Himachal weather

Senior Scientist at the Meteorological Centre in Shimla, Shobhit Katiyar says, “Light to moderate rainfall was recorded in several parts of Himachal Pradesh over the past 24 hours, particularly in the low and mid-hill regions. Sirmaur district recorded the highest rainfall at 10 cm, followed by Mandi at 9 cm, and Kangra at 6 cm…Light to moderate rainfall is likely to continue in the low and middle hill regions of Himachal for the next five days, with Una, Bilaspur, Mandi, Sirmaur and Kullu districts likely to witness heavy rainfall over the next two days. In view of this forecast, we have issued yellow alerts for these districts. Una and Bilaspur are under alert for two days, while Mandi, Hamirpur, Solan, Sirmaur and Kangra districts will remain under yellow alert on July 9, 10, and 11…”

Rescue operations under way in Vadodara district after several vehicles fall into river.

At least nine people have been killed after the collapse of a bridge over a river in India’s western Gujarat state, according to authorities.

Gujarat’s Health Minister Rushikesh Patel said several vehicles fell into Mahisagar River when a portion of Gambhira Bridge collapsed on Wednesday morning.

The bridge in the state’s Vadodara district had been constructed in 1985, added Patel.

Anil Dhameliya, a senior civil servant, told reporters at least nine bodies had been recovered, with five others injured in the incident. Rescue operations were under way, he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the accident was “deeply saddening” and offered condolences to the families of those who died.

India’s infrastructure has long been marred by safety concerns, sometimes leading to major disasters on highways and bridges.

In 2022, a colonial-era cable suspension bridge collapsed into the Machchu River in Gujarat, sending hundreds plunging into the water and killing at least 132.

A forum of 10 trade unions has given a 17-point charter of demand. It includes withdrawal of fixed-term employment and scrapping of Agnipath scheme, 8-hour workday, restoration of non-contributory Old Pension Scheme and a minimum monthly penion of Rs 9,000 for the EPFO subscribers, among others.

The forum has alleged that the economic policies are resulting into more unemployment, rising prices of essential commodities, depression in wages, cut in social sector spending in education, health, basic civic amenities, and all these are leading to more inequalities and miseries for poor, people of lower income group as well as the middle class.

The four labour codes that have been passed by the Parliament are meant to suppress and cripple the trade union movement, increase working hours, snatch workers’ right to collective bargaining, right to strike, and decriminalise violation of labour laws by employers, the forum has stated.

They also demand implementation of the recommendation of Indian Labour Conference to give worker status to scheme workers-Anganwadi, Asha and Midday meal, Asha Kiran etc and ESIC coverage to them.

-PTI

Foxconn has recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians from its iPhone manufacturing facilities in India over the past two months, but sources indicate the move will not significantly impact production schedules or Apple‘s expansion plans in the country.The bulk of Foxconn’s Chinese staff at iPhone plants in southern India have been told to fly back in a move that began about two months ago, with more than 300 Chinese workers having left the facilities. Despite this significant workforce change, industry insiders maintain that iPhone 17 production remains on track as Apple prepares for its next major manufacturing ramp-up in the South Asian nation.

Production continuity maintained despite workforce changes

More than 300 Chinese workers have departed from Foxconn’s southern India plants, with the company replacing them with Taiwanese and Vietnamese professionals to maintain operational efficiency, according to Bloomberg reports. The recall appears linked to Beijing’s broader strategy to limit technology transfers and equipment exports to India and Southeast Asia.Despite the workforce transition, iPhone 17 production remains on schedule as Apple prepares to ramp up manufacturing with its Indian partners. Industry sources told ET that while the departure of experienced Chinese engineers may temporarily affect assembly line efficiency, it won’t compromise production quality or timelines.

Capital goods supply chains adapt to geopolitical shifts

The recall highlights growing tensions in global supply chains as China moves to restrict skilled labor and technology exports. However, Foxconn is proactively addressing potential disruptions by converting Chinese-language machinery to English-operated systems and sourcing equipment from alternative suppliers.Apple’s Indian operations have shown remarkable resilience, with the company producing iPhones worth $22 billion in fiscal 2025 – a 60% increase from the previous year. The tech giant plans to manufacture 60 million units in India this year, up from 35-40 million in 2024-25, according to PTI sources.

