The country has registered GDP at 7.9 percent in the first quarter of the current fiscal. The growth is expected to increase further in the second half. This is disclosed by a monthly review report of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

The agriculture sector registered a growth of 3 percent, while growth rate of industry and services sectors are recorded at 6.9 percent and 10 percent, respectively. The growth in the mining and construction sectors remained healthy while other sectors performed lower than the corresponding period of the last month. The manufacturing and utilities sectors witnessed very poor growth rate for the current fiscal. It was recorded 10.9 percent last year in the same quarter while it remained 5.6 percent in the current quarter.

The finance minister, P. Chidambaram is quite sure regarding the inflation to get moderate, as certain actions had been taken by the government to reduce the existing inflationary movement.

The United Forum of Banking Unions and Indian Bankers Association were in talks on the matter of salary revision of the banking and insurance sector staff.

Around Rs 200 billion had been paid out as education loans during the last four years, benefiting 12,51,691 pupils, added Mr. Chidambaram.

Almost all the central government employees are satisfied by the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. But the superintendents of Central Excise and Customs want more from the government.

They want more hikes in their salaries and better promotion rules. They have decided to stage a protest before Parliament on September 16 to register their resentment.

The excise and custom men said that they are not entitled to better promotion, pay scale, working condition, staff position. The statement in this regard is issued by the all India Association of Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officers.

Sustaining a downward trend for third consecutive week, India's inflation stood at 12.1 per cent for the week ended August 30. For the previous week, the figure was 12.34 per cent. However, wholesale price index (WPI) released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry indicated 0.3 per cent increase in the price index for primary articles.

On Thursday, the Rajasthan cabinet took the decision to implement the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations from this month, which will definitely prove to be a bonanza for the employees and pensioners of the state government.

It was revealed by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rajendra Rathore that over seven lakh government employees and nearly three lakh pensioners would benefit from this decision.

After he had attended the Cabinet meeting the minister said, “The report would be implemented with retrospective effect and would entail an additional burden of Rs 4920 crore annually on the state exchequer.”

The newly appointed governor of the Reserve bank of India, Duvvuri Subbarao expressed hope for the positive growth in the current fiscal.

He said that the RBI is committed to achieve 8 per cent growth rate in the current fiscal. He expressed concerne about the high inflation rate and said that it would ease in a short time.

The RBI governor advocated policy revision to tame ever increasing prices. He hoped that the apex bank would soon control the price rises through its monetary measures.