-PTI/ Livemint.com Nomura expects India's fiscal deficit to come at 6.5 per cent as against the earlier expectation of 6.2 per cent and underlined that it will still be lower than the budgeted 6.8 per cent target The excise duty cuts on diesel and petrol will cost ₹45,000 crore and lead to a 0.3 percentage point widening on the Centre's fiscal deficit, a foreign brokerage said on Thursday. Going by the overall consumption,...

-The Telegraph The cut was announced a day after the declaration of by-election results in 29 Assembly seats and 3 Lok Sabha seats, wherein BJP suffered setback in some states The Narendra Modi government has finally buckled under pressure from consumers, voters and the Opposition and slashed excise duties on petrol by Rs 5 a litre and on diesel by Rs 10 a litre. From Thursday in Calcutta, the price of petrol will...

-IDROnline.org Natural resource management activities under NREGA have the potential to help India increase carbon sequestration and combat climate change. The world’s largest anti-poverty programme may also help India achieve its target of creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent, through additional forest and tree cover, by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) captured 102...

-Hindustan Times Rising prices of edible oils have dampened the mood ahead of the festive season.  The central government on Friday expressed hope that key oilseeds and edible oil-producing states will begin implementing stock limits from next week. It will further help in cooling down the prices and bring some relief to consumers amid the festive season, the government said. The central government said that it took measures to reduce edible oil prices...

-The Hindu Pampa, Manimala, Achencoil still above danger level Amid havoc caused by torrential rains over the past week leading to floods and landslips, the Kerala Government has constituted an expert committee to regulate the release of water from 81 dams across swollen rivers. The hydroelectric, irrigation and drinking water dams in the State are several decades old and designed in a pre-climate-change era. Climatologists, structural engineers, and hydrologists are on the committee...