Voted to power with an absolute majority for the first time in nearly three decades, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, considered as an able administrator, promises "a fresh engagement" with the United States, a latest Congressional report has said.
'Defaulters like Mallya can't be offloaded, but activists like me are. And that too for raising questions.' 'Today, what is the meaning of development?' 'Take over land, water and forest from the Adivasis and hand it over to corporates.' 'I am surprised how a minister who is supposed to protect the forests and the environment is happy reaching out to investors for more and more clearances.'
Neither Barack Obama or John F Kerry were involved in the decision for Ambassador Nancy Powell to meet Narendra Modi. Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.
'That is the one headline the world is reading about India this week, and it is a potentially damaging story...' 'I don't think a panic mentality has set in, but this story is one that investors and market watchers are absolutely seized with.'
'I believe one of the most critical issues is the common threat we face from Islamist radicals and the continuing and unimpaired financing of Al Qaeda, the 'D' Company, the Haqqani network, the LeT and the Jaish-e-Muhammed.'
With Narendra Modi about to make his first Independence Day speech, there is a buzz in Delhi that Modi will make some big announcements to signal major reforms and directional shifts. But we have to wait and see if it happens, says Mohan Guruswamy.
'When I talk to my colleagues in the Railways, they say 'aadmi toh bohot hai, lekin matlab ka aadmi ek bhi nahi hai (the Railways has a bloated workforce, but doesn't have employees with have the skillsets that matter)'.'
Ashley J Tellis, a leading authority on Indo-US relations, tells Archis Mohan in an emailed interview that it is time Washington and New Delhi agreed on the contours of their 'strategic partnership', and that India's elite could learn from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in how he has put India's interests first and his own sentiments about the Americans second.
'The speeches of Modi in Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Baghpat and the border areas of Bihar, overplaying the themes of terrorism, izzat of mothers and sisters, are to be read carefully to understand that he is trying to keep the fear of Muslims alive in the Hindu masses,' says Apoorvanand.
The previous government set up a cabinet task force to clear the backlog of projects but failed to make much of an impact.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday cautioned against "commodifying" yoga, saying using it as some sort of business will do great damage to this world heritage.
The apprehensions about Narendra Modi among Muslims will "go away" once he becomes the prime minister as there will be policy initiatives to remove such perception, his close aide Amit Shah said on Sunday.
'The time has come to substitute the present Constitutional set-up with an alternative democratic framework,' argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Crude oil shipments from the US to India rose to the highest levels in November since the conflict began in Ukraine in late February, sparking hopes of a resurgence in oil flows from the US to the subcontinent, reveals shipping data. Shipments from the US have surged as Western nations prepare to impose additional sanctions on Russian crude flows. The US shipped around 450,000 barrels per day of crude last month to India, twice that of shipments in October, according to data from London-based commodity intelligence provider Vortexa.
'If you want to really grow, it has to be geometric progression like it happened at the Centre or Haryana or Tripura, where you made a quantum jump.' 'This is possible in Kerala provided we present a better alternative with a great leadership, but the current leadership is busy fixing each other.'
Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being 'casteist' and 'anti-Dalit', and said his party will always stand against the BJP's 'oppressive' ideology.
'I see you as a man who has split the nation into two. Vajpayee or even Advani would hold it together. One senses you cannot do this. To heal, to apologise, and to glue together a nation seems beyond you,' Shiv Visvanathan tells the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Any NGO critical of the government is unlikely to receive a green signal. The new amendment will leave NGOs vulnerable to harassment. It was the NGO sector that helped provide compassion and food to millions of people during the lockdown. The new Bill will render such cooperation and camaraderie impossible in future, observes Rashme Sehgal.
Narendra Modi, says T V R Shenoy, is 'busy trying to woo back two constituencies that were crucial when the BJP won power in the elections of 1998 and of 1999, namely UP (and the Hindi belt in general) and educated youth.'
'During his visit to Vietnam on September 3 -- the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 15 years -- Modi will notice the widespread anti-China sentiment in that country.'
There is a need for tax reforms in the country in a bolder way, Singh said.
'The Modi government has been taking credit for improvement in respect of the ease of doing business in India.' 'But when I look at the scams I cannot help feeling that it is too easy to do business with banks in India, if one is a Harshad Mehta, Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi and their tribe,' says former Union home secretary Madhav Godbole.
Meaningful devolution of spending power to states could spread more confidence on the ground and stir precisely the sort of change Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised.
Instead of a consumption stimulus the government must address the NPA issue with a war footing and invest in infrastructure, affordable housing and exports, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'The promises of netas and babus and new laws, however well-meaning, mean little.' 'What matters is implementation on the ground.' 'Every law is finally implemented by a vast army of offici
Modi's Make in India will work only if the cost of borrowing comes down.
India, with the right blend of the physical and the virtual, can emerge as the global nerve centre of complex modern multinational supply chains in the post COVID-19 world.
Suspended Indian Administrative Service officer Pradeep Sharma, who took on Narendra Modi over the snoopgate scandal when he was the Gujarat chief minister, was arrested on Tuesday in a corruption case, a day after the Enforcement Directorate attached his properties for alleged money laundering.
A pro rata expansion of that number for 100 Gw means investing that much every year.
If the PM wishes to be re-elected in 2019, there are a few things he needs to learn from his predecessor
'Make cash available now, don't put people into suffering.' 'You should not come to a situation where the operation was successful and the patient is dying.' 'What did not happen in India for several years, you cannot do in 50 days.' 'This is agony and pain.'
The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
Rajeev Srinivasan on how India has continued to disappoint, but could outdo Singapore one day.
The PM said that the Supreme Court has conducted the highest number of hearings via video-conferencing in the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
Estimates suggest Sina Weibo has over 500 million users.
Three years after the prime minister's election promise that his government would create 10 million jobs, the emerging picture is not pretty. Employment HAS TO take on a critical status in the government's agenda, says Shyamal Majumdar.
Cleo Paskal attends a Mumbai vote-counting party in Mumbai that looked at the coming Modi Sarkar with hope and optimism.
Despite recent developments that have accelerated the impending extradition of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, who has been in custody in London's Wandsworth Prison for over two years, the last month has seen his uncle Mehul Choksi dominate the headlines instead with his circus-like exhibition in the Caribbean that has involved red herrings such as a "girlfriend", to whom his wife seemed to have no objection, and possibly concocted stories of being kidnapped and manhandled. Choksi was widely regarded as Modi's Svengali in Mumbai when he returned from Belgium to expand his business. He had fled to Antigua well before news around how Modi finagled thousands of crores from Punjab National Bank (PNB) and other institutions through a series of allegedly coordinated and fraudulent actions involving letters of undertaking, or LoUs.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
'The approach today is, instead of giving loans to 100 MSMEs, let us give one loan to a big-ticket corporate.' 'And so many of these big fish deceived the banks and the banks are in the doldrums now with high NPAs.'
