U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would be announcing the tariff rate on imported semiconductors over the next week, adding that there would be flexibility on some companies in the sector.
Trump spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One as he traveled back to Washington from his estate in West Palm Beach. Reuters
Weeks after ordering all Food and Drug Administration employees back into the office, the agency is reversing course, allowing some of its most prized staffers to work remotely amid worries that recent layoffs and resignations could jeopardize basic functions, like approving new medicines.
An internal email obtained by The Associated Press states that FDA leadership are “allowing review staff and supervisors to resume telework” at least two days a week. The policy shift was confirmed by three FDA staffers who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency matters.
The message was sent Tuesday to some of FDA’s hundreds of drug reviewers. Staffers said a similar policy was communicated to reviewers who handle vaccines, biotech drugs, medical devices and tobacco products although not necessarily in writing.
It’s the latest example of the Trump administration’s chaotic approach to overhauling the federal health workforce, which has included firings, a scramble to rehire some employees, and then additional layoffs last week of an estimated 3,400 staffers, or more than 15 percent of the agency’s workforce. When FDA employees were called back to the agency’s headquarters last month they confronted overflowing parking lots, crowded offices and broken or missing supplies.
A spokeswoman for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the administration is returning to “pre-Covid telework arrangements for reviewers, whose read and write work output is tracked in 15-minute increments to ensure productivity and accountability.”
While many agencies switched to telework during the pandemic, the FDA began embracing the practice a decade earlier. The flexibility was seen as a competitive perk for recruiting employees who can often earn more working in industry.
Last week’s cuts included entire offices focusing on FDA policy and regulations, most of the agency’s communication staff and teams that support food inspectors and investigators. Senior officials overseeing tobacco, new drugs, vaccines and other products have also been dismissed or forced to resign. Staffers have described rank-and-file employees “pouring” out of the agency.
Former FDA Commissioner Dr David Kessler called the cuts “devastating, haphazard, thoughtless and chaotic” during a House hearing on Wednesday.
When Kennedy announced plans to eliminate 10,000 staffers across the federal health workforce, he noted out that FDA medical reviewers and safety inspectors wouldn’t be impacted.
In February, HHS was forced to recall some probationary employees who were fired, including hundreds of medical reviewers at FDA, who are largely funded by industry fees, not federal dollars.
But last week’s cuts combined with resignations and retirements have raised a new threat: that FDA funding could fall so low that it short circuits a long-standing system in which companies help fund much of the agency’s operations.
Nearly half the FDA’s $7 billion budget comes from fees collected from drug, device and tobacco companies. The agency uses the money to hire thousands of staffers to quickly and efficiently review new products. For example, about 70 percent of the FDA’s drug program is financed by user-fee agreements, which must be reauthorized by Congress every five years.
But the agreements stipulate that if FDA’s federal funding falls below set levels, companies are no longer required to pay and, in some cases, can claw back their money. The threshold requirements are designed to ensure Congress continues funding FDA, rather than relying entirely on the private sector.
FDA and industry groups are supposed to begin negotiations later this year to renew several user-fee agreements, including those for drugs and devices.
“I don’t think the agency nor regulated industry can afford for ‘user fees’ not to be reauthorized,” said Michael Gaba, an attorney who advises FDA-regulated companies.
Whatever the reasoning behind the telework shift, former federal officials say it’s a sign that recently confirmed FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is trying to retain and rebuild agency staffing. Makary made his first appearance at FDA’s headquarters last Wednesday, one day after the mass layoffs. According to the memo obtained by the AP, Makary signed off on the return to telework for some employees.
“Dr Makary needs to rebuild teams and restart the engine of productivity lost to weeks of job insecurity, uncertainty and shortages of team members,” said Steven Grossman, a former HHS official. “Turning commuting time back into work time is a great first step in achieving both.” PBS
India’s focus on complex surgeries, including cardiac procedures, organ transplants, and orthopaedics, has boosted its medical tourism sector, according to the January 2025 Tourism Watch Quarterly Report published by the World Bank Group. The report notes that initiatives like the e-Medical Visa and marketing campaigns like ‘Heal in India’ have further bolstered the industry. In 2023, the country attracted 476,000 foreign patients, which is among the highest in the world.
To secure a share in this growing industry, the World Bank Jobs Accelerator technical assistance is working with the Tamil Nadu government on both the tourism and health sectors to establish an institution to promote medical tourism, facilitate public-private dialogue, support marketing efforts and facilitate access to international health insurance markets.
