Aiming at bolstering the sagging economy as well as providing housing to all, the urban poor will get 5 per cent interest subsidy for home loans up to Rs 100,000, taken during the Eleventh Plan period.
The Enforcement Directorate has registered a money laundering case against Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, and others, taking cognisance of a recent CBI FIR against them.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said the Central Board of Direct Taxes is inquiring into alleged leak of tapes of telephone conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and politicians, journalists and industrialists.
No one can capture an inch of Indian land till the Narendra Modi government is in power, Home Minister Amit Shah said Tuesday and claimed the actual reason behind the Congress disrupting Lok Sabha proceedings was not the clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers but a question on the cancellation of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) registration of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
The minister said while big corporate houses can easily get loans of even of Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion), the poor face problems.
During campaigning, P Chidambaram has been addressing villagers, explaining his efforts to improve life in the constituency and blaming the state government for not supporting him. He has also been introducing his son in the 10 villages across 250 km.
In a major security breach on the anniversary of the deadly 2001 Parliament terror attack, two persons on Wednesday jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors' gallery, shouted slogans and released yellow smoke from canisters that triggered panic and chaos in the House.
All the seven states hit by Left wing extremism have agreed on a joint action to confront the menace firmly and decisively, and the Centre will provide them full support in terms of security forces and funds, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said.
Lawyers have pointed out that the new laws increase police powers by extending the maximum limit of police custody from 15 days to 60 days or 90 days.
A one-man inquiry panel of the home ministry, probing the missing files related to the case of alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan, has been asked to expedite its work.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed three bills to replace the colonial-era criminal laws by voice vote.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Thursday refused to react to R K Singh's allegations against him, saying he no longer considered the retired bureaucrat as being a former home secretary but saw him as a politician and Bharatiya Janayt Party man.
In a letter to Birla, Karti Chidambaram also said that over the course of the past few years, his family and he himself have become targets of a 'relentless campaign by the present government and its investigating agencies which are trying to silence our voices of dissent by foisting one fake case after another'.
An under secretary serving in the home ministry has filed the FIR at the Parliament Street Police station in New Delhi under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants) of the Indian Penal Code asking police to probe "why, how and under what circumstances" five documents related to the case went missing.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said India is not facing recession but only a slowdown.
Vijay had on Friday kicked up a racism row after he appeared to suggest that Indians cannot be called racist as people live with those from south India who are "black".
Insisting that the situation in violence-hit Jammu and Kashmir is under control, the Centre on Monday said it will extend all help to the state government in maintaining law and order and asserted that the repeat of forced migration witnessed in 1990 will not be allowed.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Wednesday sought answers from the United Progressive Alliance citing an interview of former central Home Secretary Ram Pradhan which said he had told the then Home Minister about a local mole who allegedly helped carry out 26/11 attacks.
FIR says that the officials by virtue of influence exercised over them by Karti, not only ignored the serious illegality on the part of INX Media on both the counts but also deliberately showed undue favours to INX Group.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the meeting that the situation in Uttarakhand is better than what it was on Tuesday and Food Minister K V Thomas is taking steps to rush more food grains to the flood-hit Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
"I have lost count, how many times has it been? Must be a record," Karti tweeted without specifying.
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend.
Sharpening his attack on P Chidambaram, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi on Thursday alleged wrist watches with photos of the finance minister were being distributed to voters and demanded a probe by the Election Commission.
'Their role model is Iran: high control of the citizens by the State.' In Iran it is Islamic control; in India, it will be Hindutva control.'
In a press conference ahead of the much awaited Ayodhya verdict, Home Minister P Chidmabaram said that the delay in the Ayodhya title suit verdict had benefitted the country as it gave various parties the opportunity to reiterate their faith in the judicial process.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
Decisions taken at home to counter impact of 2008 economic meltdown were among the reasons for depreciation of the Indian currency.
P Chidambaram rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi's veiled charge that Sonia Gandhi was an "unconstitutional authority."
The social media was abuzz over an image of an image of Finance Minister P Chidambaram alongside Taliban founder Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef during a conference in Goa.
"I have no hesitation in saying that the ban on Salman Rushdie's book was wrong," Chidambaram, who was MoS, home affairs, when the ban was imposed in October 1988, said speaking at the Times LitFest in New Delhi.
Former Home Secretary G K Pillai's remarks on affidavit regarding LeT links of Ishrat Jahan on Friday triggered a political war of words with Congress questioning the timing of his claims and alleging that he was only parroting the ruling BJP's words.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday rejected criticism that his party practised politics of minorityism but asserted it cannot close its eyes to the discrimination against Muslims and other sections including Dalits.
Without naming P Chidambaram, he charged the then home minister with giving "colour" to terrorism by coining the term 'saffron terror'.
Congress leader P Chidambaram on Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court judgement
In his petition, Karti contended that the July 18 circular had been issued arbitrarily and without jurisdiction by the Foreigner Regional Registration Officer and The Bureau of Immigration under the Union home ministry at the behest of different agencies to prevent him from travelling abroad.
The revolutionary writers association leader and poet Varavara Rao has demanded the Central Bureau of Investigation to enlarge the ambit of its investigations into the fake encounter of prominent Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alis Azad and freelance journalist Hemchandr Pandey.
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday defended the government on the Telangana issue, saying the situation had changed "dramatically" after UPA announced it would form the state and insisted the Centre was waiting for a consensus to emerge among all the stakeholder parties.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday announced a Rs 2,000 crore urban housing fund, while making luxury homes costlier by cutting abatement on service tax on a flat with a floor area of over 2,000 sq ft, or prices exceeding Rs 1 crore.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy on Tuesday held discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on the issue of Telangana.Reddy, who was called to the capital by the Congress high command on Monday, is understood to have briefed Dr Singh about the prevailing political and law and order situation in the state.
On the day P Chidambaram took charge as the Union finance minister, the country's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), brought interest rate relief to its new home and automobile loan customers.
