UNEMPLOYMENT RATE RISES TO 6.98% IN OCT: DATA

NEW DELHI: Even as the rabi harvest season kicked off, India’s rural unemployment rate climbed more than 100 basis points (bps) in October monthon-month with the region seeing a significant fall in the creation of person-days under the national rural employment guarantee scheme.

According to monthly data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), rural unemployment climbed to 6.9% in October against 5.86% in September. Similarly, the national unemployment rate in October, too, was up 6.98% from 6.67%.

China issued a new warning to the US over journalist visas, after accusing the Trump administration of giving Chinese media staff new travel documents that would expire in a matter of days.

Some Chinese journalists in the US were notified last week that their long-delayed visa applications had been approved, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing on Monday in Beijing.

Those travel documents, however, covered a period from August 4 to November 4, Wang said, meaning some would immediately have to file for extensions.

“The US also unreasonably asked that the Chinese journalists - while waiting for their extension approval - could not engage in coverage of news events,” Wang said. “So the Chinese journalists’ work and life are in great uncertainty.”

Other Chinese journalists still haven’t received replies to their applications, Wang said. China had expressed its concerns and demands through diplomatic channels made clear that it would take “firm countermeasures” should Washington continue with its “political persecution and suppression against Chinese journalists”, he said.

A spokesperson for US embassy in Beijing couldn’t immediately confirm the renewals or comment on implications for Chinese journalists in the US.

Both sides have increasingly targeted each other’s journalists amid an escalating series of disputes over everything from trade to the coronavirus pandemic.