INDIAN ENVOY TO U.S. GETS 1-YEAR TENURE EXTENSION
WASHINGTON: The Centre has extended the tenure of India’s ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, for a year till the end of January 2024.
A notification published in the Gazette of India on November 28 states, “The President of India is pleased to re-employ Taranjit Singh Sandhu (IFS:1988), an officer of Grade 1 of IFS, as Ambassador of India to the United States of America, for a period of 01 year with effect from 01.02.2023 to 31.01.2024 or until further orders.”
NEW DELHI: Indian economy grew at 6.3% in the quarter ending September 2022, the National Statistical Office (NSO) said in a release on November 30, putting GDP growth for the first half of the fiscal year at 9.7%. Private consumption rose 9.7% in the quarter, and investments, as reflected by gross fixed capital formation, by 10.4%, pointing to a continuing recovery in the economy, but analysts said global headwinds will temper growth over the current quarter and the next.
The latest GDP number is exactly in line with the September 2022 projection of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and marginally higher than the 6.2% growth projection by economists in a Bloomberg poll. However, the larger trend in the GDP numbers is that of moderation of growth momentum which is also in keeping with the MPC’S projections of GDP growth coming down to 4.6% in both the remaining two quarters of the fiscal year. The fact that growth of eight core sector industries plummeted to 0.1% in the month of October according to data released Wednesday, supports this prognosis.
To be sure, India will continue to be the fastest growing major economy in the world in 2022-23 and 2023-24 according to most institutional and private forecasters. “In an uncertain external environment, domestic demand is expected to drive GDP growth,” Chief Economic Advsior (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran said reacting to the GDP numbers, adding that the Indian economy is on track to achieve a 6.8-7 % GDP growth in 2022-23.
What makes the latest GDP numbers significant is that they will be the latest available input on the state of the economy for the 2023-24 Union Budget, the consultations for which have already started and which will likely be presented on February 1, 2023.
The CEA also said that he expects further easing in inflation “on the back of softening global commodity prices and expectations of a good Rabi (winter) crop” which should support corporate earnings, provided the geopolitical situation does not deteriorate drastically. Notwithstanding global headwinds, India’s growth momentum is propelled by festival sales and domestic demand that is seen in bank credit growth, auto sales data shows and other high frequency data, he added. “Stable banking sector is a major source of resilience amidst formidable global headwinds,” Nageswaran added.