram) The Kardashian-Jenner sisters made their own runway as they dressed up as Victoria Secret's angels on Halloween 2018. Her angelic look was completed with the wings and the bikini from Victoria Secret's itself. The look was completed with nude strappy heels. (Source: @kimkardashian/ Instagram) The star who is well-known for breaking trends in the fashion world nailed this sheer look with her thigh-high transparent boots for her husband singer-turned-designer Kanye West's show in New York in 2016. (Source: Yeezyboost/Instagram) Kardashian West donned a head-to-toe gold Atelier Versace corseted gown adorned with embellished crosses for Met Gala 2018. She skipped earrings, and kept the jewelry minimal. To give us all the sultry vibes, she went for a sleek ponytail and smokey eyes. (Source: @kimkardashian/ Instagram) DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: The Indian Expresshttps://www.magcloud.com/user/kuleenreenss