World Bank says India beat France to become sixth largest economy: Report

India is expected to grow at 7.4 per cent in 2018 and 7.8 per cent in 2019, leaving its nearest rival China behind

India Growth Rate : Updated World Bank figures for 2017 show that India is now the world's sixth-biggest economy, having muscled past France, which was pushed to the seventh spot, news agency AFP reported on Wednesday. India's gross domestic product (GDP) stood at $2.597 trillion at the end of 2017, compared to $2.582 trillion for France.

The US continued to be the world's biggest economy, followed by China, Japan and Germany. Britain remained the world's fifth-biggest economy with a GDP of $2.622 trillion at the end of 2017.

Backed by government spending and investment, India's economy grew at a seven-quarter high of 7.7 per cent in the January-March quarter of the financial year 2018. But this did not prevent GDP growth, at 6.7 per cent in 2017-18, from falling to its lowest rate in four years of the Narendra Modi government.

The finance ministry said India's economy would clock 7.5 per cent growth in 2018-19, the upper range of growth projected by the Economic Survey.

India is expected to grow at 7.4 per cent in 2018 and 7.8 per cent in 2019, leaving its nearest rival China behind respectively at 6.6 and 6.4 per cent in the two years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in April this year.

Last year in December, the World Economic League Table (WELT) 2018 released by the Centre for Economics and Business Research forecast that India would "leapfrog" Britain and France to become the world's fifth largest economy in 2018, ahead of an oncoming major global economic shift towards Asia.

Article Source : BS

Economic situation in May 2014 was worse than what it seemed: PM Modi

Economic situation in May 2014 was worse than what it seemed: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said in a TV interview to Network18 that he suffered political damage for his decision to not issue a white paper on the state of the economy when his government took over in May 2014. He said the sluggish private investments was a continuing fallout of the economic conditions that prevailed when he took office two and a half years back but his government has resisted the temptation to take shortcuts, the positive results of which are now evident across several sectors.

In the interview, the PM he spoke on a wide range of issues, from Lutyens' culture, atrocities against Dalits, the Kashmir situation, and the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Modi said the economic situation in May 2014 was much worse that it seemed on the surface. Modi said he was confronted with a choice of whether to be politically expedient and put the poor state of the economy in the public domain, or keep the interest of the nation uppermost. He said his government had even mulled tabling a white paper on the economic condition in Parliament before the presentation of the first Budget.Read more

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Cabinet clears civil aviation policy; replaces 5/20 rule

Cabinet clears civil aviation policy, replaces 5/20 condition with 0/20 rule

Amid hectic lobbying, the Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval for partial abolition of the 5/20 rule, which will enable new carriers like Vistara and Air Asia to start international operations sooner.

According to the Civil Aviation Policy, released by the ministry on Wednesday, the government has decided to scrap the minimum five years requirement. However, an airline will have to allocate 20 aircraft or 20% of their total fleet of aircraft, whichever is higher, to the domestic sector if they wish to fly overseas. This effectively means a carrier must have a minimum 20 aircraft in its fleet.

“This is to ensure that any new airlines starting business in India should essentially serve the remote parts of the country,” a ministry official said.

In an interview to Business Standard, Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, had hinted at this proposal. “In place of 5/20, we can make it 3/10 or 3/12. We have also looked at options like 0/10 and 0/20,” he had said.

ALSO READ: We are looking at partial abolition of 5/20 rule: Mahesh Sharma

While proposing to liberalise India’s skies, the government had earlier kept proposed three different options to replace the rule: continuing the present norms, complete abolition from immediate effect and a credit-based system to replace it. At present, an airline requires five years of operations and 20 aircrafts in its fleet to go on international routes. Read more.