His statement came against the backdrop of a controversy kicked off by his email to Ahluwalia.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia says Commerce Minister Kamal Nath had warned him in advance that he was going to criticise the apex planning body in public.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has apologised to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the unruly mob behaviour outside his office targeting her and her Cabinet colleagues and said steps need to be taken to avoid such situations in the future.
Ahluwalia's comment comes at a time when the government is facing flak over its decision to open up the multi-brand retail sector to foreign investment.
Concerned over sluggish growth and poor investment climate, Assocham President Rajkumar Dhoot met Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Thursday and demanded the controversial tax proposal GAAR be put in 'cold storage'.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said agriculture growth in the country cannot double without the involvement of the corporate sector.
He feels much of the problems arise at the level of state governments rather at the central government level.
You cannot have a corporate tax and then say spend another two per cent.
The meetings with Singh and Ahluwalia have taken place just two days before the announcement of the results of the general elections for the 15th Lok Sabha. Besides Karnik, the other nominees on the Satyam board are HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, former ICAI chairman T M Manoharan, CII chief mentor Tarun Das, LIC executive S B Mainak and former presiding officer of Securities and Appellate Tribunal C Achuthan.
"It is completely false. I don't know what is the basis of this. I am not a candidate. This is some speculative thing in the New York Times," Ahluwalia said.
Seeking to set at rest controversy over Aadhar, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said that UID is a number and not an identity card.
Ravi Shankar Prasad is set to become the new deputy leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha with Parliamentary Party chief L K Advani on Thursday recommending his name for the post to the vice president.
The government, which had set a reserve price of Rs 14,000 crore for pan-India spectrum broadly drawing from the basis used by Comptroller and Auditor General in calculating the loss in the previous sale in 2008, managed a meagre Rs 9,407.64 crore (Rs 94.07 billion) in the auction that lasted barely two days.
To offset the impact of high import costs, the Planning Commission had said that Coal India Ltd should adopt a pooling formula on prices by combining rates of imported and domestic coal.
Indian economy grew at a nine-year low rate of 5.3 per cent in January-March quarter in the last financial year and also in the last fiscal at 6.5 per cent.
The economy will turn the corner in the next six months as the deceleration of the past several quarters has been arrested, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Monday.
He was speaking to reporters along with Union Minister of State for Planning Ashwini Kumar on the sidelines of the Regional Consultation with five Eastern States on the Approach Paper to be finalised by the Planning Commission.
The two-day conference, which saw participation of ministers and senior officials from all the states, was marked by brainstorming in the run up to the expected enactment of the government's ambitious Food Security Bill.
Terming the 5.5 per cent GDP growth as "good news", Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today expressed confidence that economy would rebound in subsequent quarters.
According to latest Central Statistical Organisation's estimates, the economy will grow at a rate of 5 per cent in the current fiscal -- the lowest in over a decade.
Aviation Minister Praful Patel's outburst against Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia is perhaps not difficult to understand since most people think it was actually Patel who should have been keeping an eye on the delays at the Delhi airport.
Reserve Bank of India, in consultation with the government, has raised the FII investment limit in government securities by $5 billion to $20 billion.
Modernisation of agricultural marketing is important, says Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia warned that any extraordinary steps to contain inflation may prove counter-productive.
The government is doing a lot to push growth but the impact of its efforts will be felt in the second half of the fiscal when the expansion rate will show some improvement, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
Differing with International Monetary Fund's growth forecast of 4.9 per cent for India during 2012, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said it has a statistical problem.
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.
Planning Commission's Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia strongly favours need for a special package and help for poor Bihar in place of special category state status repeatedly demanded by chief minister Nitish Kumar.
Concerned over rising food prices, planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Monday pitched for increasing supplies through imports and better use of the public distribution system.
Planning Commission on Tuesday endorsed RBI's hawkish policy of hiking key rates by half a percentage point saying this would contain inflation.
Last year, the Planning Commission got the approval for the 9 per cent annual average economic growth target under the Approach document for the 12th Plan from the country's apex decision making body, the National Development Council, headed by the Prime Minister with all the chief ministers and Cabinet ministers on board.
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.
"This year, at the Planning Commission, we expect growth rate will be around 8 per cent. We are not expecting 9 per cent in the year 2011-12," Ahluwalia said while speaking at the convocation ceremony at Vijna Jyothy Institute of Management.
The Reserve Bank of India announced measures late on Monday to curb the rupee's decline by tightening liquidity.
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.
Addressing a high level debate on 'State of the World Economy and Finance in 2012' at the United Nations General Assembly in United Nations on Thursday, Ahluwalia said the Indian economy grew at an average rate of 9 per cent in the five years prior to the financial crisis of 2008.
Montek also said he did not consider the fall of about two per cent or so in Asian markets, including India this morning, as severe.
Current account deficit, which represents flow of money out of the country barring capital movements, stood at $4.5 billion in the first quarter of previous financial year.
He said while bringing in investments, it is also necessary to manage the high current account deficit.
The government last month revised the growth forecast for the current fiscal downward to 7.5 per cent on domestic concerns like high inflation and slowing industrial output, besides a global slowdown.
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