Billionaire Gautam Adani's group is building the world's largest renewable energy park in Gujarat, as it eyes a massive 45 GW capacity to generate electricity largely from solar energy. Speaking at the opening of 'Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery' at the Science Museum in London, Gautam Adani said his group's renewable energy arm, Adani Green Energy, is leading an energy transition that honours the commitment of taking care of the planet not just for this generation and the next but also for generations to come. "As the world's leading solar power developer and India's largest renewable energy company, we are taking very big steps," he said.
Any narrative against the Dravidian model may impact the BJP's prospects in Tamil Nadu. This may explain why the BJP in Tamil Nadu is placing more emphasis on corruption allegations against the DMK, even as the party focuses nationally on the Sanatana controversy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has ruled Gujarat for 27 years, is trying to retain power in the state for the seventh term in a row.
In his short speeches at various places, Gandhi assailed Modi over demonetisation and a host of other issues.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
Noting that he fully respects the Supreme Court order on electoral bonds, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the scheme was introduced to end black money in politics and added that it should have been improved rather than scrapped.
The stock of the country's largest passenger vehicle maker, Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL), has been hitting successive all-time highs over the past three trading sessions. The rally in the scrip has helped it notch over a 21 per cent gain since the start of February, outperforming the National Stock Exchange Nifty Auto Index. The gains for the leader of small passenger cars have been more recent, as the company still trails the Nifty Auto over one- and two-year periods.
Escalating the war of words over Narendra Modi's background as a chaiwalla, the Congress on Saturday said the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate, who often flaunts his past to connect with voters, was never a tea vendor.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Successor Anandiben Patel isn't having an easy time, with a protest movement by her own community and new challenges in keeping the mandate
The Gujarat unit of the Aam Aadmi Party launched a "broom march" as part of its campaign for the Lok Sabha elections and to expose corruption of the state government.
'Whatever the result on December 18, Rahul has succeeded.' 'He has taken the battle to the rival's territory, and forced him to take him more seriously than he has done so far, or would have wished to.' 'A party, dominating and powerful as the BJP today, is spending all its time attacking the leader of one with just 46 seats in the Lok Sabha, and in the woods in Gujarat for 22 years.' 'This isn't the script the BJP had written,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Some leaders believe that the Mamata Banerjee-led party could tone down its shrillness in countering the saffron party whose win has given the BJP state leadership and cadres a strong footing to prepare ground for the next year's panchayat polls.
Tata Passenger Electric Mobility (TPEM), a subsidiary of Tata Motors, on Friday announced that it has commenced production at its second factory in Sanand, Gujarat, which it had acquired from Ford India last year. This new facility will unlock an additional manufacturing capacity of 300,000 units per annum, which is scalable to 420,000 units. The new facility is spread over 460 acres and is adjacent to Tata Motors' existing passenger vehicle facility in Sanand.
From setting up cutting-edge facilities to cater to the domestic market and building capabilities of global standards, the action is building up.
Bharatiya Janata Party veteran Lal Krishna Advani has hailed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his administrative skills, and said that the latter is ''a role model for chief ministers of other states''.
The gap in demand for electric vehicles between large and mid-sized cities in the country is shrinking and the Tier-II 2 cities are likely to emerge as the next big demand centre for EVs, a report said on Tuesday. An analysis of the electric two-wheeler and car sales by strategic research provider BloombergNEF (BNEF) from 207 cities across 10 states also suggests that the electric two-wheeler sales in some tier 2 markets have surpassed metropolitans while within tier 2 cities, state capitals generally leading the growth in electric car sales.
'I hope the anger that Gujarat farmers have demonstrated is also reflected in other parts of the country in ensuing elections.' 'Only then will the ruling parties accept that something is terribly going wrong in the hinterland.'
Smartly blending its development agenda with Hindutva politics, the BJP has not lost assembly elections in the state since 1995.
In Uttar Pradesh, believe it or not, the BJP will not be helped in the long run if the Congress collapses completely. The more regional parties are strengthened due to the decimation of the Congress, tougher will be the challenge facing both the grand old party and the BJP. Rediff.com's incomparable Sheela Bhatt continues her new election column where she reveals the ground realities in the Battle for India, as only she can. Don't miss it!
Former India captain Mithali Raj has been roped in as mentor and advisor by Women's Premier League side Gujarat Giants.
The rules for the CAA are likely to be issued before the MCC comes into effect, sources privy to the development said.
If the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) plans to give Aadhaar numbers to all Indian residents, the Rajasthan government promises to go a step further with a card for all female heads of households, to empower them financially.
In a note to his students titled 'In a Background of Elections - The Development Debate', Dr Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of Mumbai's St Xavier's College, slams Narendra Modi's Gujarat and is in all praise of United Progressive Alliance's Rojgar Yojana and the Food Security Act
Vasundhara Raje is pioneering the 'Rajasthan Model', which places policy reform at the centre of the development strategy.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Telugu movie star Akkineni Nagarjuna, who has also starred in several Hindi movies, met Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad and announced that India needed a "change" which Modi as the rime Minister should usher in.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar believes that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's popularity may not translate into votes to give him a clear nod to become prime minister, says Sheela Bhatt
Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi for his "balloon jibe", Narendra Modi on Sunday said that the Congress vice president should focus on the nation rather than criticising Gujarat which was declared "number one" by his mother Sonia Gandhi.
With land acquisition completed and infrastructure work streamlined, India's bullet train dreams are slowly, but finally, inching closer to reality.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday attributed the party's "historic" victory in Gujarat assembly polls to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's credibility and people's trust in his leadership.
'My mother feels it will be tough and emotional for her to enter an assembly which has essentially been reduced to a municipality now.' 'My opinion is that even if it is a municipality one cannot cede that space to the BJP.'
'In life insurance, it is about creating distribution capacity and solutions for customers. We are constantly working on that.'
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
US-based chipmaker Micron Technology is expecting demand for semiconductors to rise significantly in the next few years, globally and in India, as memory consumption is going up, largely driven by the widespread adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). "Memory consumption is expected to double by the end of the decade and the biggest driver in this is AI. "While it's natural to talk about compute and GPUs (graphics processing units) in the context of AI, it is not to be forgotten that the true enabler for AI is memory ... in all the AI engines that we talk about, there is a lot of need to access memory quickly," Anand Ramamoorthy, managing director, Micron Technology India, told Business Standard.
Assembly elections in Gujarat will be held in two phases on December 9 and 14.
A clear message was that the ongoing seven-decade-old model of agriculture, based on extensive reliance on subsidy by the government at every stage, was not going to work, said NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee President V M Sudheeran on Monday flayed the Narendra Modi government's move to scrap Planning Commission and bring in an alternative body in its place.
He is likely to speak on economic issues, particularly the impact of GST and demonetisation.