Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh asked the prime minister to review the decision of appointing activist Dr Binayak Sen on a Planning Commission panel, saying his contribution to health sector is "hugely exaggerated" and there is little on ground to support it.
Officials say the new minister, CP Joshi, is convinced by the Planning Commission that the government should award more contracts under the tolling mode.
The Plan panel on Wednesday said it has appointed civil rights activist Binayak Sen, convicted for sedition, on the board of one of its steering committees to give input for 12th Plan (2012-17) on health related issues.
In the mid-1980s, India and the US struggled to arrive at sufficient confidence for Washington to even sell a supercomputer to India for monsoon prospecting. Now, the most sensitive military technologies, data, and intelligence resources are being shared. This would not have happened without that one, big deal that changed the fundamentals of India-US relations, notes Shekhar Gupta.
a nation should ensure that people are compensated adequately for their work by paying the minimum wage.
For the first time, the Government of India has launched an interactive website to seek feedback and suggestion on various issues that would contribute to the approach paper of the twelfth Plan (2012-17). Views on the Plan can also be expressed through a Facebook page.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Wednesday expressed concerns over rising crude prices which soared to two-year high of $ 102 a barrel in Asian markets.
Amidst the anguish about corruption -- and, one might add, the dirty tricks unleashed against those campaigning on the issue -- people have tended to forget that the big story in India, the truly exciting story, remains rapid economic growth.
The long-awaited move to bring urea under the Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) scheme is likely to be announced in the coming Union Budget, to be unveiled on February 28, even as the government would decontrol its prices gradually.
'This updated NPR database along with Aadhaar Number would become the mother database and can be used by various government departments...' the home ministry declared in July 2015. 'UID/Aadhaar has been used as a fish bait to ensnare and entrap present and future generations of citizens,' warns Gopal Krishna.
Concerned over weaknesses in manufacturing sector, the Planning Commission on Thursday pitched for further liberalisation of FDI policy and improvement of business regulations to step up GDP growth rate to 9-9.5 per cent in the 12th Plan from 8.2 per cent in the current plan.
"In China's 12th Plan, exports do not hold the same place. Besides, the Chinese will be vacating the lower end of value spectrum like textiles and leather...So who will replace them? Are we going to step in or will it be Vietnam or Turkey or Indonesia," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
The pilot scheme to develop satellite towns around seven mega cities will spill over to the 12th Plan period (2013 to 2018), as against the original deadline of April 2012.
Expressing serious concern over the growing instances of starvation deaths in the country, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said there cannot be "two Indias" divided between the elite and the poor.
Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Praful Patel on Friday said his ministry was preparing a list for outright sale of sick and closed PSUs that have no potential for turnaround.
Jairam Ramesh has set off a growth-versus-sustainability debate.
In an interview with Karan Thapar on the CNN-IBN channel's Devil's Advocate programme, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia explains why he faults the controversial report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on 2G telecom spectrum allocation. Edited excerpts:
Last week, Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha said that the government is confident of adding 1,18,000 MW capacity by 2017.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday made an unscheduled visit to B C Roy Children's Hospital in the metropolis where 18 infants died in a span of 48 hours and said she will take up the issue of high infant mortality rate in the state with the prime minister.
At the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, organised by the government ostensibly to celebrate the country's connection with the 27-million-strong Indian diaspora living in 150 countries, Mr Ahluwalia said last Sunday that India was reaching out to NRIs not for their money, but because it valued the long, socio-cultural footprint all Indians living in India and abroad shared.
"Yes it is true that milk and vegetable prices are high. You know some of this is a reflection of economic prosperity and purchasing power," Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
Ahluwalia's statement comes in the backdrop of Reserve Bank of India's tight monetary policy and high inflation.
'When you forgive a farmer's loans there is this ideological economists lobby which says: 'That's socialism. And that's bad'.' 'But to forgive the loans of big people, so that they will be interested to invest further is capitalism and is good.'
The government's flagship health insurance programme for the rural poor has drawn increasing appreciation from European and Asian countries.
Clouded by the global economic meltdown that began in 2008, the current Plan (2007-12) needed a lot of scaling down of the targets and the mid-term review was quite straight about it.
The key idea seems to be to move away from the discredited US model of private insurance based healthcare, and focus more on publicly-funded preventive, primary and secondary healthcare.
A top Home Ministry official said no note has been prepared yet to be placed before tomorrow's scheduled meeting of the Cabinet to be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Although India's private health insurance industry's business volumes have grown by over 35 per cent a year in the last few years, a staggering 85 per cent of the population remains uninsured, according to industry estimates.
Students of Kolkata's Presidency College on Saturday hurled eggs and tomatoes at Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to protest price rise while he was leaving a seminar, but missed their target.Eyewitnesses said that student demonstrators belonging to the Students Federation of India, affiliated to the Communist Party of India - Marxist, threw eggs and tomatoes and waved black flags at Ahluwalia as he was leaving a UGC-sponsored national seminar.
The 70-year-old is so unassuming that it is reported that he has not removed the name plate in his ancestral home in Jodhpur that reads, 'Judge, Supreme Court'.
The plan panel on Thursday termed the housing finance racket, involving the chief of LIC Housing Finance and several other officials of PSU banks, as a "very small" incident as far as banking system as a whole was concerned.
Economy grew by 8.6 per cent in 2010-11.
It has emerged that a senior US government functionary offered to help India garner greater funding from the World Bank in return for protecting Dow Chemicals from possible legal fallout from the gas tragedy.
The reservations of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on the projected additional electricity generation capacity of 100,000 Mw during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17) period has failed to cut much ice with the Planning Commission.
The Planning Commission has decided that approvals for all social sector projects undertaken by various non-government organisations, normally outside the purview of CAG, will come with the rider that they will be subject to audit, if required.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Alhluwalia has said that a person who can spend Rs 32 a day in urban India -- and Rs 26 a day in rural India -- is not poor and that he is above the poverty line.
Health and education sectors will get just 61 and 60 per cent of the funds earmarked in the 11th Plan period, according to estimates prepared by the Planning Commission.
However, 10 per cent economic growth rate does not seem feasible, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here, a day before full Plan panel is to meet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Forum will host a special session on 'The reality of terrorism', to be initiated by Union home minister P Chidambaram. The deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma will be part of the Indian delegation.
Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, in an impromptu chat with reporters, sided with Sebi, while Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia cited the spat to make a case for setting up a Financial Development and Stability Council (FSDC).
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