'One reason given for the failure of the Congress in Assam was due to the alliance with the AIUDF.'
What some of our leaders were up to on Monday and Tuesday.
The GST Council's agenda includes trimming the number of items in the 28 per cent slab by 75 per cent, easier compliance for assessees and small taxpayers, and a presentation on bringing real estate under GST.
In view of rising incidence of crime against women, Assam chief minister Tarun Kumar Gogoi has set one-month deadline for the State's Home and Political Department to prepare a detail action plan to prevent and control such incidents.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has handed over portfolios of nine rebel ministers, who are currently camping in Guwahati, to other ministers.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha said the petitions raise three separate issues and hence, the need to hear them separately.
Four BJP leaders and former Supreme Court judge S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the Constitution bench that upheld the archaeological report on Ayodhya, were among six new faces appointed as Governors on Sunday.
Government headhunter PESB on Friday did not find anyone suitable from nine candidates, including two serving IAS officers, to head India's largest oil and gas producer, ONGC. The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) interviewed 9 out of the 10 candidates who had applied for the post of chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). "Keeping in view the strategic importance and vision for the company and its future, the Board did not recommend any candidate and decided to constitute a Search Committee," PESB said in a notice after interviews. Those interviewed included senior bureaucrats Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma.
'Modi had not discussed demonetization with me prior to his announcement on 8 November 2016. 'I learnt of it along with the rest of the country. 'I was not surprised when he did not discuss the issue with me prior to making the public announcement. 'It fitted in with his style of making dramatic announcements.' A fascinating excerpt from Pranab Mukherjee's The Presidential Years: 2012-2017.
For the chief minister and Assam alike, the road ahead is full of challenges, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The ex-PM urged the people to elect a government that upholds the Constitution of India and the principles of democracy and brings about inclusive growth for all.
She also took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party over its defeat in the just-concluded Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, saying the ruling party's president could not hold on to his home state. "Who is the Pappu now?" she asked.
Bihar became the first non-NDA state and overall second after the BJP-ruled Assam to pass GST bill.
New Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Monday said controlling the 'alarming' COVID-19 situation in the state is his first priority and his aim will be to make the state one of the top five in the country in the next five years.
The Centre has borrowed and transferred Rs 6,000 crore as the first tranche of GST compensation shortfall to 16 states and two union territories, including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, Assam, Delhi and J&K, the finance ministry said on Friday. Last week, the Centre gave in to the demands of opposition-ruled states to borrow and fund the GST compensation shortfall.
'Everyone wants to get involved when there is success.' 'But what about guaranteeing it?' 'Making sure girls have the opportunity to succeed all the time?'
The applicants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain or Parsi faiths will also have to furnish documents to prove that they entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
The Centre managed to collect only Rs 990 crore as compensation cess in April 2020-21, almost one-ninth of the figure of Rs 8,874 crore mopped up a year ago. The subdued collection would further increase states' problems unless the GST Council, which meets next week, decides to borrow from the market.
The finance ministry on Monday said it will transfer Rs 6,000 crore as the second tranche of GST compensation shortfall to 16 states and 3 Union Territories -- including Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Puducherry and Delhi. The Centre had on October 23 transferred Rs 6,000 crore to 16 states and 2 UTs of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. In the second tranche of transfer, Union Territory of Puducherry has been included.
The Centre will release Rs 95,082 crore as tax devolution to the states this month after including one advance instalment to help them push their capital expenditure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. After a meeting with all chief ministers and state finance ministers, Sitharaman said states had said that it would be helpful for them if the tax devolution is front loaded.
Sarma's eyes, according to those close to him, were always set on the top job in Assam. However, the leader who owed his early rise to two former chief ministers from the Congress had to toil for many years with dogged determination to achieve his goal.
Gandhi said, "Modi talked about bringing back black money from abroad and putting Rs 15 lakh in each Indian's bank account. I ask why Mallya and Lalit Modi are still abroad then."
