The Punjab cabinet gave its nod on Saturday to the excise policy for 2024-25, which is aimed at garnering revenue to the tune of more than Rs 10,000 crore from the sale of liquor. A decision to this effect was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann here. Addressing reporters here after the meeting, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said the cabinet has approved the new excise policy -- the third such policy of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. "For the first time, more than Rs 10,000 crore will be generated from it," Cheema said. He said during the previous Congress regime, the revenue from liquor sale was merely Rs 6,151 crore. The new excise policy envisages allotment of liquor vends through a draw of lots, the minister said, adding that instead of 172 groups, 232 groups have been formed this time. "Liquor vends will be allotted through a draw of lots," he said. In another decision, the cabinet also gave its approval for allowing colonisers t
The graphics processing units approved under the IndiaAI Mission will be made available in the next 18-24 months, a top government official said on Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of Tie-Con Delhi-NCR, Electronics and IT Secretary S Krishnan said that the government will invite bids from the industry under the mission and provide viability gap funding for GPU-based computing infrastructure. Our target is that the GPUs under the AI machine should be available between 18 and 24 months and will not be directly available under this mission, Krishnan said. The Cabinet has approved the India AI Mission with an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for five years to encourage AI development in the country. Under the mission. supercomputing capacity, comprising over 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing units), will be made available to various stakeholders for creating an AI ecosystem. The demand for GPU-based servers has increased as they can process data at a higher speed compared to CPU-based ...
Under India AI Mission, a key focus area is to develop high-end compute capacity within the country, for which the government will facilitate the setting up of more than 10,000 GPUs under PPP model
The Union Cabinet on Thursday discussed the proposed free trade agreement between India and four European nation bloc EFTA and the pact is likely to be inked on Sunday, said sources. The negotiations for the pact with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members -- Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland -- have concluded. The pact is expected to be signed on Sunday here, sources added. India and EFTA have been negotiating the pact, officially dubbed as Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA), since January 2008 to boost economic ties. The agreement has several chapters including trade in goods, rules of origin, intellectual property rights (IPRs), trade in services, investment promotion and cooperation, trade and sustainable development, and trade facilitation. EFTA has 29 free trade agreements (FTAs) with 40 partner countries, including Canada, Chile, China, Mexico, and Korea. Under free trade pacts, two trading partners significantly reduce or eliminate .
The Cabinet approves India AI mission with an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for five years, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday. The approved corpus will be used to to create a large computing infrastructure. The minister, briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, said supercomputing capacity, comprising over 10,000 GPU, will be made available to various stakeholders for creating an AI ecosystem. Startups, academia, researchers and industry will be given access to the AI supercomputing infrastructure established under the India AI Mission, Goyal said. A National Data Management Officer will be set up under the mission that will coordinate with various government departments and ministries to improve the quality of data and make them available for AI development and deployment.