What Foxconn told Indian government on Chinese staff leaving India

India’s government was informed of the Chinese staff withdrawal but wasn’t provided specific reasons for the decision. Officials report no major impact on current phone production levels, with Apple maintaining its target to build most US-bound iPhones in India by late 2026.The Apple ecosystem in India employs approximately 200,000 people across various vendors, making it one of the country’s largest job creators in the technology sector. With exports worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore in fiscal 2025, India has emerged as a crucial manufacturing hub for Apple’s global supply chain diversification strategy.

As expectations around the US-India trade deal strengthen and the Trump administration on Tuesday reiterated its warning of a 10 percent tariff on BRIC nations, including India, the market is showing some nervousness.

Trump also added that the deadline on the tariff implemenation will not be prolonged beyond August 1.

In its stance on India, considering India is a major trading partner, Trump pointed out that there shall be no relaxation made even for India. Trump explicitly stated that India’s membership in BRICS means it would be subject to the same additional 10% tariffs. However, the markets after a lacklustre trade in the morning session managed to end in the green with the bluechip Nifty50 index topping 25,500 levels.

How positive is Trump on India-US trade deal?

Zee Business Managing Editor Anil Singhvi said, ” on the trade deal front with the US, there are two positive news for India:

• For the second consecutive day, Trump reiterated that it is fully ready to sign a deal with India
• On the pharma sector, no tariffs will be levied for another 1.5-2 years.

Nonetheless, for the BRICS nations, President warned of a likely 10 per cent tariffs. Experts held that for India if the tariffs go below 10 per cent, it will likely induce a relief rally. 

Will markets run in anticipation of India-US trade deal?

Singhvi noted that the Trump administration’s continuous remarks increased the chances of an India-US trade deal, which led to fad-end buying on D-Street in the previous session.Further, the expert added that the markets will attempt to move in the higher band of 25,600-25,670.

So, for now the possible chances of breaking below the lower levels have declined.

Also, he said that markets may be volatile for some time now ahead of the deal and then post the deal.

Are there buying opportunities ahead of the US-India trade deal?

Amid the trade deal, the stop loss recommended by the market guru for Nifty and Bank Nifty is at 25,300 and 56,500, respectively. So, for mitigating the higher volatility, the expert advises to trade in low quantities, while keeping strict stop losses.

And for now, pharma scrips that did not perform well look good for buying now.

 

 

A forum of 10 central trade unions and their associates has called for a general strike or ‘Bharat Bandh’ to “oppose the anti-worker, anti-farmer and anti-national pro-corporate policies of the government”.

In a statement, the forum has called for making “the nationwide general strike a grand success”, and said preparations have been taken up in earnest by unions in all sectors of formal and informal/unorganised economy.

“More than 25 crore workers are expected to take part in the strike. Farmers and rural workers will also join the protest across the country,” said Amarjeet Kaur from All India Trade Union Congress.

Harbhajan Singh Sidhu from Hind Mazdoor Sabha said that banking, postal, coal mining, factories, state transport services will be affected due to the strike.

The forum had last year submitted a charter of 17-point demand to Labour Minister Mansukh Mandavia, the workers’ union forum said in its latest statement.

It further said that the government has not been conducting the annual labour conference for the last 10 years and continues to take decisions in contravention to the interest of labour force, attempting to impose four labour codes to weaken collective bargaining, to cripple unions’ activities and to favour employers in the name of ‘ease of doing business’.

The forum also alleged that the economic policies are resulting into more unemployment, rising prices of essential commodities, depression in wages, cut in social sector spending in education, health, basic civic amenities, and all these are leading to more inequalities and miseries for poor, people of lower income group as well as the middle class.

The government has abandoned the welfare state status of the country and is working in the interest of foreign and Indian corporates, and it is so evident from its policies being pursued vigorously, the forum said.