The report notes that medical tourism presents a significant opportunity for middle-income countries to generate jobs and foreign exchange. Medical tourism is characterised by high expenditures per visitor, and patients are often accompanied by one or more family members, multiplying the economic impact. By nurturing medical tourism, the host countries get to enjoy spillover benefits like enhancing the quality of domestic healthcare services and strengthening competitiveness in the sector.
The report notes that the demand for medical tourism has more than doubled in the ten years between 2013 and 2023, while global health-related travel exports have grown by 70%. India, alongside Thailand, Turkey and Mexico, were some of the countries that have successfully tapped into this growing market by offering specialised treatments in various fields, the report notes. Asian Medical Tourism
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Sunday said the government will strengthen health facilities to attract patients from across the globe and develop the city into a medical tourism hub.
“We aim to make Delhi a global destination for medical treatment. Promoting health tourism will not only enhance medical services but will also strengthen the economic ecosystem. The Delhi government is continuously working to reform and expand the healthcare sector,” Gupta said at the 70th foundation day celebrations of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
The CM said that the government understands the ground reality and is working for betterment of the health sector in the Capital.
‘New mission’
“Institutions that treat health care as a mission, not just as a service, are crucial and the government is committed to providing all possible support to such institutions at the level of policy, resources and structure,” she added.
Gupta stated that a “healthy Delhi is the foundation of a self-reliant India”. “In this year’s budget, we [BJP govt.] have allocated ₹12,893 crore to improve health services, of which ₹2,144 crore has been allocatedfor the implementation of Ayushman Bharat Yojana,” she said. The Hindu
Ireland’s data regulator, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), that it has opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the social media platform’s use of personal data collected from European users to train Grok.
The DPC will investigate how X processes personal data “comprised” in publicly accessible posts by European users for the purposes of training generative AI models, according to a Reuters report. The powerful Irish privacy regulator has issued fines to Microsoft, TikTok, and Meta in the past. Its fines to Meta total almost €3 billion (roughly $3.38 billion).
X quietly opted in users to sharing data with xAI, Musk’s AI company, to train its AI chatbot Grok, in 2024. Last month, Musk announced that xAI had acquired X.
Ireland’s data regulator can impose fines of up to 4% of a company’s global revenue under the EU’s GDPR rules, which require that companies have a valid legal basis for processing people’s data. The agency’s latest inquiry comes after it sought a court order last year to restrict X from processing European user data for AI training. Tech Crunch
U.S. federal budget cuts have started to have some early impact on space startups after funding for such companies dropped 12.5% in the first quarter, according to investment firm Seraphim Space.
Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration have been delaying or cancelling contracts across its agencies to curb federal spending.
“Within certain government departments, uncertainty is causing delays as they assess which contracts to move forward with,” Seraphim Space investment analyst Lucas Bishop said.
Space startups — which garnered $2.1 billion in investments in the first quarter — have largely relied on government contracts over the past few years as rising geopolitical tensions led to a surge in demand for imaging and analytics.
Following strong stock performance of space companies such as Rocket Lab and Redwire late last year, Voyager Space filed to go public in January, while Karman Holdings listed in February.
But the early momentum is fading with uncertainty sparked by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and ensuing market volatility, Seraphim Space said.
Investments in the January-March period were concentrated in companies that make and operate space hardware such as rockets and satellites. The first quarter saw the two largest fundraising rounds from Stoke Space and Loft Orbital, together bringing in $430 million.
“More protectionist trade policies could slow development in the short term, as many advanced space technologies — from propulsion systems to high-performance materials — depend on global supply chains,” said former NASA division chief Robert Ambrose.
However, in times of economic uncertainty, commercial spaceflight and space technology companies have become more critical partners, enabling cost-effective missions, said Ambrose, who is also chairman at Alliant robotics.
Investments in space startups rose 12% to $8.1 billion in the 12 months to March, with the number of deals in Europe rising nearly 50% in the first quarter on bigger European Union budgets and a renewed focus on self-reliance. Reuters
Public Wi-Fi hotspots seemed like a good idea five years ago when the government rolled out a scheme to provide affordable internet nationwide through a network of neighbourhood data providers. High-speed 5G network services hadn’t been rolled out yet, and Wi-Fi was still the most reliable way to access the internet.
However, the Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (PM-Wani) scheme has been struggling to take off as key stakeholders argue over the tariffs.
The government has now proposed that telecom operators offer bandwidth at low rates to neighbourhood stores and other retailers deploying Wi-Fi hotspots under the PM-Wani scheme, but the telcos see these so-called public data offices, or PDOs, as competition.
“They are buying the service (bandwidth) for reselling. Why should any operator be forced to provide its network services to its competitors at the arbitrarily regulated prices for building their network,” Ravi Gandhi, president and chief regulatory officer of Reliance Jio, told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) during a recent discussion. Mint was present at the discussion.
TRAI, in its recent draft telecommunication tariff (71st amendment) order, proposed that telcos do not charge PDOs more than double what they charge retail customers for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services.
Jio, in a written submission to TRAI, estimated that if the reduced tariff rate order is implemented, a PDO could get unlimited data at ₹798 from telecom operators and sell at least 1 GB (gigabyte) of data each to 1,000 customers every month at ₹10 per GB.
Telecom operators, which charge about ₹19 for a 1 GB mobile data pack, could lose their users.
In September, the department of telecommunications amended the PM-Wani framework, removing the requirement for PDOs to enter into commercial agreements with telecom operators for internet connectivity.
This was done to ensure that telcos do not force PDOs to get bandwidth through expensive internet leased lines but a regular FTTH broadband connection, which telcos are not keen on.
‘Not in competition’
The government had aimed to deploy about 10 million public Wi-Fi hotspots across the country by 2022, and 50 million by 2030. However, only about 280,000 hotspots have been deployed so far, and nearly half of those are in Delhi, per government data.
As on 5 December, the number of unique PM-Wani users was 1.8 million, and a total 58.55 PB (petabytes) of data had been consumed, the data showed. One PB is about 1 million GB.
Broadband India Forum, which represents big tech companies, blamed the dearth of public Wi-Fi hotspots in India on ‘predatory pricing’ by telecom operators. It claimed telecom operators were charging up to ₹8 lakh per annum from PDOs for providing bandwidth.
“This PM-Wani architecture is not in competition with telcos, it is complementary to them,” T.V. Ramachandran, president of Broadband India Forum, said at the TRAI meeting. “It will add value to the mobile operators… PM-Wani is an important element of digital public infrastructure where affordability and usability is a key requirement.”
Ramachandran argued that for small entrepreneurs deploying Wi-Fi hotspots, broadband tariffs need to be the same as retail FTTH tariffs.
While PDOs provide data sachets to users at ₹5-10 per day under the PM-Wani scheme, they have been arguing that this is not viable due to the high tariffs charged by telecom operators.
There are more than 200 public data office aggregators operating in the country, according to the PM-Wani central registry.
Rahul Vatts, chief regulatory officer at Bharti Airtel Ltd, said tariff intervention would reverse years of consistent policy that had favoured tariff forbearance (allowing telecom operators to fix their own charges) and market-driven innovation.
“FTTH is a retail product and not meant for resale. PDOs operate as commercial resellers serving multiple end users simultaneously and demanding consistent bandwidth, reliability and network management that FTTH is not engineered for,” Vatts said at the TRAI meeting.
As per PM-Wani data, about 45% of the public Wi-Fi hotspots deployed under the scheme so far are in Delhi. “We realised that the deployment has not really been in the rural sector. It’s been considerably invested in the urban sector,” said Ambika Khurana, chief regulatory officer, Vodafone Idea, which only recently began rolling out its 5G services. LiveMint
When Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee met Vietnam’s prime minister in July, he had a simple message to convey.
“Vietnam’s success is Samsung’s success, and Vietnam’s development is Samsung’s development,” Lee told Pham Minh Chinh, pledging long-term investment to make the country its biggest manufacturing base for display products.
Since the South Korean conglomerate entered Vietnam in 1989, it has poured billions of dollars into expanding its global manufacturing footprint beyond China. Many of its peers followed after U.S. President Donald Trump placed tariffs on Chinese goods in his first term.
The pioneering move has made Samsung Vietnam’s biggest foreign investor and exporter.
About 60% of the 220 million phones Samsung sells each year globally are made in Vietnam, and many are destined for the U.S., where Samsung is the No. 2 smartphone vendor, according to research firm Counterpoint.
Now, that reliance on Vietnam threatens to backfire as Hanoi is racing to negotiate with the Trump administration to lower a punishing potential 46% tariff that has exposed the vulnerability of the Southeast Asian country’s export model.
While Vietnam and Samsung won a reprieve this week after Trump paused the rate at 10% for 90 days, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen people, including at Samsung and its suppliers, show the company would be a primary victim should higher U.S. tariffs take effect in July.
“Vietnam is where we produce most of our smartphones, but the tariffs (initially) came out much higher than expected for the country, so there’s a sense of confusion internally,” said a Samsung executive, who like some others was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject.
Even if the two countries reach an agreement, Vietnam’s roughly $120 billion trade surplus with the U.S. has put it in the sights of a U.S. administration targeting such imbalances. Hanoi hopes to get the duties reduced to a range of 22% to 28%, if not lower, Reuters has reported.
Amid the uncertainty, Samsung and its suppliers are considering adjusting production, said four people familiar with the matter. That could involve increasing output in India or South Korea, though such steps would be costly and time-consuming, they said. Reuters
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued Amendment No. 1 to the Auction Rules (dated November 27, 2024) for Private FM Radio Batch III channels e-auction under Phase III.
As per the new amendment, issued on April 9, the Ministry has extended the duration of each round in the Rank-wise Multiple Rounds allocation stage from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. This change aims to provide bidders with more time per round during the allocation stage, potentially facilitating a more considered bidding process.
This amendment specifically revises Clause 1.6.1 (c) of the original Auction Rules.
“This way, there will be Rank wise Multiple Rounds in the frequency allocation stage. The duration of each round would be 60 minutes and there will not be any time extension available to the bidder in this process,” the Ministry said in a circular signed by Rajan Kumar Chanana, Under Secretary to the GOI.
The Ministry initiated the third batch of e-auctions under Phase III of the Private FM Radio policy, aiming to expand FM radio services to 234 previously uncovered cities by offering 730 new channels. The FM Phase III policy, approved by the Union Cabinet in 2011, seeks to enhance the reach of private FM radio across India. The first two batches of auctions, conducted in 2015 and 2016, resulted in the allocation of 163 channels across 104 cities. The current third batch focuses on cities that have not yet received private FM services, aiming to promote local content, generate employment, and provide diverse entertainment options.
The amendment has been communicated to all applicants participating in the FM Radio Batch III e-auctions. For further details or clarifications, stakeholders are advised to refer to the official notification or contact the Ministry directly.
Storyboard18 earlier reported that the third batch of phase-III FM e-auctions hasn’t found many enthusiastic participants because of high reserve prices and the 9-year long hiatus. Many radio players will likely limit spending to 10% of previous levels.
With major players choosing to stay away from participating in the third batch, including the likes of Radio Mirchi and City, insiders had shared that “with so few participants, the auction is more about survival than growth for the industry.”
The absence of major players also comes after radio channels reportedly requested a nearly 70% reduction in the reserve price in the auction – mainly because the third batch is set for the cities with less business opportunity and a high cost of operations.
“Batch one witnessed the most lucrative bids. The government should have opened the new batch around 2016 only because players were still bullish at that time – ‘reach’ used to be a big word for radio players but today station owners would not take these 734 cities very seriously – it’s not something that’s going to change the fortunes of anyone,” shared founder and former MD 94.3 Radio One, Vineet Singh Hukmani. StoryBoard18
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released an updated panel of auditors authorised to conduct audits of Digital Addressable Systems (DAS). The move is likely to strengthen compliance and transparency across the broadcasting and cable services sector.
The new list, issued on April 9, 2025, includes multiple audit firms and professionals who are permitted to carry out audits across India through August 2025- April 2027. The panel will serve a crucial function in ensuring that DAS service providers comply with TRAI’s quality and technical standards, particularly in areas such as signal transmission, subscriber data accuracy, and proper implementation of set-top box protocols.
Among those listed are firms like Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, Bansal Rathi & Mazumdar, and J.K. Sarawgi & Associates, with nationwide jurisdiction. For many auditors the empanelment is up to April, 2027.
It is to be noted that DAS audits have become increasingly vital as the broadcasting ecosystem grows more complex and content delivery becomes more digitised. The panel’s authorisation comes at a time when regulatory scrutiny is tightening, and TRAI is intensifying its oversight on service quality and transparency within the industry.
TRAI conducts DAS audits to verify that Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) are adhering to the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services Interconnection (Addressable Systems) Regulations, 2017. One of TRAI’s primary objectives is to create a fair and equitable environment for all stakeholders in the telecom sector, and audits help ensure that all players are operating under the same rules and regulations. Independent audits are a core principle of interconnection regulations, and TRAI uses third-party auditors to balance the interests of various service providers, including broadcasters and distributors, while keeping the consumers at the forefront. Storyboard18