Cabinet approves three more semiconductor units; two in Gujarat and one in Assam
Vaishnaw said that the total investment in three semiconductor units is estimated to be Rs 1.26 trillion
Along with Tower, the Cabinet is also likely to approve the proposals of the Tata Group and the joint venture between HCL Group and Foxconn Group
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his Cabinet ministers to prepare an "actionable, measurable and clearly defined" plan and present it in the meeting of the Council of Ministers on March 3, government sources said on Saturday. It may be noted that Modi in the last Cabinet meeting on February 21 had asked his ministerial colleagues to prepare an action plan for the next 100 days. He has asked them to undertake extensive consultation, including with experienced people like senior bureaucrats, those working on the ground and domain experts, before mapping out their action plan, the sources said. He has asked them and their ministries to brainstorm over the agenda for the period, which is also the likely duration before a new government takes office following the Lok Sabha elections expected in April-May. The prime minister, sources said, wants to ensure that the government's work goes on amid the poll cycle and his call for preparing the agenda for the next 100 days is part of su
Move will attract investments worth $5 billion in five years, say industry experts
Out of the total project outlay of Rs 1,179.72 crore, a total of Rs 885.49 crore will be provided by the Home Ministry from its own budget, and Rs 294.23 crore will be funded from the Nirbhaya Fund
A number of newly inducted ministers in Jharkhand's Champai Soren-led alliance government assumed office on Saturday. The CM had allocated portfolios to the ministers on Friday. With the exception of a few, most ministers retained the portfolios they were assigned during the previous Hemant Soren government. Senior Congress leader and minister Alamgir Alam, who has been given the portfolio of rural development, panchayati raj, and rural works department, assumed office at the state secretariat. Jamshedpur (west) Congress MLA Banna Gupta took office as the minister of the health and disaster management department at Nepal House, while another Congress minister, Badal Patralekh, assumed charge of the agriculture and animal husbandry department. Patralekh directed the department officers to ensure proper spending of the budget allocation for 2023-24, as it is set to end next month. Gupta said his intention to strengthen the state's health infrastructure. "The budget expenditure for
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday lauded a host of decisions taken by the Union Cabinet and said the approval of railway projects will boost infrastructure and reduce congestion on busy routes and improve commerce as well as connectivity. The Cabinet chaired by Modi approved six projects of the Ministry of Railways with an estimated cost of nearly Rs 12,343 crore with 100 per cent funding from the central government. The Cabinet's extension of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) will ensure improved credit access for those in the fisheries sector and boost the creation of related infrastructure, the prime minister said in a post on X. The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana, which has been approved by the Cabinet will boost the fisheries sector, especially MSMEs associated with the sector, he added. The government had earlier announced a Rs 6,000-crore scheme in order to formalise the unorganised fisheries sector, facilitate ...
Cabinet approves marketing margins for domestic gas provided for fertiliser production
At least one project will be bid out on a tariff-based bidding process and its criteria will be designed in consultation with NITI Aayog, a government statement said
The Union Cabinet was apprised of a pact inked between India and Oman for cooperation in the field of IT, an official release said on Wednesday. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) intends to promote cooperation between the two sides through mutual support, sharing of technologies, information and investments in the field of information technology. "The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was apprised of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed on December 15, 2023, between the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of the Republic of India and the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology of the Sultanate of Oman on cooperation in the field of Information Technology," the release said. The MoU will remain in force for a period of three years. "Both G2G (government to government) and B2B (business to business) bilateral cooperation in the field of Information Technology will be enhanced. The MoU envisages improved collaborat
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a Rs 8,500 crore incentive scheme for coal gasification projects, sources said. The adoption of gasification technology in India is expected to reduce the country's reliance on imports of natural gas, methanol, ammonia and other essential products. The cabinet has given its go-ahead to Rs 8,500 crore incentive scheme for coal gasification projects, the sources said. The government is targeting to gasify 100 million tonnes (MT) of coal by 2030. In gasification process, coal is partially oxidised by air, oxygen, steam, or carbon dioxide under controlled conditions to produce a liquid fuel known as syngas. Syngas or synthesis gas can be used for power generation and to make methanol as well.
Israel last year approved a two-year budget for 2023 and 2024, but the war against Hamas in Gaza has shaken government finances, requiring budget changes and additional spending
The Tata Group's investment for the fab manufacturing in Gujarat will be "very big" and a Cabinet note seeking approvals for the project will be moved "very soon", Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. Speaking at the biennial Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit here, Vaishnaw said the Tatas' proposed investment is important because it will be serving a wider spectrum of opportunities, right from fab to OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test). Vaishnaw said the fab proposed in Dhooera will be a semiconductor chips manufacturing factory, which will be a "very big investment". "Already there is a lot of good progress on it. Very soon, we will take it to the Cabinet and construction will begin after that," Vaishnaw told reporters. The Union Cabinet will have to grant approval for the project, he added. The Union minister also said the Tata Group will tie up with a technical partner to set up the project, but declined to share
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