Pune, Jan 9: Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan on Monday dedicated India’s fastest and first “multi-petaflops” supercomputer to the nation here.
Petaflops is a measure of a computer’s processing speed.
Christened “Pratyush”, meaning the sun, the High Performance Computing (HPC) facility has been established at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, and will be a national facility for improving weather and climate forecasts, an IITM release said.
While inaugurating the facility, the minister said that it would be India’s number one HPC facility in terms of peak capacity and performance.
The IITM release added that the facility would help the country with better forecasts in terms of monsoon, extreme events, tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes, air quality, lightning, fishing, hot and cold waves, flood and drought among others.
The Central Statistics Office’s (CSO’s) first advance estimate for India GDP growth rate in 2017-18 at 6.5% is lower than the 7.1% recorded in 2016-17.
The Indian economy is expected to decelerate to 6.5% in 2017-18 from 7.1% in the previous year, marred by the twin policy blow of demonetisation and hasty implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).
In the first half (April-September) of the financial year ending 31 March, the economy grew at 6%, indicating that it will accelerate in the second half (October-March) of the financial year.
Data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that the agriculture sector is expected to grow at 2.1% in FY18, slower than 4.9% in the previous year, while manufacturing is likely to grow at 4.6%, compared with 7.9% a year ago. Electricity and trade, hotels sectors are the only sectors that will grow at a faster rate of 7.5% and 8.7% in FY18 than in FY17.
The nominal GDP, or gross domestic product at market prices, is expected to grow at 9.5% against 11.75% assumed in the 2017-18 budget presented last year. This may make it difficult for the government to achieve the fiscal deficit target of 3.2% of GDP in a fiscally tight year.
The nominal GDP will be used as the benchmark for most indices in Union Budget 2018 to be presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley on 1 February.
A united opposition on Wednesday had a face-off with the government over the triple talaq bill in the Rajya Sabha and stalled a debate on it insisting that it should be sent to a select panel, as the ruling BJP strongly sought its expeditious passage to stop the unlawful practice.
Amid noisy scenes, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 for discussion and passage, but pandemonium broke out in the Upper House with the opposition creating an uproar and the BJP countering it vociferously.
The House, which had met at 3 PM after witnessing three adjournments over the Maharashtra caste violence, also witnessed procedural wranglings from both sides.
The bill, which seeks to make instant triple talaq illegal with up to three years in jail for the husband, was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 28.
While the government emphasised the need to pass the bill on an urgent basis citing a Supreme Court judgement pronouncing triple talaq as unconstitutional, the opposition countered it saying the views of various stakeholders must be taken by the select panel.
While supporting the bill, the Opposition parties especially those from the Congress, Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party, insisted that it be referred to a select panel for further scrutiny.
As heated exchanges continued despite warnings and appeals, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien adjourned the House for the day, without giving any ruling on the validity of the opposition’s motion on the select panel.
Terming it “a historic bill”, Prasad said the Supreme Court on August 22 “called triple talaq as unconstitutional … The judges appealed to Parliament to come out with a law.
Until then, it stopped the practice for six months. Even after Lok Sabha passing it, triple talaq is being given.”
Appealing for its expeditious passage, the Minister also said that the Congress had supported the bill in the Lower House and asked it to clear its position here.
However, the opposition remained adamant on its demand for setting up of a select committee, with Congress Deputy Leader Anand Sharma moving a resolution to this effect.
Sharma gave a list of opposition members to be part of the proposed select committee and asked the ruling party to suggest its names to the panel, which should give its report in the first week of the Budget Session.
Besides Congress, SP and TMC, the names proposed by Sharma for the panel included leaders of AIADMK, BSP, DMK, NCP, CPI, CPI(M), TDP, RJD, BJD, JMM, IUML and nominated member KTS Tulsi.
The Congress leader, along with Derek O’Brien (TMC), also insisted that the resolution on sending the bill to a select panel be put to vote in the House and a division was sought.
Dubbing Sharma’s motion to set up a select committee as “invalid”, Leader of the House Arun Jaitley objected to the procedure followed by him, saying Rule 70 (sub-rule 2a) cited by Sharma was not applicable here because the bill did not orginate from the Upper House. It orginated in the Lok Sabha and was transmitted to the Rajya Sabha.
The other objection Jaitley raised was that the notice for setting up of a select panel was not given before, thereby breaking the parliamentary procedure.
Not only the names given for the proposed panel were proportionate to the strength of the parties represented in the House but the consent of these members was also not taken, he claimed.
“Now, we are taken by surprise that we all assemble here after 3 PM, a motion is suddenly submitted to us. For the first time breaking all parliamentary convention and procedures, an invalid motion is moved,” Jaitley said.
Citing reasons for the urgency of the bill to be passed to end the unlawful practice, Jaitley explained why the bill should not be referred to a select panel.
“The practice (of triple talaq) was declared unconstitutional on August 22. Two of the judges…held the practice to be unfair. They used their extraordinary power to suspend this practice for six months. Those six months expires on February 22.
“They said we (court) beseige all political parties to come out with an appropriate legislation. Therefore, there is an urgency which the country expects from Parliament and the urgency is that the practice is unlawful,” Jaitley said.
The minister further said that some people have said that “we will defy the judgement and resort to this practice. So, the legislature must act with responsibility and act expeditiously and give it a legislative face.”
Hitting out at Congress, Jaitley said, “The whole country is watching that in the other House you supported the bill and here you are trying to derail it” and sought a ruling from the chair on this matter.
Countering Jaitley’s views, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said the Minister referred to a minority judgement of the Supreme Court on the issue while there was no mention of urgency in the majority judgement of the apex court.
As unruly scenes continued, the ruling party members including ministers were up on their feet and asked, “Is it wrong to give respect to women?”
Responding to them, Sharma said the Congress respects the women’s rights and supports the bill. “We are not opposing, we are supporting it. We are not hypocrites. We want to ensure the bill goes through legislative scrutiny.”
He also chided the ruling party for claiming to the champion of the women’s cause but not bringing the women’s reservation bill.
As noisy scenes and sloganeering continued forcing the chair to finally adjourn the House for the day.
New Delhi, Jan 3: India is likely to impose anti- dumping duty of up to USD 397 per tonne on a Chinese chemical used in construction and dyes industry.
The move is aimed at guarding domestic players from cheap imports of ‘Sulphonated Naphthalene Formaldehyde’ from the neighbouring country.
Commerce ministry’s investigation arm Directorate General of Antidumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) in its final findings has concluded that the product has been exported to India from China below its normal value and it has resulted in dumping.
“The domestic industry has suffered material injury due to dumping of the product,” DGAD said in a notification.
It has recommended “imposition of definitive anti-dumping duty” for a period of five years to remove the injury to the domestic industry.
Himadri Speciality Chemical had filed the application for initiation of anti-dumping investigations.
While DGAD recommends the duty, the Finance Ministry imposes it.
Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports.
As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multi-lateral WTO regime.
Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products.
Anti-dumping steps are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry.