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Delhi Labour Welfare Board introduces online portal for compliances under the Labour Welfare Act.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate Digital India Week 2022 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat today. The Digital India Week 2022, with the theme Catalyzing New India’s TechEd, will see the Prime Minister launching several digital initiatives aimed at enhancing the accessibility of technology, streamlining service delivery to ensure ease of living and giving a boost to startups.

Among the initiatives that PM Modi will be launching are:

• Digital India Bhashini: To enable easy access to the internet and digital services in Indian languages, including voice-based access, and help the creation of content in Indian languages.

• Indiastack.global: A global repository of key projects implemented under India Stack like Aadhaar, UPI, Digilocker, Cowin Vaccination Platform, Government e MarketPlace, DIKSHA Platform and Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission. With India getting the Presidency of G20 and set to host the G20 Summit in 2023, a major aim for this is to share India’s leadership in Digital Technologies and its experience in implementing Digital Transformation projects at population scale, at a global level.

• Digital India GENESIS: A National Deep-tech Startup Platform, to discover, support, grow and make successful startups in Tier-II and Tier-III cities of India.  A total outlay of 750 crore rupees has been envisaged for the scheme.

• MyScheme: A service discovery platform facilitating access to Government Schemes. It aims to offer a one-stop search and discovery portal where users can find schemes that they are eligible for.

• Meri Pehchaan: National Single Sign On for One Citizen Login. National Single Sign-On is a user authentication service in which a single set of credentials provide access to multiple online applications or services.

PM Modi will also announce the first set of 30 Institutions to be supported under the Chips to Startup Programme. The C2S Programme aims to train specialized manpower in the area of design of semiconductor chips at Bachelors, Masters and Research level.

The Digital India Programme was launched on July 1, 2015 by PM Modi with the aim to transform the nation into a digitally empowered and knowledge-driven society.

The Indian pharmaceuticals industry needs to move from ‘volume’ to ‘value’ leadership to capture global market, Union minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers, Mansukh Mandaviya said during an interactive session with Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance. Mandaviya also said that the government will strengthen the sector through streamlining policies and effective schemes such as the PLI which support cutting edge research.”

At the interaction, the Minister asked homegrown firms to learn from global best practices and develop own models to meet domestic demand while increasing international footprint. He said, “It is time to accumulate knowledge from global best practices in research, manufacturing and innovation and develop our own models focused on accelerating production to meet the domestic demand while increasing our global footprint.”

The minister also pushed for making the pharmaceutical sector leapfrog in its growth trajectory in the upcoming years. “We already have the required ‘man power and brand power’ and Indian companies today are at an inflexion point to capture top global positions,” he said.

Stating that India has been acknowledged as “pharmacy of the world” based on its generic medicines production and the volume share in global market, Mandaviya said it is time to move ahead and capture the top global positions based on the value too.
“Let us learn from global best practices, and develop our own models for meeting domestic demand while increasing global footprint,” he added.

Reiterating the importance of long-term policies which provide stability to the industry, the minister emphasised that the government is committed to supporting the pharma companies with industry-friendly policies and investor promoting ecosystem.

“This government believes in taking a holistic approach. Our policies are based on extensive and comprehensive stakeholder consultation which provide the basis for comprehensive, long -term and vibrant policy ecosystem, he asserted.
The meeting was held at Delhi to discuss India’s Pharma Vision 2047 and the roadmap for the Indian pharma sector.

Coal Minister Prahlad Joshi is in Australia on a six-day visit to decide on strategies to strengthen partnership between the two nations in the field of strategic critical minerals vital to India’s bid to transition to clean energy sources. This is the first meeting between Joshi and Resources and Northern Australia Minister Madeleine King since the election of the Anthony Albanese Government. The visit will focus on joint investment possibilities in lithium and cobalt projects.

The meeting will also see Joshi building upon an MoU signed between Khanij Bidesh India, a joint venture of three central public entities, namely, National Aluminum Company Ltd. (NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd. (HCL) and Mineral Exploration Company Ltd. (MECL) under the Ministry of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs, and Critical Minerals Facilitation Office, Australia.

NITI Aayog, The Union government’s think tank, has released a new policy brief titled “India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy”, which has catalyzed significant discussion and highlighted the importance of Platform Economy. This claims to offer “perspectives and recommendations on the future of work”, provides a handy guide to this increasing segment of the labor force but also some recommendations, which need to be more widely discussed and some changes which need to be implemented. There is no question that at least some coherent thinking needs to be applied to gig work in India. As of now almost 8 million workers are part of India’s gig economy, and this number is projected to grow to almost 24 million by the end of the decade due to various highlighting results. About a third of this number, according to the NITI Aayog, are in “low-skilled” segments of the gig economy which accounts to most of the unorganized sector.

