Rare unanimity was witnessed as the members passed the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'What matters is meeting the needs and expectations of the people who have voted to provide governance for the country.'
Excluding the pension outgo, the allocation in the Union Budget for the armed forces stands at Rs 3.62 lakh crore.
'Let us hope that this Budget delivers.' 'It needs 10 per cent plus real GDP growth in 2021-22, the rebound year,' notes Omkar Goswami.
The Paris-based global watchdog for curbing terror financing and money laundering will hold its virtual plenary session from October 21 to 23. It will review Pakistan's progress on the 27-point action plan.
The byelections are of critical importance to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the assembly poll to Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday approved the biggest tax reform since Independence.
He also alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted to create a Delhi-like situation in Puducherry and take power away from an elected government.
The finance minister said the economy had been slowing.
YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy has written to leaders of various parties seeking their support for the motion.
The term of the last chairman of the pension regulator, Yogesh Agarwal, was cut short by the finance ministry in November.
Strange souls see a research report on an Indian conglomerate as part of a vast conspiracy to Keep India Down. There is only one possible response to this: Grow up. Nobody in the West cares enough about India or Adani to put all the effort into creating a giant conspiracy that links together BBC documentaries and short-sellers, points out Mihir S Sharma.
The perception that 'winnability' is based on gender is very strong, even though, if you break up the electoral success rate by sexes, the women who do win elections are proportionally far more successful than the men who win, given the huge number of men they have to beat.
Every twist and turn in KMC's civil service career is attributed to serendipity, an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. He plays down his capabilities, which took him to the top of the civil service as the Cabinet Secretary or his misfortune in losing a daughter in her prime and suggests that his career was indeed serendipitous, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'If Ranil Wickremesinghe starts repressing and suppressing the protesters who represent the people, that will pose a danger for him to continue in office.'
The Congress leader told reporters that the Punjab government is 'preparing to challenge the Bills in the apex court on two counts'. "First, it is a state subject and the Union government has no right to enact a legislation on it. "Besides, the federal government cannot destroy the economy of states. Due to the Bills, losses will be too much for a small state like Punjab," he said.
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.
'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.
In his Budget, Jaitley announced a pay hike for the President to Rs 5 lakh per month, Rs 4 lakh for the VP and Rs 3.5 lakh for governors.
No-trust motion battle was between BJP's majority and our morality, says TDP chief.
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut were among the 16 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from four states where polling was held on Friday after tussle over cross voting and alleged breach of election rules delayed the counting by around eight hours in Maharashtra and Haryana.
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
Finance minister Arun Jaitley has few feathers in his cap for taking serious eff
Expressing commitment to augment the country's infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday proposed to significantly enhance capital expenditure to Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the next fiscal, besides creating institutional structures and giving a big thrust to monetizing assets to achieve the goals of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Sitharaman said NIP, that was launched in December 2019 with 6,835 projects, has now been expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure ministries have been completed. "For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided Rs 5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21," the finance minister said.
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?
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 finance ministry official may have claimed that the ministry does not have information on the loans sanctioned by different banks to Mallya or the details of the guarantee given by Mallya against those loans, but the ministry had responded to questions in this regard in Parliament in the past.
The proceedings were washed out over various issues including the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and roster system for reservation in educational institutions.
Government looking at cushioning slowdown due to demonetisation with sops and higher outlay for micro, small and medium enterprises, agriculture, and affordable housing.
There was no law that prevented the government from presenting a sixth full Budget, or something similar to it.
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 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.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde spoke to Kavita Chowdhury on the logical steps that follow from the passing of the contentious Telangana Bill in Parliament and the future course of action in Andhra Pradesh in view of the coming general polls. Edited excerpts:
Even existing cases might come under the proposed law, including those of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choski. But, the law would not cover earlier cases.
As per latest government data, retail inflation inched up to a 22-month high of 5.77 per cent in June.
'Welfare schemes are not a necessary evil, they are a necessary good.'
The implementation of their recommendations means that an adequate apparatus to change this is at the disposal of the government.
The MiG29K and MiG29KUB, the aircraft carrier's primary fighters, spent more time in the hangar than in the air, with fleet serviceability remaining below 50 per cent, reports Ajai Shukla.
During Vajpayee's tenure, he was there as an indispensable insider, witness to every action that had an impact on history: Pokhran-II (nuclear tests in 1998), the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, the Indo-Pak Agra Summit in 2001, intense engagement with the United States on nuclear issues besides the Kandahar hijack.
