The Kashmir valley has 24,000 hotel rooms. On Residency Road of Srinagar, just four rooms in Ahdoo's Hotel are occupied. "This is the peak tourist season. In May and early July, we had full occupancy, and even had to refuse new bookings. Suddenly, everything changed," says its manager. A veteran taxi driver says the Grand Hotel, on the opposite side, hasn't had a single guest over the past few days.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while being enumerated for Census 2011 last week, said the data from this massive exercise would be a treasure house of information to help the government plan development work.
Senior railway officials feel this interest of the international community came after Banerjee unveiled policies to seek private investment in rail projects.
The Manmohan Singh government may have to take a legislative holiday on at least controversial issues till the next Budget session. Or it needs to get a lot more creative on coalition building. The reason is that the ruling United Progressive Alliance does not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha, and has to depend on an unpredictable opposition for help in passing Bills. In the Lok Sabha, although it is larger, it can face some unpleasant surprises.
The Direct Taxes Code 2009 is now on the back burner. The Union finance ministry has veered round to the view that its bold move to reform direct taxes should be subjected to further scrutiny. Contrary to earlier expectations, therefore, the Direct Taxes Code 2009 will not be presented to Parliament as a Bill along with the Union Budget for 20010-11on February 26.
Though the terms of reference of the committee to look into the creation of a Telangana state may come in the next few days, the Congress is worried about the 'political' price it may have to pay for moving too fast on the statehood issue.
In the turf war between the battered Communist Party of India-Marxist and its arch rival, Trinamool Congress, veteran Congressman and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has found a new place of prominence.
Over the next month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to review the performance of his ministerial colleagues in their first six months in office. This review exercise could be a precursor to a Cabinet reshuffle, the first since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government entered its second term in office.
Jyoti Basu, the 95-year-old communist, has lost touch with many of his comrades. But this morning the former chief minister of West Bengal did not forget to call his favourite Congressman to say, "Happy Birthday!"
Acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who headed the Cabinet meeting on Monday, quickly came in support of Chidambaram and ruled against implementing the new system. Unlike other countries, the headline inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index, which measures the price movements of 435 items, is tracked widely instead of the Consumer Price Index as WPI data are released on a weekly basis.
Breaks self-imposed rule never to return to an office he has occupied in the past.
According to top sources, the government is all prepared to lower the prices of diesel, petrol and cooking gas after the polling is over for the last phase of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on December 24. As the global crude prices have dipped to $55 per barrel now, petroleum ministry officials say even a Rs 2 to Rs 3 per litre cut in diesel prices would bring down inflation 60 to 70 basis points (100 basis points is equal to one percentage point).
Indian Oil raised prices of commercial LPG, sold in 19 kg cylinders, to Rs 1,108.5 per cylinder on Nov 1, from Rs 1,095.24 per cylinder on Oct 1. Commercial LPG is not subsidised and oil companies revise their prices in line with international prices on the first of every month. "Commercial LPG prices are expected to go up in December too," said an IO official. But prices of automobile LPG have come down by around 5.34 per cent on Nov 1 compared with prices on Oct 1.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might have succeeded in saving a few thousand jobs in corporate India when he met industry captains last week, Jet Airways may well have retained its 1,900 employees, but here in the hinterland of Uttar Pradesh -- famed as the carpet hub of India -- the poor are being retrenched in thousands.
These so-called 'negative crack spreads' have huge implications for India, which imports crude oil and exports petroleum products. Brent crude oil, the international oil benchmark, was trading at $62 a barrel on Thursday.
General elections are likely to be held in April next year, which has been emerging as the most acceptable option in the Congress camp as the party and its United Progressive Alliance government are apprehensive about the ripple effects of the global economic slowdown on India and want time to enable this to abate.
The decision comes after Australian mining major BHP Billiton said it would not improve the terms of its bid. BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, and new entrant GVK Oil and Gas were the sole bidders for five deepwater blocks and hence the provisional winners after the bidding closed on June 30 this year.
Eighteen candidates from state-owned companies have applied for the post of chairman and managing director of the country's largest gas marketer, GAIL India, nine months before the incumbent retires.
After nearly two years, the state-owned oil companies have started making profits on petrol sales, but not diesel or cooking fuel, with the Indian basket of crude oil falling below $60 a barrel on Friday, the last date for which data is available.
The board of GAIL India, the country's largest transporter and marketer of natural gas, on Wednesday approved a proposal to pick up to 19 per cent stake in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's (ONGC) petrochemical project in Gujarat.
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