National Democratic Alliance leader Narendra Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second consecutive term yesterday. 

President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of Office and Secrecy to him and a team of 57 ministers at a glittering ceremony on the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhawan just before sunset. 

Besides 24 Cabinet ministers including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, and Piyush Goyal, nine were sworn in as Minister of State with Independent charge and another 24 as Minister of State.

One-third of the total ministers in the Cabinet are first-timers,  including BJP president Amit Shah and former Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Two former Chief Ministers - Ramesh Pokhriyal from Uttarakhand and Arjun Munda from Jharkhand - have taken oath as Union ministers for the first time. 

This will be the first innings for six Cabinet ministers and 13 Ministers of State. BJP's Prahlad Joshi and Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant will also become Union ministers for the first time. 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted a six-member committee on the Development of Secondary Market for Corporate Loans to come up with recommendations to increase the efficiencies of the debt market and aid in the resolution of stressed assets.

As per its terms of reference, the committee, headed by TN Mahoharan, Chairman, Canara Bank, will make recommendations on required policy/regulatory interventions for facilitating the development of secondary market in corporate loans, including loan transaction platform for stressed assets.

It will create a loan contract registry to remove information asymmetries between buyers and sellers, its ownership structure and related protocols, such as standardisation of loan information, independent validation, and data access.

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 will begin today. England will open the tournament at The Oval in London when they will take on South Africa. The match will begin at 3 PM Indian Time. 

Australia will launch their title defence on June 1 against the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier champions Afghanistan in a day/night match in Bristol. 

India, the 1983 and 2011 world champions, will play their first match on June 5 against South Africa at the Hampshire Bowl in Southampton. 

Their feature match against arch-rivals Pakistan will be on June 16 at Old Trafford in Manchester. 

The World Cup will span 48 matches in all, of which 45 will make up the group stage. Each team will play nine group stage matches, and the top four will progress to the semifinals, similar to how the 1992 World Cup was held.

YSR Congress party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has taken oath as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh today.

Governor ESL Narasimhan administered him the oath of office and secrecy at Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium in Vijayawada. Mr Reddy is the second Chief Minister of the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh.

In the presence of a large number of his followers who came there to witness his swearing-in-ceremony, Jagan Mohan Reddy has put his first signature on the file hiking social security pensions from next month.

In his maiden address as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, he announced that he would create one lakh  60,000 jobs by October this year and fill up 4 lakh gram volunteers from August 15th. Jagan assured that he would implement Navaratnalu - a total of nine promises  - a key aspect in his election manifesto in letter and spirit. Earlier, as soon as Jagan rose to take oath as second chief minister of bifurcated Andhra Pradesh, the joy of his followers and YSR congress workers knew no bounds.

NDA leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take the oath of Office and Secrecy along with a new Council of Ministers for his second consecutive term at a glittering ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan this evening.

The function will be attended by Governors, Chief Ministers, Opposition leaders, corporate heads, film stars, a galaxy of leaders from BIMSTEC countries and foreign envoys.

Meanwhile, President of Myanmar U Win Myint and President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena have already reached Delhi to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Over 6,000 guests are expected to attend the ceremony beginning at 7 PM at the forecourt of the majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan. President Ram Nath Kovind will administer the oath of Office and Secrecy to the Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers.

US-based retail chain Walmart Tuesday said it has appointed Suresh Kumar, an IIT Madras graduate and former Google executive, as chief technology officer and chief development officer. He will directly report to President and Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon, Walmar said in a statement.

The appointment comes at a time when Walmart is transforming its customer and associate experiences. He brings over 25 years of technology leadership experience coming from Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM, it said. "The technology of today and tomorrow enables us to serve our customers and associates in ways that weren't previously possible. We want to take full advantage of those opportunities," McMillon said.

The National Small Industries Corporation Limited, NSIC today signed an MoU with Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises for the year 2019-20. The MoU envisages provision of enhanced services by NSIC under its marketing, financial, technology and other support services schemes for MSMEs in the country. 

The Corporation projects to increase revenue from operation by 22 per cent from two thousand 540 crore rupees in the year 2018-19 to three thousand 100 crore rupees in the year 2019-20. The Corporation also plans to enhance its activities in the areas of imparting entrepreneurship and skill development training by targeting 45 per cent growth in the number of trainees.

Sri Lanka has signed a tripartite agreement with India and Japan for development of eastern terminal of Colombo port. The Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) was signed in Colombo today by Sri Lankan ports minister Sagala Ratnayake, Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka Taranjit Singh Sandhu and a Japanese representative. As per the agreement, Sri Lanka Port Authority (SLPA) will hold 51 per cent majority stake in the port development while Japan and India will have combined stake of 49 per cent. 

The three governments have decided to work out details at joint working group meetings and advance their cooperation towards early commencement of work and operation of the terminal. SLPA said the joint project reflects the longstanding goodwill and cooperation among the three countries. It said Sri Lanka, Japan and India will work together for further development of the Colombo Port and contribute to further regional prosperity and stability of global trading networks.  

The deal is significant as over 70% of India’s transhipment business is handled at Colombo ports. One of the terminals is controlled by Chinese company and there was a long-pending proposal to handover the development of Eastern terminal to an Indian company. The deal is part of Memorandum of economic cooperation signed between India and Sri Lanka in 2017.

The Trump administration on Tuesday removed India from its currency monitoring list of major trading partners, citing certain developments and steps being taken by New Delhi addressing some of its major concerns. Switzerland is the other nation that has been removed from the list. However, the list includes China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam among others.

India has been removed from the list after it met only one out of three criteria, necessary for inclusion on the monitoring list, — a significant bilateral surplus with the US — for two consecutive reports , the Treasury Department said in its latest semi-annual report on macroeconomic and foreign exchange policies of major trading partners of the US sent to the Congress.

After purchasing foreign exchange on net in 2017, the central bank steadily sold reserves for most of 2018, with net sales of foreign exchange reaching 1.7 per cent of GDP over the year, it said. India maintains ample reserves according to the IMF metrics for reserve adequacy, it said.

India has moved up one place to rank as the world's 43rd most competitive economy on the back of its robust economic growth, a large labour force and its huge market size, while Singapore has toppled the US to grab the top position, a global study showed Tuesday. Singapore has moved up to the top, from the third position last year, while the US has slipped to the third place in the 2019 edition of the IMD World Competitiveness Rankings. Hong Kong SAR has held onto its second place, helped by a benign tax and business policy environment and access to business finance.

Economists regard competitiveness as vital for the long-term health of a country's economy as it empowers businesses to achieve sustainable growth, generates jobs and, ultimately, enhance the welfare of citizens. The IMD World Competitiveness Rankings, established in 1989, incorporate 235 indicators from each of the 63 ranked economies to evaluate their ability to foster an environment where enterprises can achieve sustainable growth, generate jobs and increase welfare for its citizens.