Author: Lalit Barendran

India’s federal health ministry has advised states to stay alert amid a spike in COVID-19 cases across the country. According to data released by the ministry on Saturday, 6,155 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours. This was the first time since Sept. 16 last year that daily cases have crossed the 6,000 mark. On Friday, federal health minister Mansukh Mandaviya held a review meeting on the COVID-19 pandemic with local health officials. Mandaviya said the federal government and states need to continue working together to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. He issued directions to ramp up testing…

Udaipur: The 2nd meeting of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG) under G20 India Presidency concluded successfully on Thursday. The 3-day meeting was attended by 93 delegates from G20 member countries, 10 invitee countries and 18 international organisations like Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, among others. Many other organisations joined the meeting virtually. With its 2nd meeting, the SFWG has reached halfway in delivering upon the agreed work plan for 2023.Keeping up with a collaborative spirit and arriving at a consensus, members agreed upon the way forward for important deliverables for the year that include a set…

The Hungarian economy has continued to stumble. The quarterly 0.7% drop in the third quarter was followed by a 0.4% fall in the last quarter of 2022, confirming our previous view that the economy was in a technical recession from the second half of last year. Thus, at this point, our outlook for 2023 remains unchanged Second leg down confirms technical recession Hungarian GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 came in at -0.4% on a quarterly basis, while the year-on-year (YoY) reading was 0.4%, matching ING’s forecast. At the same time, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) carried out…

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan: Turkmenistan’s president has sacked his economy minister and two deputy ministers covering the energy sector, according to decrees published on Saturday in the central Asian nation reliant on gas exports.Head of state Serdar Berdimuhamedow signed the decrees in a country, which according to British oil company BP, can boast the world’s fourth largest natural gas reserves.Turkmenistan depends on exports to China and to a less extent Russia and Iran.Last autumn, the ex-Soviet republic voiced readiness to export gas via the Caspian Sea to Europe, which faces shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To diversify its export earnings, Turkmenistan is…