The 47th GST council met under chairmanship of Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs

The GST council has inter-alia made the following recommendations relating to changes in GST rates on supply of goods and services and changes related to GST law and procedure

Highlights of the present recommendations are as follows:

• Withdrawal of exemptions: It has recommended to revise the scope of exemptions to exclude from it pre-packed and pre-labelled retail packs in terms of Legal Metrology Act, including pre-packed, pre-labelled curd, lassi and buttermilk
• The Council directed the Group of Ministers(GoM) on casino, race course and online gaming to re-examine the issues in its terms of reference based on further inputs from States.
• Composition* tax-payers would be allowed to make intra-state supply through e-commerce operators
• GoM on IT Reforms, inter alia, recommended that the GSTIN should put in place the AL/ML based mechanism
• The Council has decided to constitute a Group of Ministers to address various concerns raised by the states in relation to the constitution of GST Appellate Tribunal and make recommendations for appropriate amendments in CGST Act.
• All rate changes recommended by the 47th GST Council will be made effective from 18th July, 2022

*Click here to refer to the Composition Levy Scheme on GST

India and the European Union concluded the first round of negotiations for India-EU Trade and Investment Agreements, including the Geographical Indicators (GI), in New Delhi last evening. India’s FTA negotiations were led by Chief Negotiator Ms. Nidhi Mani Tripathi, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce and EU was represented by its Chief Negotiator, Mr. Christophe Kiener.

The week-long negotiations were held in a hybrid fashion – with some of the teams meeting in Delhi and the majority of officials joining virtually hybrid fashion. During this Round 52 technical Sessions covering 18 policy areas of FTA and 7 Sessions on Investment Protection and GIs were held.

The second round of negotiations is scheduled to take place in September 2022 at Brussels.

The negotiations were launched by Shri Piyush Goyal Minister for Commerce & Industry and European Commission’s Executive Vice President Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis at Brussels last month.

India’s bilateral trade with the EU amounted to USD 116.36 billion in 2021-22. Despite the global disruptions, the bilateral trade achieved an impressive annual growth of 43.5% in 2021-22. Currently the EU is India’s second largest trading partner after the US, and the second largest destination for Indian exports. The trade agreement with the EU would help India in further expanding and diversifying its exports of goods and services, including securing the value chains. Both sides are aiming for the trade negotiations to be broad-based, balanced, and comprehensive, based on the principles of fairness and reciprocity.

Read more : https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1838839

The Labour Bureau, an attached office of the M/o Labour & Employment, has been compiling the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers every month on the basis of retail prices collected from 317 markets spread over 88 industrially important centres in the country.

The maximum upward pressure in current index came from Food & Beverages group contributing 0.79 percentage points to the total change. At item level Tomato, Potato, Soyabeen Oil, Sunflower Oil, Buffalo Milk, Fish Fresh, Poultry Chicken, Cooked Meal, Cooking Gas, kerosene Oil, Bus Fare, Allopathic Medicine, Telephone Charges etc. are responsible for the rise in index. However, this increase was largely checked by Onion, Bitter Guard, Lady Finger, Chilli Green, Lemon, Mango, Water Melon, Pan Leaf, Petrol for Vehicles etc. putting downward pressure on the index.

The next issue of CPI-IW for the month of June, 2022 will be released on Friday, 29th July, 2022.

Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana are the Top Achievers
Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh figure under the Achievers category.

Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, announced the assessment of States/UTs under Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2020, the 5th edition of the BRAP exercise in New Delhi .The announcements were made in the august presence of Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Anurag Jain, Secretary, DPIIT and Senior Government officials of State and UT administration.

The BRAP 2020 includes 301 reform points covering 15 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single Window System, Labour, Environment, Land Administration & Transfer of Land and Property, Utility Permits and others. 118 new reforms were included to further augment the reform process. Sectoral reforms with 72 action points spread across 9 sectors namely Trade License, Healthcare, Legal Metrology, Cinema Halls, Hospitality, Fire NOC, Telecom, Movie Shooting and Tourism were introduced for the first time to expand the scope of reform agenda.

The broader aim is to boost investor confidence, foster business friendly climate and augment Ease of Doing Business across the country by introducing an element of healthy competition through a system of assessing states based on their performance in the implementation of Business Reforms Action Plan.

The combined Index of Eight Core Industries grew at 18.1 percent (provisional)in May 2022 as compared to the Index of May 2021. The Index stood at 148.1 in May 2022. The production of Cement, Coal, Fertilizers and Electricity industries recorded high growth in May 2022 over the corresponding period of last year. Coal industries grew by 25.1% and Fertilizer industries were up by 22.8%. While the cement industries zoomed by 26.3%, the electricity sector increased by 22%.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade released the Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) for the Month of May, 2022 today. ICI measures combined and individual performance of production in selected eight core industries viz. Coal, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Refinery Products, Fertilizers, Steel, Cement and Electricity. The Eight Core Industries comprise 40.27 percent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). Details of yearly and monthly indices and growth rates are provided at Annex I & II respectively.

The final growth rate of Index of Eight Core Industries for February 2022 is revised to 5.9% from its provisional level 5.8%. The growth rate of ICI during April-May 2022-23 was 13.6% (P) as compared to the corresponding period of last FY.