'Previously, contributing only 25 per cent of material costs, states now face burdens of 40 per cent to 100 per cent of total costs, ensuring poorer states will curb project approvals, directly stifling work demand.'
'The question for the TMC is not whether it can hold its bastions, but whether it can expand effectively into regions where the BJP already possesses a good ecosystem.'
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
'We are going to need more technical people in government.' 'You can't expect a generalist to understand the complicated world of financial engineering.' 'I regret to say that most of our politicians have no competence to deal with these things. Nor is there a willingness to learn.'
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of the United States Congress, delivered on Thursday.
The point made by sociologist M N Srinivas, that it represented a Sanskritic act that was linked to caste, is never raised in Indian debates and the disapproval of drink is almost universal, notes Aakar Patel.
Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
New Delhi was reluctant to spook investors by clipping the bank's wings
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.
A visit to the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia is likely to be the first public engagement of the prime minister, which would be hosted by the First Lady, the White House said on Tuesday.
They all seem to forget that the Music Academy is as much an independent institution as T M Krishna is an individual musician. In drawing those red lines for the Academy management, they do not even seem to recognise that they too have crossed a red line themselves, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
India and the US are working with renewed trust in areas of new and emerging technologies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday as he thanked the American leadership for giving him a grand welcome.
'The BJP think they are running an ideology machine in this country, and they have to convert everyone, from people to parties to party leaders.'
Opportunity for India to take leadership in economic diplomacy.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday fired Basil Rajapaksa from his post and invited the Opposition parties to join a unity Cabinet to tackle the raging public anger against the hardships caused by the economic crisis.
As the government submitted a list of 627 foreign account holders to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the spotlight is on family of former Maharashtra chief minister, former minister in the UPA government, a Mumbai-based corporate among others. Vrishti Beniwal reports
Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit won't be afraid to tangle with the toughest of them.
The oil crisis could not have come at a worse time for the Modi government as its tax collection has fallen short of its 2020-2021 target by Rs 5.2 lakh crore.
With an aggressive Opposition and unyielding government, important legislation could be the biggest casualty, as details of the helicopter contract surface.
The US govt has urged the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court order on the Tata Mundra Power Plant in Gujarat funded by a financial wing of the World Bank
The searches are linked to suspected movement of hawala money during the ongoing polls season and tax evasion.
'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?'
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
Nawaz Sharif was the last Pakistani prime minister to visit the US on an official trip in October 2015.
oreign Policy magazine named him as one of the world's top 100 global thinkers in 2011.
'That the two sides allowed such a situation to arise exposed the level of inaction and inefficiency in China-India border management.' 'The Modi-Xi meeting in Xiamen initiated a process to to avert such contingencies in the future.'
'If the museum in his memory inspires and instils among Brahminical British Indians an attitude of equality towards Dalits, the edifice would be worth it,' reports Ashis Ray.
That may have reduced clutter, but it would also have reduced choice.
The full transcript of the exclusive interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The United States has requested India for "provisional arrest" of Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member K V P Ramachandra Rao after he was indicted by an American court in an alleged international racketeering conspiracy involving bribes of USD 18.5 million (Rs 111.629 cr) for allowing mining of Titanium minerals in Andhra Pradesh.
'Rahul is only making a pathetic public spectacle of his lack of judgment and good sense by hallucinating that somehow, the Congress, or whatever political combine is cobbled together, will displace the BJP at the coming Lok Sabha election by constantly harping on the Rafale deal,' argues retired civil servant B S Raghavan.
Vajpayee had always felt that India must act with conviction and panache. He decided that, irrespective of the attendant risks, he would undertake what many felt was a precarious course. A fascinating excerpt from N K Singh's Portraits Of Power: Half A Century Of Being At Ringside on Atalji's 96th birthday, December 25.
The BJP cobbles up the numbers to stake a claim to form a government in Imphal. But ruling the restive state won't be easy, says Chitra Ahanthem.
The Indian economy was on an impressive growth path through the first decade of this century till it was brought to an abrupt halt by the policy inertia during UPA2 and the Modi government's inability to restore economic and financial momentum. Fascinating glimpses of what went wrong from Puja Mehra's must-read book The Lost Decade: How India's Growth Story Devolved Into Growth Without A Story.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
RBI has cited at least 10 areas where it has no control over PSBs.
'Modi has shown political courage by instituting several economic reforms which include demonetisation, ushering in GST, eradication of benami transactions...'
That's all it takes to protect an institution -- just one person with no past and no greed for the future, says Shekhar Gupta.