'The target for next year is unlikely to be more than that of this year. The more you divest in any cycle, the less your potential pipeline for the next,' said an official. 'The first two issues we want to tackle and complete in FY20 are Air India and Hotel Ashok.'
The initiative is being called lateral recruitment to senior positions in the government.
The new rules come into effect soon.
But it is disappointing to note that Sitharaman's third Union Budget continues to promote a few problematic ideas, observes A K Bhattacharya.
Inviting private sector in Indian Railways is a good idea.
The petition by the trio came two weeks after the apex court had on October 10 asked the Centre to provide details of the decision-making process in the Rafale deal with France in a sealed cover by October 29.
'We are learning from every patient who is admitted, treated and discharged.'
'The Jalan Committee has now provided very clear guidelines on how the (RBI's) balance sheet should be looked at, what kind of disclosures should be made, what are the principles on which the Contingency Risk Buffer should be maintained, what should be the revaluation reserves, and the market risk to the Contingency Risk Buffer.'
The defence ministry has lost sight of what it intended to achieve -- which was to nurture private defence firms that would compete on equal terms with the 9 defence PSUs and the 41 Ordnance Factory Board factories.
The lock-in requirement has been reduced from three years to one year for angel funds and their minimum investment threshold has been slashed from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 25 lakh.
The Congress has launched an offensive against the Bharatiya Janata Party government over the Rafale deal, alleging corruption and violation of rules by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded answers from him.
Projects to pay for clean up if environmental damage is found
It was better to first build a single-rate GST with a low rate, achieve full mastery of this, and then consider more complex possibilities such as high rates and multiple rates.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi is learnt to have slowed down her activities over the last few weeks, say highly placed sources in the party.
Government hits back, tells rating agency to introspect on processes.
Defence minister claims MoD 'alive and kicking' after 'getting the weeds out'.
The guidelines for strategic disinvestment were issued on Monday itself when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget for 2016-17.
Whilst substantive public allocations have been made in the infrastructure sector, this strategy is plateauing due to the fiscal deficit constraint, capacity limitation of statal implementing agencies, the declining ability of PSUs, and the precarious situation of the Railways' operating ratio. It is, thus, high time to get the policy compass to point at rejuvenating private sector investments in infrastructure, says Vinayak Chatterjee.
Doubts over implementation of a Cabinet-approved strategic sale policy are puzzling.
Vikram Kothari took a loan of Rs 485 crore from Mumbai-based Union Bank of India and a loan of Rs 352 crore from Kolkata-based Allahabad Bank. A year later, Kothari has reportedly not paid back either the interest or the loan.
FIFA's executive committee has unanimously agreed to publish an 'appropriate' version of a report into the bidding process for the 2018/2022 World Cups but said Russia and Qatar would still stage the tournaments.
Advice to the new finance minister from former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan: 1. Clean up banks by reviving projects that can be revived after restructuring debt. 2. Improve governance and management at public sector banks. 3. De-risk banking by encouraging risk transfers to non-banks and the market. 4. Reduce the number and weight of government mandates for public sector banks, and for banks more generally.
General T N Raina was an iconic Indian military leader whose contributions to the nation should be more widely known, notes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'Did the government learn any lesson from the disasters of 2008, 1987, 1975?' 'Certainly not!' 'They are making people believe that the 2017 flood was unexpected, so no preventive effort towards reducing the loss of human lives was to be expected from the government,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Prime Minister Modi felt there were too many silos with no arrangement to take a comprehensive view on national security. The PM has entrusted NSA Ajit Doval to evolve a comprehensive roadmap and get it implemented, reveals Nitin Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Strategic News International.
More than 50 students supported the cause by participating in this fest late on Sunday night. Earlier on May 27, Students' Federation of India staged similar protest in Kerala by eating beef outside University College, Trivandrum.
The Supreme Court order has created a new legal framework for coal mining by ruling that only the Union government and its entities can do it.
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday paved the way for niche banking by issuing draft guidelines for setting up payment banks and small banks.
'If we are terrorists and Pakistanis and Khalistanis, why did your home minister talk to our core committee leaders?'
Many bankers say the move will have a serious impact on the chain of command of nationalised banks and that it would only enable the government to dish out favours to a few of their own men.
The Shiv Sena has spurned Congress' request to participate in the bandh.
'Somewhere along the way, elected office-bearers appeared to have lost sight of the interest of cricket and begun to pursue their own interpretation of what the game should be.' 'Families made it a tradition to have their representatives occupy, if not usurp, positions in state associations,' points out Vinod Rai, who will step down as head of the BCCI's Committee of Administrators on Wednesday, October 23.
Backloading the government's borrowing programme suggests the finance ministry's confidence in better revenue numbers, says A K Bhattacharya.
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development headed by Satyanarayan Jatiya has slammed SAI for not roping in sportspersons even 20 years after being asked for restructuring of the "unwieldy and monolithic bureaucratic organisation
When Nitin Gadkari was president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party had announced it would set up a separate ministry for handlooms and handicraft. Instead of doing that, the BJP government has abolished the only institution that took into account the voice of the weavers.
'It would indeed be difficult for someone from outside the Gandhi family to run the party'
Rajan said it is hard to offer an objective self-assessment but the RBI should probably have raised more flags about the quality of lending in the early days of banking exuberance.
The Human Rights Law Network -- a group of committed lawyers, paralegals and social activists -- is making justice accessible to people who can't defend themselves.
While some say an agreement was reached over the Panama Papers, others suggest that Nawaz Sharif may have handed the CPEC to the military in exchange for his survival.
