West Bengal was the second-most industrialised state in terms of value added and first in terms of number of factories and employment even in the mid-1960s. With a severe and long process of deindustrialisation, it lost its primacy.
Congress accuses Centre of 'protecting' state BJP chief's son.
'Though federal, the Constitution is unitary in nature. All matters relating to revenue are centralised. It is necessary that matters related to finance have to be decentralised... States need more freedom in designing schemes with their interest in mind. There has to be a Constitutional amendment to give more powers to the states. A special session of Parliament should amend the Constitution, especially the 7th Schedule,' Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
Deadline to submit convincing reform plans is this week.
Without some firmer pledge of debt relief, neither Greece nor the IMF is likely to accept a deal
Most top industrialists rate PM's first 100 days in office as 'good', primarily due to his intentions, not concrete policy measures.
With facts and figures, the CAG report has highlighted how Gujarat was far from a role model for states across India, and that the progress made in this province in western India in improving agriculture, education, healthcare and empowerment of women and children, was not exactly creditable, says Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.
'By not letting bankrupt banks fail, we have discouraged ordinary folk from taking precautions while choosing their bank or at least when they hear bad news about their bank,'says S Muralidharan, former MD, BNP Paribas.
Forty years after the declaration of Emergency by Indira Gandhi, the Sunanda K Datta-Ray recalls life when civil rights were suspended and press censorship was in force
The G20 summit has failed to heal the rift over US plans for military action against the embattled Syrian regime, as American President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin could not reach consensus on Friday during "candid and constructive" talks.
'Will 'Make in India' be able to harness the demographic dividend so it does not become a disaster?' 'Will 'Digital India' live up to the lofty promises the government and private sector made as part of its recent launch?'
Xi Jinping has accumulated great power, but he faces trials that are just as great, says Claude Smadja.
The target of $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2020 is doable, feels Anand Sharma.
The Left parties said they have come together to provide an option to the public to provide "people's rule" in the true sense.
'The youth have given New Delhi a chance. Now it is up to the policy-makers in Delhi to respect their political choices.'
Distress sales, market closures and anchoring of fishing fleets have been reported from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
T P Sreenivasan was India's high commissioner in Fiji in 1987, when Sitiveni Rabuka toppled the Indian-dominated government there. Ambassador Sreenivasan stayed on for two years after the coup, fighting for the rights of the people of Indian origin before he was expelled by Rabuka. 'Meeting Sitiveni Rabuka, who had overthrown a democratically elected government, discriminated against the Fiji Indians, brought untold humiliation and suffering to them, tried to disenfranchise them, ordered me out of Fiji and closed down the Indian high commission was a difficult decision to take even after 25 years,' notes Ambassador Sreenivasan who eventually caught up with Rabuka over a game of golf.
This will be an area where bilateral or regional trade pacts may not be able to perform well.
A large chunk of the Rs 8.8 lakh crore of investments the Patnaik government had attracted is in uncertain territory.
The crisis remains acute with the country's banks already closed.
'The corporate sector says by 2022 they will create 300 million jobs.' 'In the last 70 years we didn't do it, how will we do it in 5 years?' 'Only agriculture can bail out the economy. Unfortunately, it is not being looked into.'
'The government's proposal to store citizens' data including Aadhaar data under its Digital India initiative on cloud is violative of the citizens' human rights because the cloud is admittedly beyond India's jurisdiction.'
'Manmohan Singh was blamed for administrative paralysis, but if you speak to any senior bureaucrat today, they are very bitter and say that files do not move. I am told that more than a thousand files are awaiting clearance.'
Jaitley's team presents a quintessential mix of foreign-educated, intellectual technocrats and seasoned bureaucrats
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while addressing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on "Recapturing India's Growth Momentum" in Washington on Thursday, said that the leading think tank need not launch an initiative to explore how India will vote in 2014, declaring that the Indian polity will vote the Congress back into power.
Babulal 'Bob' Bera, US Congressman Ami Bera's 83-year-old father, faces five years in prison.
'India's economy is growing faster compared to the developed economies of the world.' 'More importantly, it is growing faster compared to most of the developing economies.' 'The monsoon is not the only thing that drives the rural economy and certainly not the national economy.' 'It is too simplistic to reduce everything to the monsoon.'
The situation in Greece worsened with banks closed for a 2nd week.
The United Kingdom has voted by 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent to leave the European Union after 43 years in an historic referendum.
'Indian universities are giving out PhDs without adequate evaluation,' charges Dr Satya Narain Jatiya, MP.
'It is impossible for a decent man to live in Kairana town.' 'Any man who is not able to pay extortion money has left Kairana.' 'The people involved in this extortion want it to become a Hindu-Muslim problem.' 'The intention in Kashmir was that if Pandits leave Kashmir, all the property left behind will go to Muslims. The intention is the same in Kairana,'
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who envisioned Make In India last September was at his eloquent best as he made a fervent plea to global businesses to come Make In India.
Let Bihar be damned under its contradictions of having gone 'dry' and then having been submerged under flood, which is a recurrent phenomena? After all it is a godforsaken land, having lost its promises of overcoming its problems, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Even if they score administratively, state governments ruled by the party suffer from an inability to communicate positively, say observers.
'They are acquiring agricultural land almost free of cost promising an illusory rise which is worse than a chit fund scheme.' 'When I went there on a fact-finding mission, we found that one third of the land they plan to acquire is the best agricultural land in the country.'
Biometric authentication is based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that there are parts of human body that does not age, wither and decay with the passage of time.
Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari puts them out of the ambit of Motor Vehicles Act; experts say some regulation, licensing and driver training will be necessary
It hopes to turn around Ranbaxy within four years of closing the deal by improving efficiency and resolving all regulatory issues
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