Even as India gears up for election results on May 16, a group of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have taken up an informal initiative to see how a 'Modi ministry' will look like, in case the party forms the government at the Centre.
Targetting Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'failure' to bring back black money in 100 days after coming to power, former Bihar chief minister and senior Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar on Thursday asked the former to explain to the people of country about when the amount of Rs 15 lakh would be deposited in every bank account as promised by him.
Sukanta Majumdar, the state BJP president, said, "Amit Shah has set a target of 35 seats. We will achieve that".
In spite of Budget's rural focus, the government has consistently stumbled in agriculture, says Shreekant Sambrani.
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.
Dismissing the contention that the decline in inflation was on account of the steps taken by the NDA government, Chidambaram said he wanted to know, 'what measures were taken by the government that contributed to decline in inflation rates.'
Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly Ramesh Chennithala demanded a judicial probe into the circumstances that led to opening of shutters of 40-odd dams at a time in the state.
'It is just an excuse to say that the Centre has run out of money.' 'Pruning these schemes would mean hard time for the people of India.'
In its third video uploaded on YouTube, RIL said the Cabinet had decided on June 27, 2013, to revise natural gas prices for public and private producers from April 1 and notified the decision on January 10, about two months before the schedule for general elections was announced on March 5.
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to release funds for MNREGA and to pay compensation to farmers in drought-affected areas.
Only Rs 3,000 cr has been disbursed. Over 80% of these transfers were for cooking gas subsidy.
'There is still scope for selective stockpicking.'
Market linking of petrol and diesel prices has helped the industry.
The construction sector is now India's second-largest employer after agriculture, the trend coinciding with India's high-growth phase and decline in poverty levels
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
The government will announce minimum support prices for kharif.
The Budget has stuck to annual increases in agri credit targets.
India must be prepared to deal with climate disasters, geopolitical confrontations, and social strife linked to global events, asserts Jayant Sinha, chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance.
There will be a lot to repair and rejuvenate -- if that opportunity even presents itself, warns Rathin Roy.
When KV Thomas took over as minister of state for food and consumer affairs (independent charge) on January 19, 2011, he was tasked with taking forward one single, important objective: expedite the implementation of the National Food Security Bill.
The National Judicial Commission Bill, 2022, was introduced after the majority of voice votes were in its favour.
Political economist Jayanta Roy Chowdhury analyses the 2016 West Bengal assembly election results.
Various alleged administrative and financial irregularities worth crores have been pointed out in execution of development works in worst Naxal-hit Bastar district of Chhattisgarh by state Accountant General.
Data captured in central government records have a lag.
Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal, earlier arrested and remanded to the custody of the ED in a suspected money laundering case, was suspended by the Jharkhand government on Thursday, an official said.
The 39-year-old was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate from Ranchi after the agency conducted multi-city raids against him, Singhal, her businessman husband Abhishek Jha and others, on May 6.
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
While no specific state-oriented sops were rolled out, a strong thread of political wellness ran through the Budget.
It raises three major questions - the incentive compatibility issue, the fairness issue and fiscal challenge, said Panagariya.
'Farmers love cows but find it uneconomical to afford fodder expenses'
The World Bank's latest review of its purchasing power parity (PPP) baseline will reignite the poverty debate.
The focus is likely to be on consolidation and improvement of existing rural-centric programmes to ensure their completion ahead of the next general elections in 2019, rather than announcement of new schemes. Sanjeeb Mukherjee and Arup Roychoudhury report.
Economist Arvind Panagariya is the vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, while economist Bibek Debroy and scientist V K Saraswat are the two full-time members of the Aayog.
'There is no money with the villagers as there is little work.'
Modi also pitched for a social movement to ensure the safety of women and girls.
Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi of "lecturing" as if he was the "cleanest of them all", Congress President Sonia Gandhi today advised him to read history again to know about the party's contribution in transforming the country since Independence from a poor state to a progressive nation.
In a pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the experts suggested timely implementation of the BJP's election manifesto promises to fix higher support prices. They also favoured a Kissan TV channel, an efficient procurement policy, priority for farm mechanisation and the linking of rivers.
The praise comes a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed it a 'monument of UPA's failures'.
This will, of course, go a long way in meeting the promised fiscal deficit target of 3.6 per cent of GDP in 2015-16.
'If because of El Nino, the monsoon is affected adversely in the current year, naturally it will affect income projections and consequently Budget numbers.'
