The Catch Up: Cabinet approves Jal Jeevan Mission extension (10 March)

0:00This is the catch-up on three things by the Indian Express and I am Acha Sharma. Today is the 10th of March and here are today's headlines. Starting with Meijan News, the union cabinet today approved the extension of Jaljeeven Mission till 2028 with an allocation of 1.51 lakh crore rupees. The Indian Express has learnt. The finance minister Merlaasi Tharamann announced the extension of the JGM till 2028 with an enhanced total outlay while presenting the union budget 2025-26. As reported by the Indian Express on 21st of April last year, the Jal Shakti Ministry sought an allocation of 2.79 lakh crore rupees for the Jaljeeven Mission for the period till 2028. However, the Ministry of Finance rejected the demand, amid concerns about irregularities in the implementation of the rural tap water scheme.

1:03And now we shift our focus to news from the Parliament of motion seeking the removal of Lok Sabha Speaker, Umbherla was stable in Parliament today. Congress MP Dr. Mohamma Javed moved the resolution in the Lok Sabha alleging that the chair has failed to maintain the impartiality required to command the confidence of all sections of the House. During the discussion, TMC MP Mahu Amitra asked Speaker to go in the name of God, saying Billah was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the House. In the resolution Javed accused the Speaker of disallowing the leader of the opposition and other opposition leaders from speaking, making unwarranted delegations against women MPs from the opposition and suspending opposition members for an entire session for raising issues of public concern. The motion also alleges that the Speaker did not rebuke ruling party members for making objectionable and derogatory remarks against former Prime Ministers. In other major news making national headlines, Rajasthan's food safety department has destroyed

2:05about 1.5 lakh kilograms of Amul's expired non-dairy food items in Jepur, which were allegedly being prepared for sale by raising the date and adding a new one. Principal Secretary of the Medical Health and Family Welfare Department, Gayatri Rathor said that a person filed a complaint on the 1-8-1 helpline claiming that Mrs. Athlete distributor was preparing to sell expired products in Jepur's Kho Nagorean area. She said that the team found a large quantity of food cartons in a large warehouse including several non-dairy Amul products such as noodles, ketchup, mayonnaise, energy drink etc. produced by Mrs. Kaira district cooperative milk producers Union Gujarat and supplied by Mrs. Advances India private limited official said that about 12,000 cartons were found with expired dates and in 3,000 cartons the expiry dates had allegedly been erased from the packets. The search teams also found thinner, acetone, chemicals and other materials allegedly used to erase dates are the same.

3:06They said that a businessman with Mrs. Athlete distributor was preparing to print new dates on these food items, pack them in 4,500 new Amul branded cartons and sell them for a profit. And now in some major tech news, across brands, smartphones and laptops are becoming more expensive with AI development being blamed for the rise in input costs, especially off chips. Even cash rich tech companies which typically keep prices steady for their devices are no longer doing so. In the past few days alone, Apple Samsung and nothing have all launched new devices at marginally higher prices compared to previous versions. Pranchasco, Jeronimo, Vice President of Client Devices at International Data Cooperation IDC told the Indian Express, vendors are increasing prices primarily because memory costs have searched dramatically in some cases rising 200 to 300% in recent months. Most vendors operate on relatively tight hardware margins, particularly in the mid-range and

4:09entry segments. As a result, they are forced to pass part of these higher component costs on to the consumers. With AI companies buying memory chips for their data centers or data farms, a key focus at the AI summit held in India last month, the prices of these components have shot up, forcing companies like Apple and Dell to raise prices or cut margins. These chips are also used in laptops and smartphones. All computing devices require RAM or random access memory. Think of RAM as a computer's short term memory that allows multiple applications to run simultaneously. Essentially RAM is a foundational component of modern computing devices and it goes into almost every tech product you buy. From smartphones, tablets, laptops to a cars, infotainment system and video game consoles. And in the end in news making global headlines as the conflict invests Asia pushes up energy and commodity prices, its ripple effects are beginning to spread far beyond oil and gas.

5:12Its sectors such as textiles, mining and steel making in India starting to feel the pressure. The impact is emerging through a chain of second and third order effects linked to fuel costs. Petrochemicals, feedstocks, chemicals and disruptions in global shipping routes along the state of Hormuz. The West Asia conflict has set off a structural reprising across global chemical markets as many as 73 commodities spiked in a single week, some by over 60% as Hormuz disruptions choke the NAFTA feedstock flows that Asian steam crackers depend on for 60 to 80% of their supply. Ajay Jossiya, chemical sector expert and founder of an Ibonumus advisory firm for chemical companies told the Indian Express that India is among the most exposed, structurally import demand on West Asia for crude oil, LNG, ethylene glycol, polymers, methanol and fertilizers, India faces a compounding cost shock worsened by the rupee already at 92 rupees to the US dollar.

6:13The market has not fully priced a prolonged disruption to shipping routes along the state of Hormuz. And with that this was all for today, this was the Kachupon 3 things by the Indian Express.