Budget 2018-19

  About 2.5 million ceremonies are estimated to have taken place since mid-November, around a quarter of this year’s expected annual total. A quick glance at social media feeds in India over the past month shows a flurry of weddings as couples rush to tie the knot following a lifting of some virus curbs. About 2.5 million ceremonies are estimated to have taken place since mid-November, around a quarter of this year’s expected annual total, after the government eased some restrictions around gatherings. It’s a stark turnaround for India’s jewelers, who have seen demand hammered for almost two years as the coronavirus led to the postponement of many weddings — a key source of demand for the nation that considers buying and gifting of gold as auspicious — while broader financial hardship further curbed purchases. The bumper festival season may help push India’s gold imports to as much as 900 tons this year, the highest in six years , Metals Focus Ltd  said. That’s up from about 3...

Leaders and scientists need to figure out what should be done to combat variants of the virus. It will be a while before it’s fully understood why  India  has been so swiftly and so disastrously engulfed by the coronavirus. But there is one thing for sure: India’s problem is now the world’s problem. India shut down too abruptly when the virus arrived, and then was too quick to reopen. In March 2020, the country was locked down at four hours’ notice though it did not yet have many cases. Millions of people, many of them migrant workers, were left stranded without food and shelter. Facing economic disaster, the government reopened the country before the pandemic really took hold. What is happening in India now is quite similar to what the United States experienced in its coronavirus surges. The Indian states where deaths started to mount again in March and April simply closed their eyes and hoped it would go away. After all, India’s first virus wave receded, for reasons that rem...