7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
Tamil Nadu is the celebrated home of the 'social justice' movement in the country, yet caste differences and violence has only been increasing in numbers and becoming more brutal in recent years, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Although the Disaster Management Act for Covid containment measures, considered a hindrance in conducting the census, was withdrawn in March this year the Centre has not taken any further action on conducting the much-delayed population enumeration.
The BJP also promised Rs 25,000 to girls from economically weaker sections under the 'Rani Gaidinliu Nupi Maheiroi Singi Scheme' if voted back to power.
The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the roll-out of the 'PM POSHAN in Schools' scheme that will provide hot cooked meal to students of elementary classes in government and government-aided schools across the country.
'Criticism is one thing, and cynicism is quite another.' 'However, we are undaunted by this negativity because we know the truth.'
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Presenting the budget for the sixth consecutive time in the Assembly, Sisodia said the Delhi government will implement the Ayushman Bharat Yojana of the Centre in the national capital.
She also took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party over its defeat in the just-concluded Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, saying the ruling party's president could not hold on to his home state. "Who is the Pappu now?" she asked.
"If there is an image of Lakshmi-Ganesh on our currency (notes), our country will prosper. I will write to (the) prime minister in a day or two on this," he said at a media briefing.
Greenwashing is making misleading or false environment-friendly claims about a product. Consumers in India currently do not have any way of telling whether a claim is authentic or greenwashing. And one never hears of action against any company for making false claims of being environment-friendly.
General Pande said the northern border region has been peaceful and steps have been taken to maintain peace through established protocol and existing mechanism.
The home minister said the northeast and the Left-wing extremism-affected areas in the country are tribal-dominated regions and security is a precursor to development there.
The demand for extension of the GST cess regime among others was made by several state finance ministers at a pre-budget consultation called by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. Besides, many states also demanded raising the share of the Union government in the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). Currently, the central government and state government share in some CSS is 60:40 while in others it is 75:25.
Sidhu said there would be no need for Amarinder to go for power cuts or to regulate the office timings if the state acts "in the right direction".
Will Annamalai's attacks on the DMK revert the anti-BJP feeling in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Both the people have a perspective and are people of stature and people of understanding'
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to media persons ahead of his interaction with them in New Delhi on Friday
That AAP managed a sizeable vote share in Gujarat is creditable. The BJP can no longer ignore AAP's growing presence in its strongest bastion, explains Ramesh Menon, long-time observer of Gujarat politics.
'If not, we can become frighteningly chaotic, more chaotic than what we are today.' 'In today's environment in the country, we still have a window of opportunity.'
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 caste census has already become a hot-button issue. Unless settled earlier, it will echo loudly in the coming assembly elections and eventually in the 2024 parliamentary poll, notes Virendra Kapoor.
One in five students drop out from school.
The apex court said that 'satisfactory progress' has been made by the Executive in identifying children who have either become orphans or have lost one of their parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Basil had negotiated the Indian economic relief package to help Sri Lanka tackle the current foreign exchange crisis.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
'Who would think of making a bank of poor women? She had vision and boldness.'
With the Uttar Pradesh government set to conduct a survey of private madrassas, proprietors of the theological schools fear that their institutions may be declared illegal and 'run over by bulldozers'.
In the last budget, then finance minister Arun Jaitley had allocated Rs 85,010 crore for the education sector which was later revised to Rs 83,625.86 crore.
'We do not want people who are air dropped and who fly out once the job is done.' 'Ever since liberalisation started, we keep on hearing that it's going to be jobless growth.' 'This speaks of the failure of the foreign returned policy makers.' 'When questions are raised, answers should be given and not a resignation.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has managed to pull off what was unimaginable a year back -- adopting a much-needed centre-left approach, says Devanik Saha.
In a festival gift to borrowers, the finance ministry on Wednesday approved guidelines for a scheme for grant of ex-gratia payment of the difference between compound interest and simple interest for six months of loans up to Rs 2 crore.
Nirmala Sitharaman's messaging was clear when she presented a well-balanced Budget with an eye on state elections in nine states followed by a general election next year, observes Ramesh Menon.
Air India Chairman Rajiv Bansal has been appointed as the new aviation secretary as part of a major top-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Wednesday. K Rajaraman, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs, has been appointed as secretary, department of telecommunications, a personnel ministry order said.
AAP will have to learn to be patient as such electoral changes do not happen in a hurry, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
Since becoming the president of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa has presided over a major restructuring of both the Federal Government and the government of Abu Dhabi.
Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
Contending that the ceasefire agreement was more important for Pakistan as it is desperately trying to come out of the "grey list" of the Financial Action Task Force, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the sincerity of Islamabad could have been gauged if they had dismantled the terror infrastructure.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances