Delhi faces a severe financial crunch and the deficit is largely due to numerous welfare schemes without adequate revenue flowing in. The success of welfare schemes and electoral promises will need careful financial planning and out of the box thinking to whip up additional revenue, notes Ramesh Menon.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley claimed on Thursday that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has to be directly blamed for the huge loss to the exchequer in allotment of coal mines. Swaraj said the PM can't be shielded behind ministers like A Raja or P Chidambaram as he did in the 2G spectrum scam.
A prominent face of the party that leads the ruling coalition in New Delhi and an equally high-profile politician belonging to the country's principal opposition party -- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi respectively -- will be sharing the same dais on the occasion of the forty-sixth convocation of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.
Irrespective of all the criticism that he is facing in America, Ahmadinejad's meeting with Dr Singh looks almost certain, sources have revealed.
'Those who hope for a strong united Opposition are disillusioned at the way in which the INDIA alliance has already been caught in debilitating squabbles.'
For the first time in the 43-year-old India Abroad newspaper's history, a Guest Editor was invited to edit the special magazine issue.
'Antony and I have been friends for over half a century, and I know the man does not tell lies. The problem is that what he believes to be the truth might not actually be true. He may believe that India needs the Congress, and that the Congress in turn needs the Nehru-Gandhi family, but that does not mean that India shares those articles of faith,' says T V R Shenoy.
Menon said there is a large degree of congruence or identity of views between China and India.
Over the past four years, India has given around $281 million worth of credit, which have been used to import wheat, petroleum products and buses.
The White House has ruled out any bilateral talks between United States President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next week in New York where they will attend the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. "We don't have any bilateral meetings planned at this point," US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters while briefing them on Obama's agenda in New York.
Dr T V Somanathan is the first finance secretary to be appointed Cabinet secretary since 1985. His appointment at this juncture seems to carry much meaning for the forthcoming trajectory of reforms and restructuring of India's steel frame.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
"I'm taking a minute to respond... I do respect Raghuram Rajan as a great scholar who chose to be in the central bank in India at a time when the Indian economy was all buoyant," Sitharaman said during the lecture organised by the Deepak and Neera Raj Centre on Indian Economic Policies of the Columbia University.
The UPA should realise that it cannot improve its own image, or that of the individual constituents of the alliance, including the Congress party, if it allows the prime minister's authority and image to weaken.
Who will be India's new finance minister, when Dr Manmohan Singh will take oath as India's 14th prime minister on Saturday? Tell us.
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman finance minister, had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget briefcase for the traditional 'bahi-khata' to carry Union Budget papers.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Sunday underwent a routine medical check-up.Informed sources confirmed that such a medical check-up is a must before undertaking a foreign trip. Dr Singh is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh in the United States next week to attend the G-20 Summit hosted by US President Barack Obama. Media Advisor Harish Khare said Dr Singh's health was fine and he was attending to his work as usual.
Scholar-diplomat and India's foremost foreign policy analyst Professor Muchkund Dubey explains to Poornima Joshi the highs and lows of the United Progressive Alliance's 10-year tenure, the legacy that the present regime leaves behind and whether he would advice the Bharatiya Janata Party's PM candidate Narendra Modi on matters concerning diplomacy.
"The Chinese premier underlined that whatever anybody might say, India and China are friendly neighbours and have a common view of how the world should be looked at," Naraynan said.
The visibly elated actor talked to rediff.com's Ajit Jain hours before the State dinner.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has asked Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to examine if the request of a Supreme Court judge for pardon to Pakistani prisoner Khalil Chishty could be considered on "humanitarian" grounds.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday asked civil society activists not to reply to every charge levelled against them by the Congress saying it was a "trap", even as it asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to clarify whether he wanted the top post to be included under the ambit of the Lokpal.
Steven S Reinemund, Chairman and CEO, Pepsi, said though there were bottlenecks, India had the best managerial talent and was comparable with any other developed country.
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya, who is also travelling with the prime minister, reports from Dhaka.
In an apparent bid to drive a wedge between Indian government and the ruling party, Pakistan has said that "well-meaning" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was keen to normalise ties with it but "elements in Congress" did not support him.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao met on Friday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -India and East Asia Summit in Hanoi.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is all set to carry a major reshuffle in his Cabinet that is scheduled to take place around 11:30 am on Sunday. The reshuffle is likely to see the inclusion of several young faces
After giving the dinner hosted by Dr Manmohan Singh on the occasion of the third anniversary of the United Progressive Alliance-II in New Delhi a skip and strongly protesting against the petrol hike, West Bengal Chief Minister shared the stage with the prime minister at a function in Kolkata.
Rejecting reports about a rift between him and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday asserted that there was no truth in them as the two worked together almost on all issues.
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
In the brief telephonic conversation, Obama condoled the loss of lives, the Prime Minister's Office said, adding, "The two leaders took the opportunity to review developments in Indo-US relations."
Taking a break from Parliamentary parleys and governing the world's largest democracy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will watch the movie Peepli Live at his residence on Sunday. The special screening of the film has been arranged by the film's producer Aamir Khan. Khan had arranged a similar screening of Peepli Live for the top brass of the Bharatiya Janata Party, including senior leader L K Advani, a few days ago. Advani, known to be a film buff, reportedly enjoyed the film.
The Hurriyat Conference and other major separatist groups will boycott the conference.
Malaysia's Premier Najib Razak on Sunday spoke to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking India's help in the massive search for the Malaysian jet that went missing with 239 people aboard over a week ago.
Delivering the first S B Rangnekar Memorial lecture at the Panjab University, his alma mater, in Chandigarh, Dr Singh also said a "dangerous and false binary" of choosing between freedom and development was surfacing in the country's political discourse and that it must be rejected.
Best brains are focused on solving the problems of the rich, says Sam Pitroda.
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