A banker from Jaipur in Rajasthan tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
The spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs said diplomats deal with a variety of issues and it was normal for them to collect information, assess them and send report to the government back home.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday stepped into the 2G spectrum row that has engulfed the government by meeting Home Minister P Chidambaram and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee amid unconfirmed reports that the former had offered to quit.
Referring to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's letter to the Prime Minister in the 2G Spectrum case, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday alleged that Home Minister P Chidambaram was involved in the scam and demanded that he should resign or else be sacked immediately.
The 4000-page chargesheet, which was filed in the court of special NIA judge AK Lahoti, has 16 protected witnesses.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday had separate meetings with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram, stepping in to defuse the raging row over the controversial finance ministry note on 2G spectrum allocation.
Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Saturday strongly backed P Chidambram over the latest controversy surrounding the finance ministry note on 2G scam and accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha of targeting the home minister as he acted against "Sanghi" terror.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing restrictions in mobility may result in a 75 per cent reduction in the budgetary allocation for foreign travel in FY22, a senior finance ministry official said. The government will cut "frivolous expenditure" when all the activities are going on in the virtual mode, joint secretary in the ministry of finance, Madnesh Kumar Mishra, said in an event organised by XLRI. It can be noted that the budget for the next fiscal is under preparations right now and officials are also having discussions internally and also with external stakeholders for suggestions.
The CBI and ED are keeping a close eye on several bank accounts.
According to highly placed sources, the finance ministry is likely to extend ECLGS and other loan guarantee schemes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), hospitality and tourism sector, and the health infrastructure beyond March 31, Business Standard has learnt. This is likely to be announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as part of her Budget speech on February 1.
A proposal for creation of seven Customs Overseas Intelligence Network units is pending with the Ministry of External Affairs.
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
The government wants to reduce the rate of contribution - part of the employee's share - for a class of workers depending upon age, income or gender, without changing the contribution from the employer's share.
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday parried questions on the truce between him and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the controversial 2G note and whether he had offered to quit during the crisis.
Union ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Thaawarchand Gehlot, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Santosh Gangwar, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, BJP national general-secretary Arun Singh and party MP Maneka Gandhi also visited the hospital to know about his wellbeing.
The prosecutor general's office said Benfica Vice President Fernando Tavares was also a suspect in the case, along with a high-ranking judge and nine other people, five of whom were detained in a police operation on Tuesday.
There is also speculation within the BJP that its national president J P Nadda, whose extended tenure will end by this month and who was among the leaders meeting Modi, may also be brought back in the government.
Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram on Thursday sought to put an end to the raging controversy over the finance ministry note on 2G spectrum with the finance minister distancing himself from the statement that sought to blame the home minister.
The India Investment Centre, at present under the finance ministry, will find a new home with the newly constituted non-resident affairs ministry.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed with him the issue of a finance ministry note on allocation of 2G spectrum which appeared to raise questions on his role.
Archana Ramanan, a homemaker from Tamil Nadu, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what she would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
India has evidence that social media platforms are being used to raise terror funds, NIA director general Dinkar Gupta said on Thursday, underlining that the issue will be deliberated during a two-day international ministerial conference on countering terror financing.
Shalini Gupta, a freelance writer from Pudicherry, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what she would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday claimed that 300-400 BJP workers and their family members have fled their homes in West Bengal amid post-poll violence in the neighbouring state.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram's much-awaited statement before the media on the 11-page note of finance ministry on the 2G scam that indicts Chidambaram is a loss of face for Mukherjee, but it may prove a deceptive victory for Chidambaram at a later stage.
However, independent economists are not as gung-ho as the finance ministry over the likelihood of deficit target being met this time around, says Indivjal Dhasmana.
The deadlock over the 2G spectrum scam continued when the opposition rejected the government's offer of a probe by the Public Accounts Committee into the scam. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjhee had called for a luncheon meet on Monday afternoon to try and break the dealock which has paralysed parliamentary for the past eight days, where the opposition's repeated call for a Joint Parliamentary Committee has not allowed any business to be transacted in either house.
Prompt measures and legal actions taken by the Indian government and PNB helped in securing the extradition of diamantaire Nirav Modi by the UK on Friday, a senior official said. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday signed off on the order to extradite Nirav Modi, wanted in India on fraud and money laundering charges related to the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case. According to the government official, a scam of this magnitude had potential to create instability in the financial sector but the deft handling saved the entire public sector banking space from the crisis and litigation.
Prime Minister Singh has assigned a senior Congress leader to placate the President, who is upset with Finance Minister P Chidambaram, reports Anita Katyal.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
This is its lowest level since August 30
Kailash Gahlot was divested of the Law and Justice portfolio in the Aam Aadmi Party government on Friday, a day after Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena recalled files related to judicial infrastructure and administration in New Delhi as they remained pending with him for months, officials said.
The Aircel-Maxis row on Monday led to fresh uproar in Rajya Sabha with the Opposition targeting with fresh allegations the son of Home Minister P Chidambaram, who denied any wrongdoing and said the company in question -- Advantage Consulting -- could be probed by the finance ministry.
As food inflation surged to 18.32 per cent, a top adviser in the finance ministry on Thursday agreed with Home Minister P Chidambaram that the government does not have all the tools to control food prices since it is an enabling body.
Tanvi Dubey, a supreme Court lawyer, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what she would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
The government is likely to conduct a through inquiry into allegations that multinational organisation HSBC Bank was involved in money laundering operations that may have helped terror groups operating in India.The probe is likely to be conducted by sleuths of various intelligence wings of home and finance ministries as the allegations, if proved true, would have serious security implications, highly-placed sources said.
Navarino Narah, a travel and luxury boutique hotels consultant from Arunachal Pradesh, tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
Government sources said on Wednesday that the prime minister has informed presiding officers of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha about the arrangement. The session of Parliament which began this morning is a 10-day affair.
Modi, after delivering his sixth straight address to the nation on Independence Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi, went into a brainstorming session with Sitharaman and all top officials in her ministry, sources privy to the development said. T
