Running a state was a lot more treacherous than building roads.
The story of how P Chidambaram got the home rather than the finance portfolio can be told now. The day the election results came out and it became clear the United Progressive Alliance was going to form the government, Congress President Sonia Gandhi called Pranab Mukherjee for a meeting and asked him what portfolio he would like.
When the Civil Services Bill, 2009, becomes an Act, bureaucrats will no longer be at the mercy of the arbitrary transfers and postings regime that operates currently.The Civil Services Bill, 2009, which envisages an enforceable code of conduct for all bureaucrats through a new Central Public Services Authority, will be piloted immediately after the Budget session of the Lok Sabha.This will provide statutory backing to the conduct of all civil servants.
LTTE and the Tamil cause was a stepping stone that Vaiko used just as other Tamil leaders did. For his exertions, he was thrown out of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam where, he claims, he fell a victim to family politics: he came in the way of Karunanidhi's son Stalin's elevation.
Will Vijayakanth act as a spoiler in Tamil Nadu politics? Or can he intervene in a meaningful way to upset the apple carts of both the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), led by Muthuvel Karunanidhi, and the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK), led by Jayalalithaa?
Brawn triumphed over brain last week as the Bharatiya Janata Party announced, after "consultations" with "foreign policy experts", that it was for a "muscular" foreign policy so that "nobody thinks they can mess with India".
Jairam Ramesh, who gave up ministership to design the Congress campaign and manifesto, talks to Aditi Phadnis about the 2009 general elections.
Officers now know that they need to deliver conclusions. There are no 'ifs' and 'buts'. Chidambaram has laid down clear timelines for targets.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has had many leaders who are wrestlers, teachers and Lodhs. Dara Singh, once nominated to the Rajya Sabha, is a wrestler; Dr Murli Manohar Joshi is a teacher; Uma Bharati used to be the party's best-known Lodh, a powerful middle-class caste in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. But the party had only one leader who represented all three: Kalyan Singh.
Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka is no ordinary general. He is the army commander in the Sri Lankan army and the man leading the military offensive in north Sri Lanka, which has virtually decimated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the world's most-dreaded guerrilla force today.
The government has suggested that the new Satyam Computer Services board should also look within the company to appoint a CEO and CFO.
Serious Fraud Investigation Office joins multi-agency probe.
A new star is rising in the Tamil Nadu poitical horizon -- actor Vijaykanth.
With an increasingly prevalent view in India that the Mumbai attacks had the sanction and endorsement of the Pakistani Army and the shadowy Inter Services Intelligence, it is General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani -- the man at the helm of things -- who is under a scanner.
Could coteries in the Congress they have put Alva up to attacking Digvijay Singh by destroying his reputation? In other words, in the byzantine politics of the Congress, is Alva merely a lamb being led to slaughter by those who want to use her to get at other leaders including Digvijay Singh?
Raghuram Rajan, the PM's honorary economic advisor, said in 2006, 'It is important for India to exchange its paternalistic, directive government, which seeks to remedy every wrong through a subsidy, a quota, or a scheme, for one that creates an enabling environment for the people and unleashes their entrepreneurial zeal.' Two years later, his words seem prescient. But how much of what he says should be done will be done by the government in the limited tenure it has left.
Three alternative approaches under consideration envisage addressing the flaws of the domestic market, broadening the foreign institutional investor framework and replacing the FII regime with a QFI framework. By reducing the complexity of obtaining permits, foreign investors will be encouraged to us onshore Indian stock market platforms. Individual investors will be allowed to trade on Indian bourses by opening a demat account and a bank account.
The decision by the Union government and the Reserve Bank of India to infuse Rs 1,25,000 crore (Rs 1,250 billion) into the banking system in the last two weeks alone is unlikely to fuel inflation, say economists, since this infusion will only meet the basic demand and not lead to a spillover.
The government is discussing a number of policy measures to insulate India from the impact of the global financial crisis including further banking reform, industrial de-control, auctioning all loss-making public sector units, foreign investment in retail, amending labour laws and notifying important pending legislation like the Delhi Rent Control Act.
Having made no headway to amend a 26-year-old double taxation avoidance agreement with Mauritius, the finance ministry has hardened its stance against broadening India's economic engagement with the island nation.
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