The government has extended the PMGKAY scheme to provide 5 kg free foodgrains per month to around 80 crore poor people for another five years. A decision in this regard was taken in the meeting of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday. Giving details on Wednesday, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) has been extended for another five years from January 1, 2024.
The government has extended the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) scheme to provide 5 kilogrammes of free foodgrains per month to around 80 crore poor people for another five years.
'Political protection allow groups to recruit, rearm and operate with reduced operational pressure. That increases their bargaining power and their ability to destabilise.'
The Centre's move on Chandigarh has raised the hackles of various parties in Punjab, with Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal terming it as a "direct attack" on Punjab's identity and constitutional rights.
Concerns over weakening demand for Indian pharmaceutical (pharma) drugs in the US - their largest export market - have weighed heavily on investor sentiment this year. While the Nifty 50 has gained 6.02 per cent year - to - date (as on September 15), the Nifty Pharma index has declined 5.18 per cent, National Stock Exchange data shows.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has brought down the budgetary allocation for the fertiliser subsidy for FY21 to Rs 71,309 crore, from the RE of Rs 79,998 crore for FY20, while increasing food subsidy to FCI through "ways and means advance" to Rs 50,000 crore for FY21, from Rs 36,000 crore in RE for FY20, and under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to Rs 77,982 crore, from Rs 75,000 crore.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Monday described the United Progressive Alliance's ambitious Food Security Bill as nothing but a 'vote security bill'.
According to a parliamentary response by the Union health ministry in 2023, around 654,000 families in Delhi are eligible to enrol under the scheme.
The cancellation means the Leh-based institute will no longer be able to receive or utilise foreign funding.
Shukla shared these details in an 18-minute interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday from the International Space Station that is orbiting the earth at an altitude of 400 km.
The MEA release said that the embassy of India in Kabul will further augment India's contribution to Afghanistan's comprehensive development.
Initially, the additional free benefit under the PMGKAY was provided for a period of three months (April-June 2020) to ameliorate distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, with the crisis continuing, the programme was extended for another five months (July-November 2020).
India's foodgrain requirement is expected to rise to around 61.2 million tonnes against the average procurement of last five years at 51.4 million tonnes.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and Hima Kohli directed the Centre to submit a fresh chart with the number of migrant and unorganised sector workers registered on eShram portal.
The UK formally recognized the state of Palestine, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer emphasizing the need to revive hope for peace and a two-state solution in the Israel-Hamas conflict. The announcement comes amid growing international pressure for a ceasefire and a resolution to the crisis in Gaza.
'The decision to supply free food grains is not an economically sound decision because the government will find it very difficult in future to charge anything for food grains.'
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi criticizes the Modi government's stance on Palestine, calling it a 'profound silence' and an abdication of humanity and morality. She argues that India needs to demonstrate leadership on the issue and that the government's actions are driven by personal friendship rather than constitutional values or strategic interests.
'Pakistan is uncomfortable with the Indian presence in Afghanistan. They want the Taliban to ensure that there is no Indian presence in Afghanistan.'
According to government's estimates, there are around 110 million APL families in the country, who get 11-25 kg of foodgrain a month.
The Supreme Court on Monday came down heavily on certain states for not implementing welfare legislation National Food Security Act, saying that why a state like Gujarat was not implementing the law passed by Parliament.
In a narrow 218-214 vote, the United States House of Representatives on Thursday passed President Donald Trump's massive $4.5 trillion tax and spending bill -- his signature second-term policy package -- just ahead of the July 4 deadline.
The order said 865 villages from 12 tehsils in Belagavi, Karvar, Kalburgi and Bidar have been included under the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Jan Arogya Yojana.
Addressing a separate session on world food security, Thomas said that India's food law marks a paradigm shift in approach to food security -- from being a welfare measure to rights-based approach.
Mrs Gandhi's power ebbed and peaked with the times. Mr Modi's has almost been constant, barring the few months of hard dip after the 240 seats of 2024, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Gandhi urged the prime minister to speak out "clearly, boldly and forthrightly" on behalf of the legacy that India has long represented.
In 2020 India was compelled by China to change its national security strategy. From counter-insurgency, which the army has been focussed on for years, we shifted to conventional war, observes Aakar Patel.
He referred to the Modi government scheme providing five kilograms of ration to the poor every month and said, "The Congress brought the Food Security Act, you did nothing."
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to extend distribution of 5 kg foodgrains per month for free under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to over 80 crore ration card holders for four months till March 2022, a decision that will cost an additional Rs 53,344 crore to the exchequer.
The day-long conference will be chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitely and presided over by both Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the key mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, is being interrogated for eight to ten hours daily by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to unravel a larger conspiracy behind the strikes. Rana, who was extradited from the US, is being grilled by NIA investigators to probe a larger conspiracy behind the attacks, in which 166 people were killed and over 238 injured. He is being allowed to meet his lawyer and is being provided with basic necessities. The investigators hope to find some important leads on his travels in parts of northern and southern India days before the carnage in Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
FBI director Kash Patel confirmed the arrest on X and called the case a "sobering reminder" that the CCP is working to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate American institutions and target the food supply in the US.
The government on Wednesday extended by three months its programme to provide free rations to the poor at a cost of Rs 44,762 crore as it looked to ease pain from high inflation and make political gains in the upcoming Gujarat elections.
The $1.2 billion in-space manufacturing market is expected to grow and be worth more than $20 billion by 2033.
'The protection of secrecy and anonymity gets lost with this linking.'
While India today is vastly different from the India of 1975, the need for vigilance against authoritarianism remains the same, asserts Utkarsh Mishra.
The story of the Bombay Stock Exchange and the people who shaped its growth: From wars and bomb blasts to speculators, reformers and wealth creators.
The finance minister has increased the quantum of rural credit, with particular emphasis on short-term crop loans for small farmers and focussed heavily on improving food storage and processing infrastructure as well as supply chain management.
The government's subsidies on food, fertilisers and petroleum are estimated to decline by 39 per cent to Rs 4,33,108 crore this fiscal and fall further by 27 per cent to nearly Rs 3.18 lakh crore in 2022-23. In its revised Budget (RE) estimate for the 2021-22 fiscal, the government has pegged total subsidies to be at Rs 4,33,108 crore against the actual Budget estimate of Rs 7,07,707 crore in the previous financial year. Out of which, the food subsidy is estimated to decline to Rs 2,86,469 crore in the current fiscal from Rs 5,41,330 crore in 2020-21, while petroleum subsidy is estimated to fall to Rs 6,517 crore from Rs 38,455 crore in the said period.
The court observed that protection of the floodplains aimed to secure the fundamental human right to a clean and healthy environment for Delhi residents and future generations.
A recent study shows that more than 100 million people are excluded from the public distribution system because the central government insists on using 2011 population figures to calculate state-wise PDS coverage, which effectively leaves out 100 million people, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