Trade unions have been fighting against “privatisation of public sector enterprises and public services, policies of outsourcing, contractorisation and casualisation of workforce”, it said.

The four labour codes that have been passed by the Parliament are meant to suppress and cripple the trade union movement, increase working hours, snatch workers’ right to collective bargaining, right to strike, and decriminalise violation of labour laws by employers, the statement said.

The correspondent filing this dispatch is a law student in Mumbai who has requested to remain anonymous.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of India (SCI) agreed to hear a batch of petitions challenging the Election Commission’s (ECI) decision to verify and revise the State of Bihar’s electoral rolls as it awaits assembly elections later this year. This will be a crucial milestone in the SCI’s election jurisprudence, following recent landmark judgements on the appointment of Election Commissioners and judicial review on delimitation.

The ECI is governed by constitutional provisions, the Representation of People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. In Mohinder Gill v. Election Commissioner, the SCI held that these powers are not absolute, and are subject to judicial review when fundamental rights are violated or natural justice principles arise. Article 324(1) of the Constitution vests the ECI with the power to prepare electoral rolls. Similarly, Rule 20 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, provides that revisions may be intensive, summary, or a combination of both.

In the present case, the ECI conducted a Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a process that is intended to ensure that names of all “eligible citizens” are included in the electoral roll. This process is used in exceptional circumstances, or when major changes to the rolls are necessary. ECI justified its decision based on issues of “rapid urbanization, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants” that have plagued Bihar politics for decades.

The challenges to this process are multifaceted, with a major concern being the systemic disenfranchisement of legitimate voters from vulnerable and marginalised communities. The petitioners argued that the SIR violates fundamental rights on two major grounds: the stringent documentation requirements and exclusionary criteria, and the compressed timeline of this exercise.

In the 2003 electoral roll revision, the SIR required individuals whose names were missing to submit eleven documents in order to register. The ECI has since relaxed this rule, now allowing voters to submit documents at a later date if they complete the required voter forms at their earliest convenience. While the Aadhaar identification document has been conspicuously excluded from this list, it remains necessary for proof-of-birth requirements as part of ECI’s Form-6 application for new voters. The controversy surrounding documentation requirements centres on persistent challenges faced by marginalised communities regarding housing instability, inability to access formal identification, and limited literacy, all of which make it difficult for these communities to complete the process. This process imposes a disproportionate burden on impoverished individuals, migrants, Adivasis, Muslims, women, and informal workers, which exacerbates systemic challenges and reinforces Bihar’s status as the most backwards state in the country. Despite having formal safeguards and remedies against the arbitrary deletion of names from electoral rolls, the question of effective access to justice in Bihar looms.

This violates the principle of substantive equality as seemingly neutral rules disproportionately harm disadvantaged groups. However, it is necessary for ECI to insist on some form of documentary verification to discharge its constitutional duty to prepare electoral rolls. Additionally, ECI has instructed both Booth Level Officers and Electoral Registration Officers to take special care when working with vulnerable populations. For instance, failure to demand any proof of identity could result in inaccurate electoral rolls, which would in turn undermine the principle of free and fair elections. Thus, the ECI must reconcile both considerations. Operationalising the Aadhaar as a valid document for proof-of-birth requirements is a viable common ground on which to achieve this objective due to its relatively wide availability in Bihar. The opposition has also demanded the inclusion of other documents, such as ration cards and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) cards.

The second challenge, however, is more difficult to adjust and rectify because the ECI’s truncated timeline for the SIR drive cannot be reasonably justified. It was launched in late June 2025, just five months before the assembly elections. The petitioners rightly argue that such a schedule makes it impossible to carry out a revision of such a scale without risking errors, wrongful deletions, and administrative arbitrariness. This is further amplified by the Special Summary Revision (SSR) that was already conducted in 2024 that addressed issues of migration, deaths, and ineligible entries. Had the ECI instead identified discrepancies at a time that warranted a SIR, the process could have commenced far earlier. The sudden decision to re-open and overhaul the electoral rolls in a poll-bound state has not been sufficiently justified.

