Anna Hazare's demand for right to recall elected representatives and reject candidates is not feasible in a huge country like India, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Friday and claimed that the provision, if implemented, would only create political instability.
India has said any unilateral armed action against Iran is totally 'unacceptable and undesirable' and should be disapproved of by the international community. "In respect of Iran, I entirely agree with the Egyptian Foreign Minister that there should be no armed engagement. In fact we are against any coercive engagement," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said after holding talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit in Cairo on Thursday night.
Food inflation numbers have moderated every week since early November when it stood at double-digit.
The weekly inflation figure is the highest during the past one year. Soaring onion and other vegetables' prices led to the sharp rise in inflation at 18.32 per cent for the week that ended on Christmas, up from 14.44 per cent recorded in the previous week.
Mukherjee, along with Parliamentary Affairs Minister PK Bansal and Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal, held meetings with BSP leader Satish C Mishra and RJD chief Lalu Prasad as the debate was underway in the Rajya Sabha in effort to woo them
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is likely to meet United States President George W Bush on Monday and brief him on the progress in the negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the India-US nuclear agreement.Mukherjee will also be holding discussions with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top officials of the Bush administration. The visit takes place within days of Mukherjee stating that India can neither mend nor end the deal.
Speaking about the challenges and the opportunities of development in a globalised era, Mukherjee said, sustaining high growth over an extended period has become more complex.
A range of regional and international issues were discussed during the 30-minute meeting Senators Russel D Feingold and Robert P Casey Jr held with Mukherjee. Asked whether the nuclear agreement came up during the deliberations, Feingold said the two sides discussed a wide range of issues including the deal.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was aware of the contents of the controversial 2G note which was issued as an office memorandum at the insistence of the Prime Minister's Office, a top official told the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Thursday.
Asking the state finance ministers to resolve the pending issues expeditiously, the Centre on Thursday said introducing Goods and Services Tax was critical for economic reforms.
'Declared war was not there but there were attacks and counter-attacks and that is the reality,' the Union defence minister revealed.
Giving a pat on the back of public sector banks, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the Indian banking sector has responded well to difficult global environment by meeting credit needs of the economy.
On a three-day visit to Seoul since Sunday, he made it clear that the increasing cooperation between India and the US was not aimed at containing China.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee arrived in Washington, DC on Monday to participate in the India-US economic partnership dialogue, during which he is expected to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said Indian diplomacy needed to acquire an economic perspective to its thinking and strategic approach, for furthering the country's interests in the changing global order.
Responding to the price rise debate in Lok Sabha, Mukherjee said that it should be tackled by leaders across all the political parties.
The government proposed to borrow about Rs 4.5 lakh crore (Rs 4.5 trillion) from the money market during the current fiscal against Rs 3.1 lakh crore (Rs 3.1 trillion) in the previous fiscal.
He noted that some areas were in adverse possession of Bangladesh.
Backing for Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee got further boost with United Progressive Alliance constituent Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam endorsing his name for the post of President over which the Congress hopes to build a consensus across the political spectrum.
During the nearly two-hour meeting that lasted almost till midnight at 10 Janpath, Mukherjee, the government's pointsman on the deal with United Progressive Alliance allies and the Left parties, and Antony apprised Sonia of the talks they had with leaders of the constituents of the ruling alliance and the Communist Party of India-Marxist and CPI in the last two days. Emerging from the meeting, neither Mukherjee nor Antony spoke to the media.
In a special gesture, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday visited cyclone-ravaged areas in Bangladesh and assured that India will extend all possible assistance to the neighbouring country in their hour of crisis.
In a major development in the Congress, the party has formed an informal committee comprising General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, spokesperson Janardan Dwivedi, political secretary to Sonia Gandhi Ahmed Patel and Defence Minister AK Antony to look into the party's affairs, as the Congress president will be away since she is undergoing treatment in the United States.
The landmark India-US civil nuclear deal of 2008, brokered during Manmohan Singh's tenure as Prime Minister, is seen as a crowning achievement in his foreign policy legacy. The agreement ended India's nuclear isolation, fostered a strategic partnership with the US, and opened doors to advanced technologies and defense cooperation. This historic deal also laid the groundwork for India's engagement with the global nuclear community.
Earlier in the day, the White House said that it would be monitoring the progress on the Chinese assurance that it would be making its currency more flexible. It also said that currency, indeed, would be one of the topics of discussions during upcoming G-20 Summit in Toronto.
A day after India handed over answers to the 30 questions asked by Pakistan, on the terror attack in Mumbai last November, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said he expected Islamabad to follow up its commitment with 'tangible action'."Words and commitments should be followed by tangible action," he told reporters when asked whether he was satisfied with Pakistan's handling of the investigation into the Mumbai attacks.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said Indian markets cannot remain immune to the Eurozone debt problems and will feel the impact if the $1 trillion bailout package by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund does not inspire confidence.
'Rahul Gandhi's problem is that he doesn't think big.' 'He looks more like an activist, while politics is like a game of chess. You attack and then defend and have a game-plan.'
Food inflation for the week ending January 1 slipped to 16.91 per cent from the year's high of 18.32 per cent a year ago during the previous week.
Ending months of speculation, the ruling coalition met on Friday evening at the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh where its Chairperson Sonia Gandhi put forward the name of the 77-year-old veteran Congressman from West Bengal as its candidate, which was unanimously approved by the leaders of the constituent parties
Russia is a perfect partner for defence co-operation and both countries could exploit opportunities for mutual benefit, Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Saturday.
India and China will hold a new round of negotiations on the vexed border issue which is an area of 'differences and divergences' despite bilateral relations having witnessed 'visible improvement', External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday. He said both countries have an established mechanism at the level of special representatives to deal with the border issue at the political level. "They have completed 12 rounds of talks," he said.
After the announcement of the death of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran, the Congress on Monday said the Sri Lankan issue is a sensitive one and External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the matter. "Sri Lanka is a sensitive issue, our foreign minister is meeting the prime minister. The government of India will contact the Sri Lankan government to ascertain the facts,"said a Congress leader.
Headline inflation for March stood at 8.98 per cent, while food inflation was at 8.76 per cent for the week ended April 16.
The government on Tuesday attributed higher economic growth projected in the mid-year economic analysis for this fiscal than the Economic Survey to robust economic expansion in the first half.It, however, cautioned against the impact of fragile European recovery on Indian economy.
Rebuffing China's claim on Arunachal Pradesh, India on Sunday asserted that the north eastern state is its integral part and ruled out ceding any of its part.
The minister recalled the steps taken by the government to deal with general inflation, which was in the negative zone in June-August, 2009, and had since risen to 9.9 per cent in March, 2010.
Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi has not resigned, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha on Thursday
The Left parties were on Tuesday subjected to ridicule by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who suggested that they were not keeping pace with the "moving" world and contended that the UPA would have met its Waterloo if it had followed economic prescription of erstwhile allies.
"Iran is our longtime ally and about 40 lakh Indians are residing in West Asia. Prior to taking any step, the programme's objective should be ascertained," he told media persons in Gwalior.
Ahead of crucial Indo-Pak talks, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said his trip to Pakistan was a 'goodwill visit" and that he is not going with any fixed agenda or "any expectation".
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