Lavasa would soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president
Voters can be relied on to punish a party which makes reckless promises without actually implementing them, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
Future Retail has shut most of its Big Bazaar stores since February 25 (Friday) and its website is also down as it missed lease payments to Reliance Industries (RIL). RIL will open most of the 200 Future Retail stores as Reliance stores in the next week and it is in the process of taking stock, re-branding, and transferring 30,000 Future Retail and Future Lifestyle employees on to the rolls of its manpower and staffing firm Reliance SMSL, according to a source. The first tranche of stores are set to be opened as early as in the next two days.
The insurance regulator wants the removal of the minimum entry capital requirement of Rs 100 crore for setting up an insurance business in a bid to facilitate the entry of multiple players such as standalone micro insurers and niche players. Debasish Panda, chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), said it should be left to the regulator instead to decide what should be the entry fee for interested players, depending on the size of the business and operations. According to the current norms, insurers are required to have a minimum paid-up capital of Rs 100 crore.
Political observers are keen to see if the BJP will now be guided by its more firmly entrenched ideological dominance in picking a face solidly identified with its core planks, or if it will choose a person tilted more to its electoral calculations. Or, whether its pick will be an ode to its core supporters or a outreach to relatively new groups of votaries.
The Law Commission had said that the BCCI should be brought under the RTI Act, noting that it falls under the definition of a public authority which has received substantial financing from the government.
Speaking to reporters, Sitharaman, a senior BJP leader, said, "It is a manifesto announcement. A party can announce what it wants to do when it comes to power. That is exactly what is announced. Health is a state subject. It is perfectly in order."
On the Sensex chart, Bajaj Finance, HUL, RIL, ONGC and HDFC emerged as the top gainers.
Your promise to protect bankers for their commercial decisions is a huge confidence booster, but how does one define a commercial decision? Are our investigative agencies well equipped to dissect lending decisions of bankers?
Responding to Shagh, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said the country was suffering from too much "ODOMOS- overdose of only Modi only Shah".
Dhrupadi Ghosh, who works for a magazine in Kolkata, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what she would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy has written to leaders of various parties seeking their support for the motion.
"Grassroots democracy must get precedence than any other considerations, including security," the functionary said.
As many as 403 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or more, have been hit by cost overruns of over Rs 4.05 lakh crore owing to delays and other reasons, according to a report.
The finance minister said the economy had been slowing.
The TDP supremo said he had not contacted any party yet but given the 'TDP's credibility' they were supporting the no-trust motion.
The global agency said there are "serious deficiencies" on the part of the country in checking terror-financing and it lacks an effective system to deal with it.
According to senior officials, nine additional commissioners have been allocated departments and office spaces at different floors of the Civic Centre, while three deputy commissioners were also appointed.
The income tax (I-T) department on Tuesday extended the deadline for filing settlement applications for eligible taxpayers till September 30, as the income tax settlement commission (ITSC) ceased to exist from February 1. This comes amid interim relief provided by some high courts, directing acceptance of applications of settlement even after February 1. To dispose the pending settlement applications as on January 31, the central government has constituted Interim Board for Settlement.
The Telangana Group of Ministers on Friday reviewed the progress made by the Andhra Pradesh government with regards to the bifurcation of the state on various fronts.
No other corporate house in India is in a better position than Tata group for the takeover of debt-laden airline Air India, former deputy chairman of erstwhile Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Thursday. Tata Sons has emerged as the top bidder for the takeover of the state-run airline but the bid is yet to be approved by a group of ministers headed by Home Minister Amit Shah. "You can't have a better corporate, with a better position than the Tatas, we can hand it (state-run airline Air India) over," he said while replying to a question in a virtual event.
The Budget shouldn't be stuck on fiscal numbers, the PMO apparently said.
The term of the last chairman of the pension regulator, Yogesh Agarwal, was cut short by the finance ministry in November.
As the Centre pushes reforms in the power sector, especially for the beleaguered electricity distribution segment, several states, especially those ruled by Opposition parties, are clamouring against it. Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerela have voiced their reservations against the proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003. The irony is the states opposing the amendments on the ground of threat of privatisation already have private partnerships in power supply. The proposed Bill was slated to be placed on the floor of Parliament in the Monsoon session. But it still awaits Cabinet approval amid several states complaining that they have been not consulted on the issue.
The centre's promise of a new deal for the states is a welcome development.
Available in a range of standards, including gold and silver, the special collectors' coin is designed by Heena Glover and features an image of a lotus, India's national flower, alongside one of Gandhi's most famous quotes -- "My life is my message".
The finance ministry on Monday said the recent raid on perfume trader Peeyush Jain's house in Kanpur, from where more than Rs 177 cr unaccounted cash was unearthed, was the "biggest ever seizure of cash" by an enforcement agency. The December 26 raid, which resulted in Jain's arrest, included searches at Jain's residential/factory premises in Kannauj, where about Rs 17 crore in cash have been recovered, the ministry said in a release. Further searches are underway at Jain's residential/factory premises in Kannauj.
Modi govt must bring about reforms to kick-start big-ticket infra projects.
The CVC has been allocated Rs 39 crore for 2020-21, up from the revised Rs 36.65 crore for the ongoing fiscal.
If General Asim Munir, Pakistan's new army chief, wants to help defuse the current polarised atmosphere and shepherd civilian politicians towards negotiations on an acceptable date for elections, he may need to distance himself from any perception of needless hostility to Imran Khan, explains Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W, India's external intelligence agency.
On the sidelines of the NITI Aayog governing council meeting, CMs of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala met PM Modi.
'Our competitiveness with China is very important.' 'If the exchange rate depreciates, it is good for us because it helps in our competitiveness.'
The sad truth is that the debt-to-GDP ratio will shoot up close to 90 per cent in the coming year, and the fiscal deficit glide path does not promise to reduce it substantially any time soon, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
'Though federal, the Constitution is unitary in nature. All matters relating to revenue are centralised. It is necessary that matters related to finance have to be decentralised... States need more freedom in designing schemes with their interest in mind. There has to be a Constitutional amendment to give more powers to the states. A special session of Parliament should amend the Constitution, especially the 7th Schedule,' Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
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.
In a soon to be published book, 'Of Counsel: The Challenges of the Modi-Jaitley Economy,' former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian says though RBI has a good reputation, it does not mean it's always right, as for years, the RBI was unable to grasp the seriousness of the loan repayment problems or identify the prolonged frauds of Nirav Modi and the likes.
'What matters is meeting the needs and expectations of the people who have voted to provide governance for the country.'
'Welfare schemes are not a necessary evil, they are a necessary good.'
On Monday, Thakur egged on participants of an election rally to raise an incendiary slogan that 'traitors should be shot', after he lashed out at anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters.
Private equity (PE) is set to play a bigger role in banks. Of 21 recommendations accepted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) out of 31 made by its Internal Working Group (IWG), its stance on non-promoter holdings in private banks is seen with excitement, though it doesn't refer to PEs explicitly. On non-promoter holdings in these banks, the RBI said this will be capped at 10 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital in the case "of natural persons and non-financial institutions and entities"; and "at 15 per cent for all categories of financial institutions, entities, supranational institutions, public sector undertaking, or the government." While this is a modification of the IWG's stance for the non-promoter holding in banks at up to 15 per cent, it does open up a huge window for PEs, all the same. This is because, while the RBI has remained silent on the eligibility of industrial houses for bank licences, fresh high-quality capital in large amounts can only come from PEs.
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