For all the blame-game over the flood preparedness in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, this is not the first of its kind. Nor would it be the last, given the nature of the north-east monsoon, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Smaller cities like Pune and Noida score better than 'Vibrant' Gujarat's Ahmedabad.
Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Opposition parties on Wednesday alleged that selective leak of information on demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes to 'friends of BJP' and demanded making public the names of those who had bought gold and foreign exchange of over Rs 1 crore since April.
'Modi is a master of convergence. By his ability to converge and add new features to a non-star idea, he is able to sell it. Like how he has turned Kutch into a tourist destination by selling the salt desert of the Rann as a flat snow desert of the night and roping in Amitabh Bachchan to sell it. In one stroke this has ensured economic returns to the people and on the other hand it has taken care of the national security angle in the sense that the border population in the Rann, which is almost entirely Muslim, is feeling better as now they are much more connected with the mainstream.' Ahead of the launch of his book on the much-debated Modi model of governance, journalist Uday Mahurkar speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
A digital economy can only work with uninterrupted electricity supply. So, states now face the unpleasant task of telling their citizens that electricity rates need to be hiked. Subhomoy Bhattacharjee reports.
Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian says that he hopes GDP growth will be at the upper end of the 7-7.5 per cent range.
The path-breaking Land Acquisition Bill, which seeks to provide just and fair compensation to farmers while ensuring that no land can be acquired forcibly, was passed by the Lok Sabha with overwhelming majority on Thursday.
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
Son of a Madurai farmer, Dr Vijayaragavan Vishwanathan has built a unique device for agriculture that can save water as well as electricity. Ironically, Vijay got support for his project from different international bodies but is still looking to get support from Indian government organisations when the product was specifically made for India.
Attacking the note ban move, Yechury said the PM's assertion that it will impact terror funding has not yielded any result.
"Reform is not an end in itself. Reform for me is just a way station on the long journey to the destination. The destination is the transformation of India," he said.
The argument that there is nothing wrong in barring illiterates from contesting elections is extremely flawed, when by the same yardstick many sitting MLAs and MPs would not be eligible to contest even panchayat polls, says Devanik Saha.
Slamming the critics who 'started questioning his work' even when he had not seen his office properly, Modi said his government's programmes are mostly for the benefit of farmers and poor people, besides ending the role of middlemen, including in jobs.
Thousands of people may have gathered at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday to attend a rally by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi but it remains to be seen whether the mammoth turnout will actually translate into votes for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Andhra Pradesh.
'By resorting to divisive issues, the BJP is giving the impression that even if it is voted to power it won't do anything new to give Bihar a facelift. It will repel voters with the belief that the BJP can't do anything without communal polarisation as its core ideology. This is sad and unfortunate,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
What is Change really like in Bihar? Once seen as India's basket-case, what is its turnaround story like?
The opposition has attacked the Modi government over the National Democratic Alliance's last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech at the Central Party School in Beijing on Thursday:
So let's stop focusing the Modi agenda on India Inc and the capital markets, and let's start focusing on the Modi development agenda for the average Indian.
The agricultural supply system has to be able to respond to this increasing demand, which it is not able to do.
The challenge is to convince productive sectors that a lower general rate would benefit all and remove the prevalent system of favours targeted towards narrow industry and service sector groups.
This does not mean isolating parochialism but of new way of thinking about economic systems, says Rajni Bakshi.
Unless the judges factor in the ungovernability of technologies and their beneficial owners, present and future Presidents, prime ministers, judges, legislators and officials handling sensitive assignments may become redundant with reference to their age-old roles for securing 'national resources and assets', warns Dr Gopal Krishna.
'India's economy is growing faster compared to the developed economies of the world.' 'More importantly, it is growing faster compared to most of the developing economies.' 'The monsoon is not the only thing that drives the rural economy and certainly not the national economy.' 'It is too simplistic to reduce everything to the monsoon.'
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The anger against land acquisition is not only among landowners.
'Swachh Bharat Cess imposed last year should be made broad-based.' 'Budget should be predominantly economy/ business-oriented and problem-solving rather than political consideration-based.'
Auto sector has nothing to look forward to in the Budget.
Both Houses adjourned till Wednesday amid din.
India could gain four times over by winding up dysfunctional subsidies.
Almost half of that market is in India's villages.
'The government must keep bad news out of the newspapers. If you have news about a fight everyday, it is not a climate where investment takes place.'
Shuvajit was confident of making a huge difference in the lives of people in rural India.
The India that needs strategic alliances, defence cooperation and engaging meaningfully with neighbouring countries is quietly moving ahead with confidence, says Tarun Vijay
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The best way to put the economy back on track is to abolish income and corporate taxes, as this will not only raise confidence but also increase savings and boost growth, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Subramanian Swamy tells Faisal Kidwai.
A group of retired civil servants also called upon the PM to reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and "seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us".
Addressing the Indian diaspora on the second day of his three-day visit to Malaysia, Modi said India draws strength from its diversity and that his government is working to create an environment where enterprise flourishes and everybody gets basic needs like roof, sanitation, water, health care and education.
In the last financial year, GDP growth was 7.3 per cent.
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The toxic brew of fiscal populism, crony capitalism and bad economic management has ensured the collapse of economic growth, industrial stagnation, stubbornly high consumer inflation, declining savings and investment, shrinking employment opportunities, and a dangerously vulnerable external financing situation.
Flexibly targeting inflation is consistent with a demand stimulus, says Ashima Goyal.
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
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