Exporters on Thursday demanded fiscal incentives, tweaking in customs duties on certain products and credit at affordable rates in the forthcoming Budget to boost exports and create jobs. In a pre-budget virtual meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said the depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar is affecting exports' competitiveness and the sector requires more support. "Creation of employment is the biggest challenge faced by the country...We would urge the government to provide fiscal support to units which provide additional employment in the export sector," the exporter's body said.
Modi along with Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi and Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also walked a few metres on the bridge.
The All India Bank Officers' Confederation has condemned the purported "unsavoury attack" on SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during a banking event last month in Guwahati. The association claimed that an audio clip has gone viral on social media that revealed the finance minister coming down heavily on the SBI chief, accusing him of poor credit uptick, during an outreach programme in late February.
While presenting the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament, the finance minister said poll-bound West Bengal will see highway projects worth Rs 25,000 crore. She also announced that highway projects worth Rs 65,000 crore will be undertaken in Kerala. She also announced an Rs 18,000-crore scheme to augment public transport in urban areas.
NCP president Sharad Pawar on Thursday said the fate of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra will be decided on the floor of the Legislative Assembly, and the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition will prove its majority in a trust vote.
MVA allies Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress on Thursday asserted that they will continue to support Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, whose party Shiv Sena is facing a rebellion in its legislative ranks, threatening the stability of his government.
Accusing the Centre of setting a new trend of playing "dirty politics" for votes through the budget, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said the allocation of more funds to poll-bound states is a kind of "bribery".
The Centre on Tuesday permitted 20 states to raise Rs 68,825 crore through open market borrowings to bridge the GST revenue shortfall.
I am not at all surprised by this U-turn. It is par for the course for this government and one can expect another U-turn when the assembly elections in Assam, Bengal and Kerala approach in April.
Uddhav Thackeray and his followers have the option to stop riding a tiger and commence work around a more meaningful and enduring political ideology. It is an option Eknath Shinde's side may not have, supported as they were by the BJP, to maintain continuity of the old Sena, argues Shyam G Menon.
Two years after the Centre's flagship village electrification scheme Saubhagya concluded with the government claiming 99.9 per cent success, several states have added close to 1.1 million rural households that remain to be connected to the electricity grid. This new list includes earlier unwilling households that have now agreed to have a metered connection and also those built or discovered in the states' surveys since 2019. Assam and Uttar Pradesh are the states that have the majority of such new additions.
In the Upper House of Parliament, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu did not allow adjournment notices moved by opposition members on the issue of price rise, prompting members of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Left parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Shiv Sena to create an uproar.
The BJP would want that by March 2022, when UP votes, the economy starts looking up and it heads into the polls with no other issue distracting from its main poll plank of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The BJP, which has two MLAs in the MDA government, backed the Cabinet decision.
Billionaire Gautam Adani on Tuesday did an hour-long session of yoga exercises in the open air as he led corporate India to join the International Day of Yoga celebrations. Several public and private sector companies held yoga sessions at their offices to promote the adoption of exercise in daily routines to stay fit and healthy. Adani, chairman of logistics-to-energy conglomerate Adani Group, and his wife Priti, who heads the Adani Foundation, "participated with more than 1,000 members of the Adani Parivaar team to celebrate health, mindfulness and meditation," the group said in a statement. The session was held at a football ground at Adani Shantigram in Ahmedabad. Several other business leaders tweeted pictures of their yoga sessions.
Reaching a consensus might also get tougher, as already seen with issues like inclusion of natural gas in GST and imposition of a sugar cess, both central proposals being resisted.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh virtually conducted the final breakthrough blast of the Sela tunnel in Arunachal Pradesh and flagged of a 20,000-km-long motorcycle expedition of the BRO on Thursday.
Actor-turned-politician and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee has been fielded from Chunchura and another MP Nishit Parmanik from Dinhata. Also, a number of film personalities have been nominated as candidates in the high-stakes battle for West Bengal.