
14 Maoists surrender in Bhadradri district
Hyderabad: Fourteen members of the banned CPI (Maoist) surrendered before the Bhadradri-Kothagudem police on Tuesday. The surrendered cadres include two area committee members (ACMs), four party members, four village committee members (VMCs), three Revolutionary Peoples' Committee members (RPCs), and a member of Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangathan (KAMS), Bhadradri-Kothagudem superintendent of police (SP) B Rohit Raju said.They surrendered after learning about the welfare measures for surrendered Maoists, as well as the development and welfare activities for tribals provided under ' Operation Cheyutha ' by police and CRPF, Rohit Raju added. All the surrendered Maoists belong to bordering districts in Chhattisgarh.Meanwhile, police also appealed to the Maoists who wish to surrender to approach their nearest police station or the higher-ups in the districts, either through their family members or in person. They assured that the district administration would ensure the surrendered cadres receive govt benefits for their livelihood and rehabilitation.

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Indian Express
15 minutes ago
- Indian Express
SC: No contempt if Parliament and state legislature simply make laws
The Supreme Court has said that any law enacted by Parliament or a state legislature 'subsequent' to a court order cannot be held an act of contempt, and the enactment would have the 'force of law' unless declared 'null and void' by a Constitutional Court. A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and S C Sharma said this in a May 15 order disposing of a 2012 contempt plea alleging that the Chhattisgarh government failed to comply with the SC's directions to stop support to vigilante groups like Salwa Judum and arming tribals in the name of special police officers (SPO) in the fight against Maoists. The contempt plea contended that even after the SC on July 5, 2011 ordered winding up of Salwa Judum's activities, the Chhattisgarh government in September that year legislated the Chhattisgarh Auxiliary Armed Police Force Act, 2011, which authorised an auxiliary armed force to assist security forces in dealing with Maoist violence and legalised existing SPOs by inducting them as members. The contempt plea — as well as the main petition on which the SC's 2011 order had come — were filed by former Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar, author Ramachandra Guha and former Andhra Pradesh Tribal Affairs Secretary E A S Sharma. 'The passing of an enactment subsequent to the order of this Court by the legislature of the State of Chhattisgarh cannot, in our view, be said to be an act of contempt of the order passed by this Court…', the bench said. 'Every State Legislature has plenary powers to pass an enactment and so long as the said enactment has not been declared to be ultra vires the Constitution or, in any way, null and void by a Constitutional Court, the said enactment would have the force of law.' The bench said that under the Constitution, the judiciary is vested with the power to resolve interpretive doubts and disputes about the validity or otherwise of an enacted law by the Parliament or any state legislature. 'However, the interpretative power of a Constitutional Court does not contemplate a situation of declaring exercise of legislative functions and passing of an enactment as an instance of a contempt of a Court,' it added. The bench sought to remind that 'central to the legislative function is the power of the legislative organ to enact as well as amend laws' and 'any law made by the Parliament or a State Legislature cannot be held to be an act of contempt of a Court, including this Court, for simply making the law.' 'A legislature has, inter alia, the powers to pass a law, to remove the basis of a judgment or in the alternative, validate a law which has been struck down by a Constitutional Court by amending or varying it so as to give effect to the judgment of a Constitutional Court which has struck down a portion of an enactment or for that matter the entire enactment,' it said. 'This is the core of the doctrine of separation of powers and must always be acknowledged in a constitutional democracy such as ours,' it said.


Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Further repo rate cut is imminent on June 8, 2025
Dr Rao is currently teaching risk management in the institute of Insurance and Risk Management (IIRM). A career banker with Bank of Baroda, he held the position of General Manager - Strategic Planning, Later was Associate Professor with National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM) and was Director, National Institute of Banking Studies and Corporate Management (NIBSCOM). He writes for financial dailies on Banking and Finance and his work can be viewed in the public academic accomplishments include Ph.d in commerce from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), MBA ( Finance), LLB. He runs a Youtube channel - Bank on Me - Knowledge series He likes to share his perspectives with next generation potential leaders of the banking industry. His book on "Transformation of Public Sector Banks in India' was published in september 2019. His most interesting work is in blog. LESS ... MORE In the backdrop of the economy's multidimensional resilience growing at 6.5 percent in FY25, in line with RBI expectations, and inflation expected to stay below the 4 percent mark, there is general buoyancy in markets. This is despite tense geopolitical risks, ongoing border unrest, and the US changing the tariff gears, arbitrarily increasing uncertainty. GDP growth is supported by corresponding GVA growth during FY25 at 6.4 percent, though it dropped from 8.6 percent in FY24 in sync with the then-GDP. Among the important drivers of monetary policy, the inflation and growth trajectories are key factors influencing the policy actions. The annual inflation rate fell to 3.16 percent in April 2025, down from 3.34 percent recorded in March 2025. April inflation is firmly below the market expectations of 3.3 percent. RBI at its bi-monthly policy meeting in April, projected CPI-based inflation for the current fiscal FY26 at 4 per cent, assuming a normal monsoon. Notably, inflation in the April–June quarter (Q1) is expected to dip as low as 3.6 per cent, revised sharply down from an earlier estimate of 4.5 per cent. Food prices, which account for nearly half of the consumer price basket, rose only 1.78 percent, the least since October 2021, and down from 2.69 percent in March. Even WPI averaged 2.3 percent, subscribing to the receding trend. Prospects of the economy: The agriculture sector is expected to rebound to a growth of 3.8 per cent in FY25. The industrial sector is estimated to grow by 6.2 per cent in FY25. Strong growth rates in construction activities and electricity, gas, water supply, and other utility services are expected to support industrial expansion. On a yearly basis services sector grew by 7.2 per cent in FY25 as against 9.0 per cent in FY24. The manufacturing sector has always been a cause of concern. Its HSBC India Manufacturing PMI was down to 57.6 in May 2025 from 58.2 in April. Service sector PMI clocks 58.2 in April, a notch lower than 58.5 recorded in March 2025. RBI projections of GDP for FY26 are 6.5 percent, and inflation is expected to be 4 percent. IMF expects GDP to grow at 6.2 percent while the World Bank expects India to grow at 6.3 percent in is more optimistic about the GDP of India growing at 6.4 percent in FY26. According to the IMF, India is still known to be the fastest-growing large economy, which is now the 4th largest economy, surpassing Japan and a notch below Germany. External Sector: In an interconnected financial system, it is necessary to understand the linkages of the domestic economy with the rest of the world. RBI has been cutting rates since February 2025, while the US Federal Reserve has held the federal funds rate steady in a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent in the last 3 FOMC meetings since December 2024, after lowering it by one percent. The last mile disinflation journey was tough, and US inflation reached 2.1 percent in April 2025, close to its target of two percent. UK inflation shot back to 3.5 percent in April 2025, up from 2.6 percent in March 2025. It may prompt the Bank of England to keep the rates steady until the inflation drops. ECB too began rate cuts in June 2024 and has been giving priority to price stability. Its inflation is at 2.2 percent in April against a target of 2 percent. On 17th April 2025, it had cut rates by 25 basis points, which was effective from 23 April 2025. Way forward: Notably, the GDP of 6.5 percent in FY25 is below 9.2 percent in FY24 and 7.6 percent in FY23. Since the upside risks to inflation cannot be ruled out due to the sensitivity of food inflation, a close to 50 percent weightage in the basket. Balancing growth–inflation dynamics will need a lot of forward data and market intelligence inputs to find a common ground. But given the potentiality of the economy to be unleashed, thrust on growth and balancing it well with inflation will call for a further rate cut in the upcoming monetary policy review. Having already cut the repo rate by 50 basis points by bringing it down to 6 percent, going by the macroeconomic developments, another 25-basis-point repo rate cut is imminent. There are, of course, bullish views that the RBI may be aggressive in going for a 50-basis-point rate cut, which may not look realistic. The external sector dynamics amid tariff tussle and geopolitical risks could pose unanticipated risks. RBI has changed the stance of monetary policy in April to 'accommodative' and is providing adequate liquidity from time to time to ensure efficient and quick transmission of policy rates. It has injected Rs. 6.6 lakh crore into the system by using tools like open market operations (OMO), variable rate repo (VRR) auctions, and dollar-rupee swaps to inject liquidity in the banking system. Despite adequate liquidity, bank credit growth moderated to 11.2 percent in April 2025, a decrease from the 15.3 percent growth seen in the same period the previous year. This slowdown was observed across various sectors, including retail loans, personal loans, and industry credit. However, certain sectors like loans against jewelry and renewable energy experienced substantial growth. The latest RBI guidelines on Gold Loans should be able to enable better risk management as the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is fixed at 75 percent. Though the near-term impact for some of the NBFCs could be challenging but in the long run, it will be inculcating a better credit risk culture. The new LCR norms are now made effective from April 1, 2026, providing enough time for banks to plan the structural liquidity pattern. Banks should focus on finding ways to increase the flow of credit to productive sectors of the economy, with a focus on manufacturing, particularly to MSMEs. The impending lower interest rate regime should help banks to raise funds at a lower cost that can be passed on to borrowers to push the credit growth and stimulate the economy. All pointers are signifying the imminent rate cut of 25 basis points now unless the RBI goes aggressive to opt for a 50 basis points. A calibrated reduction of interest rates is desirable to enable efficient transmission of rates and provide latitude to markets to adjust their cost dynamics. However,, a low-interest rate regime is a welcome recipe for growth. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.