The ECI  issued a decision to conduct SIRs throughout the entire nation, with Bihar being the first state to undergo this exercise on account of the upcoming assembly elections to be held in November. In this context, the SCI’s ruling on the challenges to the Bihar SIR will bear significant consequences. The matter has been listed before a division bench of the Apex Court on Thursday, with each order and hearing eagerly awaited by stakeholders on either side of the litigation. The judiciary has time and time again reiterated its role as a protector of the integrity of the election process, and the outcome of this case will redefine the contours of India’s electoral democracy.

NEW DELHI: The Brics nations have rejected the European Union’s proposed carbon border tax, or the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), calling it “unilateral, punitive and discriminatory protectionist measures”, and said the move, being made “under the pretext of environmental concerns”, would undermine their capacities to invest in just energy transitions and development priorities. India has long been opposed to such measures and even flagged its concerns during the recent free trade agreement talks with the EU.The concerns of the group of 11 nations, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, over such trade barriers got reflected prominently in the ‘Leaders’ Framework Declaration on Climate Finance’ adopted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday. The CBAM, to be implemented from next year, is a tool to impose border tax on carbon-intensive goods, such as iron & steel, aluminium and cement, that enter the 27 EU nations.Since it will impose a tariff burden on developing countries and impact their trade prospects, large exporters of such goods, including India and China, have consistently been opposing it.Condemning CBAM, the Brics nations declared that such measures are “not in line with international law”, and said they oppose “unilateral protectionist measures which deliberately disrupt the global supply and production chains and distort competition”.Besides flagging the EU’s trade barrier, the Brics nations expressed “serious concern” over pre-2020 mitigation gaps for developed countries and urged them to urgently bridge the gaps between what they promised and what they have achieved in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The group asked the rich nations to increase their 2030 climate action targets and achieve net-zero emissions significantly ahead of 2050, preferably by 2030.Referring to the critical issue of finance that is going to dominate the climate talks (CO) in Belem, Brazil, later this year, the Brics nations called upon developed countries to meet their earlier goal of jointly mobilising $100 billion per year through 2025 to address the needs of developing countries, and achieve the finance goal of $300 billion per year by 2035.“We note that substantial gaps remain in fulfilling the financing needs identified by developing countries,” the declaration said. The developed countries were also urged to increase their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation, doubling the amount from 2019 levels by 2025 at the least.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) submitted its preliminary report on the Air India plane crash to the ministry of civil aviation and other authorities concerned on Tuesday, according to senior government officials.

The preliminary report includes aircraft information, crew details, weather conditions, aerodrome data, a description of the accident, and the current status of the investigation, but it does not yet include findings, probable causes of the accident, or safety recommendations, a senior official told FE.

The investigation is still underway and a detailed final report will be released in the coming months. This final report is expected to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors that led to the crash.

The Ahmedabad-London AI171 flight crashed just minutes after taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on June 12, claiming the lives of over 260 people.

According to sources, the report documents technical findings from the crash wreckage, including the extent of damage to the aircraft’s engines and airframe — factors considered crucial to understanding the cause of the disaster.

The preliminary findings will also be shared with international regulatory and investigative bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the sources added.

As a signatory to the ICAO conventions, India is obliged to submit a preliminary investigation report within 30 days of the accident, with the final report ideally completed and made public within 12 months.

House panel meet on aviation safety

The report came just hours ahead of a meeting of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Senior officials from the ministry of civil aviation and representatives of airlines appeared before the committee. Air India has reportedly told the PAC that the Boeing Dreamliner remains “one of the safest aircraft in operation” globally, even as scrutiny intensifies following the plane crash in Ahmedabad. Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson told the committee his airline will complete retrofitting of its fleet in two years to address frequent complaints about its seats and other facilities, and underscored its commitment to flight safety, sources said.

Congress MP K C Venugopal, who leads the panel, told reporters after the meeting that the committee members were all worried about safety issues, with NCP MP Praful Patel noting that several incidents following the crash were reported and that every passenger wants to feel safe about their journey.

(With PTI inputs)