Under severe attack over rushing senior ministers to the airport to meet Ramdev, the government is understood to have decided that senior ministers, especially Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, will not meet him again for further talks.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Sonia's political secretary Ahmed Patel were also present.
Food inflation rose to 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25, because of rise in prices of food items like onion, milk and meat.
An empowered group of ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, which decides on revising rates of the sensitive products, has not met since June last year even though crude oil prices have spiralled upward by about 50 per cent.
Bharti Airtel Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Bharti Mittal, Vodafone Plc CEO Vittorio Colao, Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas and Idea Cellular Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday met ministers and senior government officials to present the industry's concerns over telecom regulator Trai's proposals on the auction of spectrum.
She posed for the traditional 'briefcase' picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. She, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley feels ministers in the Manmohan Singh government are either "arrogant or sulking" and that it was tough to have a dialogue with them.
Amid the growing chorus against black money and the government's efforts to pull the plug, Union Law Minster M Veerappa Moily has suggested Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to completely overhaul the tax administration.
Budget silent on issue, major decisions unlikely before 2014 election.
"The GoM on the civil aviation sector, headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, is meeting tomorrow as the government has broadly agreed to support Air India in its restructuring process," civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Tuesday.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, it appears, is peeved with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram over the punishment being meted out to government servants on charges of corruption.
Pranab Mukherjee's stewardship of the economy will stand out as much for the manner in which he managed controversies as for creating quite a few of them, says A K Bhattacharya.
On July 18, 2022, two individuals with a Jharkhand connection will contest the Presidential election.
The government on Wednesday decided to set up a Group of Ministers to take a view on the controversial issue of whether there should be a caste-based census. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, discussed the issue over which various ministers are divided, official sources said. The Cabinet then decided that a GoM should take a final decision on the issue, they said. The GoM is likely to be headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once again trying to derail the process of setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee, for which hectic efforts have been made by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee having had a number of meetings with opposition leaders?
Government on Tuesday dismissed reports that four Union ministers had offered to quit their posts and work for the party, saying all Congress leaders are working for the party whether they are a part of the dispensation or the organisation.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is also managing the finance ministry, presented the Interim Budget for 2009-10 in Parliament on Monday. Following is the text of the entire Budget Speech:
On the eve of an all-party meeting on Telangana, Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrashekhar Rao on Monday said the Centre should follow its announcement on creation of a separate state with a resolution in Parliament but set no deadline for it.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday used her trademark 'bahi-khata', a ledger wrapped in a red-coloured cloth, to carry Budget documents as she arrived in Parliament House to present her third straight Budget. 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. She used the same last year and again on Monday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday rejected the Opposition demand for the resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram over the 2G issue and made it clear he will defend all his Cabinet colleagues.
The Budget oration of the finance minister and the confidence with which she delivered it, along with the measures and the recent upsurge in the economy would all contribute to unleashing the storied 'animal spirits' and help the economy run on the growth path quite smoothly. Or so the government hopes, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
'Politics is a game of public perception and my father felt that by his long disappearances, Rahul Gandhi was losing the battle of perception.'
Pranab's earlier fear of Sonia relying too heavily on a coterie due to her lack of experience turned out to be unfounded. As per Pranab, Sonia had her close advisers but she did not follow anyone's advice blindly. A fascinating excerpt from Sharmistha Mukherjee's Pranab, My Father: A Daughter Remembers.
'Modi had not discussed demonetization with me prior to his announcement on 8 November 2016. 'I learnt of it along with the rest of the country. 'I was not surprised when he did not discuss the issue with me prior to making the public announcement. 'It fitted in with his style of making dramatic announcements.' A fascinating excerpt from Pranab Mukherjee's The Presidential Years: 2012-2017.
'There is also a possibility that Andhra Pradesh may demand a similar package. But as of now, we are only working on a package for Bihar.'
In his book, former governor Subbarao says Chidambaram, Pranab were piqued by his tight rate policy.
President Pranab Mukherjee said he had no role in Singh's exit as RBI Governor.
The finance minister could well be on her way to setting a record of achieving the biggest single-year reduction in the government's fiscal deficit, explains A K Bhattacharya.
While the government had earlier decided to grant the ailing carrier Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion) this fiscal, another Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) was planned for release in 2010-11.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first and only women till now to have presented the Union Budget.
False and acrimonious debates such as Modi versus Manmohan might allow for victories that are political and partisan. But the real loser is the nation, India and Bharat, notes Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor to the Modi government in its first term.
Take a look at government subsidies and their growth as a percentage of GDP over this period.
Three TMC leaders Amit Mitra, Bratya Basu and Rathin Ghosh were sworn-in virtually. Mitra is unwell and both Basu and Ghosh are recuperating from COVID-19.
Pranab on Sunday met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed budget-related issues with him.
India has had 28 finance ministers since independence.
Union Finance Minister addressed students of the Institute of Management Technology (IMT) in Ghaziabad (UP) during their annual convocation. Here is what he had to say.
Pranab Mukherjee's book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years takes the readers through the economic and social unrest of the period leading up to the emergency, rise and fall of leaders, many splits within the Congress, while promising to offer more in the next two volumes of the trilogy, says Nivedita Mookerji.
'The finance minister said, the MSME is the backbone of the economy. My question is, what have you done for the sector?'
India has had 28 finance ministers since independence.
'There was trust, but perhaps there was also this apprehension that given the supreme post of prime minister, Sonia Gandhi felt her authority may be a challenged.'