Economic Times
3 hours ago
- Economic Times
India may still cross the ‘miracle economy' benchmark of 7% GDP growth
India's economic growth story keeps getting better. I've long been cautious about cheering data that show extraordinary improvements. Later data revisions can present a very different picture. But at least two cheers, if not three, are warranted by the latest GDP growth rate for FY25 has been revised upwards from 6.3% to 6.5%. Readers might view this as a good, but not remarkable, improvement. The picture improves dramatically when we look at the upward revision for growth in FY24, the previous year, from 8.2% to 9.2%. Thereby hangs quite a tale. Chief economic adviser V Anantha Nageswaran believes India is on a growth trajectory of 6.5%. He had predicted 6.5% growth at the start of both FY24 and FY25, continuing the trend of the last two decades. That provides the background to judge the latest estimates of 9.2% for FY24 and 6.5% for FY25. Critics have argued that the extraordinary performance in FY24 was misleading. The first advance estimate (AE) for that year was 7.4%. It was upped to 8.2% in the second AE, and now to 9.2% in the provisional estimate. The final estimate is yet to come. Many readers are confused by as many as four revisions, which are so large as to stoke suspicions of data fiddling. However, Pronab Sen, India's elder statesman in statistical issues, says that while data collection suffers from several flaws that need correction, they are not official inflation rate is currently based on CPI. But a different inflation rate - GDP deflator - is used to measure GDP growth. The two are often similar, but can also be very different. Since services account for three-fifths of GDP, they are given much bigger weightage in the GDP deflator than in CPI. In FY24, GDP deflator seems to have shrunk dramatically to just 0.6%, far lower than the 4.6% inflation indicated by large anomalies in two measures of inflation are rare, but not unheard of. Critics said GDP deflator had seriously distorted reality in FY24. The corollary of such fears was that, if GDP was statistically exaggerated in FY24, it would be statistically underestimated in FY25 as the deflator rebounded from 0.6% to 3.2%. The underlying trend would be the average for the two average turns out to be 7.85% - way above the 6.5% long-term trend. It is also way above the officially predicted average of 6.5% for the two years. It is well above the 7% benchmark for a 'miracle economy'.One does not know if further revisions will change the picture radically. But at this stage, India seems to be performing well above expert expectations. In a world filled with economic and geopolitical uncertainties, this is a good sign of resilience. In FY24, economist Larry Summers declared, 'The world is on fire,' reflecting Third World problems that led to IMF rescues in India's three neighbours - Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In FY25, Donald Trump has created enormous geopolitical uncertainties, and the old economic order created after WW2 is eroding fast. This will tend to slow world growth. That makes India's performance look that much better. GoI's emphasis on manufacturing is not working well. Manufacturing is growing more slowly than GDP. So, its share is falling - now 18% - despite large incentives. The one area of success has been mobile phones, where Apple and Samsung have become huge exporters. Chinese major Vivo is outsourcing its phones to the Noida-based Indian company, Dixon Technologies. This sector is surrounded by uncertainty because of Trump's threat to Apple to make phones in the US, or be hit by high import tariffs. Investment, a major driver of growth, is doing well. Gross fixed capital formation grew at 9.4% in FY25. This raised the annual rate to 33.7% of GDP - the highest since FY13. Higher investment is required for sustaining higher growth, and the two have accelerated in tandem - a good sign. High government capex appears to have crowded in private investment. Net exports have also contributed. The merchandise trade gap has narrowed, and services surplus improved. Global capability centres (GCCs) continue to expand, creating a hi-tech high-income structure that bodes well for the future. A record rabi cop is in the offing. This should kindle rural consumer spending. A good monsoon is forecast, raising hopes for a bumper kharif harvest. Even as climate doomsters keep predicting disaster, agricultural performance keeps improving. India's macroeconomics looks good at a time when other emerging markets are in trouble. Fiscal deficit and trade deficit are both well under control, as is inflation. Many old and deep problems continue, such as lousy education and a dysfunctional police-justice system. Nevertheless, India may still cross the 'miracle economy' benchmark of 7% GDP growth in the foreseeable future.