Keeping in abeyance suggestions of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, government on Friday said it has no intention to allow private sector to set up nuclear power plants independently.
The big budget and big boom National Food Security Bill, which will be to UPA II what the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right To Information Act were to UPA I, could not be cleared by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday and has been deferred to be taken up in its next meeting.
The men who advice the man who runs the country are experts and their experience says it all.
With this the only minister without a portfolio is Oscar Fernandes
The National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi favoured drastic amendments to the Communal Violence Bill and recommended the creation of a national authority to check communal and sectarian violence. This was the view expressed by most members of the NAC at its meeting chaired by Gandhi. At its next meeting, the NAC is expected to deliberate on how a national authority could set up within the framework of the Constitution.
Interest rates may harden a bit by the end of the current financial year, according to C Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council.
The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time on Thursday after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system (PDS) in rural areas.
The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time on Thursday after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system in rural areas. It was agreed that a universalised PDS should be implemented initially in 150 districts, a member said.
I think the overall growth rate of the economy will be between 5.5-6 per cent, says C Rangarajan.
With the Budget barely a week away, the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council on Monday made a case for withdrawing some of the tax incentives to the industry to put the economy back on track for fiscal consolidation.
Stating that counter-cyclical measures to combat the impact of the global financial meltdown were important, Subbarao said the government borrowings had gone up 'rapidly and abruptly' hindering transmission of monetary measures to bring about lowering of interest rates.
Year by year, our cities remain defeated in the face of weather conditions, costing us time, money, resources and often lives, observe Amit Kapoor and Bibek Debroy.
The government on Monday abolished the Commodity Transaction Tax (CTT) that was announced in the Budget last year, but was yet to be implemented and the commodity exchanges rejoiced the decision.
Popular anguish over the slow pace of economic reforms has grown more intense in the last few weeks even as Congress President Sonia Gandhi takes charge as the head of the National Advisory Council and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's grip on the policy-making apparatus of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government appears to get weaker.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi was on Monday appointed the chairperson of the National Advisory Council, four years after she quit the post in the wake of the office of profit controversy.
The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council said on Monday that India's GDP growth will slow down to 8.2 per cent in the current fiscal. Its earlier growth projection was at 9 per cent.
The main worry is that the inflation rate is expected to remain high at 9 per cent till October, the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council said.
The government will have a tough time correcting its financial course from the current high level of fiscal deficit, unless it decides to raise taxes or cut spending, said Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) member Govinda Rao.
According to Jagdish Shettigar, chairman of BJP's economic cell and former member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, infrastructure, especially road building, will be a priority. It is now also certain that work on the controversial 111-km Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise connecting Bnagalore and Mysore will be accelerated. "We have always supported NICE," said a BJP leader.
India's CAD had touched a record high of 4.2 per cent of GDP in 2011-12, on the back of a wider trade gap and lower capital inflows.
The demand for cash transfers was highest in Bihar at 54 per cent, followed by 34 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and 22 per cent in Jharkhand, where the access to PDS foodgrain was found limited.
The business model of the microfinance sector must change, emphasised C Rangarajan, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, saying that the microfinance movement must have as its ultimate goal the desire to help the poor and enable them to come out of poverty.
States may set it higher, not lower; planned link to cost of living.
Asked whether the Budget should start the process of exist, Rangarajan told reporters in New Delhi, "What is required, is a roadmap towards normalisation".
C Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, on Thursday said he expects the Indian economy to grow by 8.5 per cent in FY'12 on the back of services sector and industry expansion, though he hinted that agriculture might not be a big contributor.
The RBI governor, D Subbarao had met finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on December 18, fuelling speculation that the monetary policy would be tightened.
India-born Eboo Patel, founder of a group focused on global interfaith youth movement and member of President Barack Obama's faith advisory council, has won the 2010 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, touted as the world's most prestigious prize in the field.
"India's economic fundamentals are quite robust and its economy remains the second-fastest growing one in the world," the prime minister's Economic Advisory Council's chairman Suresh Tendulkar told reporters in Mumbai. According to him, the financial meltdown in advanced economies 'has been very serious'.
The finance minister said figures for second quarter economic growth are yet to come, but industry has started picking up. The Indian economy grew by 6.1 per cent in the first quarter. On inflation, Mukherjee said the government has taken steps to ensure that the adverse impact of inflationary pressures is reduced by strengthening supply management.
The prime minister's Economic Advisory Council had said inflation would be at 7-8 per cent by the year-end, compared with 10.55 per cent in June.
The bold decisions are part of the Congress 'Nav Sankalp' declaration that was adopted at the end of the three-day 'Chintan Shivir in Udaipur, indicating that the party has chosen to put its weight behind the young leadership after a prolonged old-versus-new tussle.
The Food Security Act as proposed by the UPA government assures rice/wheat at Rs 3 a kg to BPL families as a matter of legal right.
To rein in prices, the RBI could tweak in policy rates to either suck out money supply or make borrowings costlier.
The former Governor of RBI said India would see 'definite signs of recovery' in the second half of 2009-10. On growth forecast, he said this fiscal will see a rate of 6 and 6.5 per cent, but it will be higher next fiscal.
The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council on Monday projected the economic growth in the country at 8.6 per cent for the current fiscal on the back of rebound in farm output and inflation to come down to 7 per cent by March-end due to declining food prices.
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Consulting Conclave at Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi
Other panelists of the 23-member council includes external affairs minister S M Krishna, City group CEO Vikram Pandit, NRI entrepreneur Karan Bilimoria, economist Jagdish Bhagwati, educationist Sam Pitroda.
Projecting 34 per cent decline in foreign capital inflows due to uncertain external environment, the PM's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) on Wednesday made a strong case for easing the External Commercial Borrowing guidelines to help corporates borrow funds from overseas debt market.
Grain stocks in the current procurement season will be enough to feed all those who go hungry, and the FCI only needs to invest in proper storage facilities.
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