Rangeela's presence in the fray could have been trifle uncomfortable for Modi. He may not have posed an electoral challenge to the prime minister, but Rangeela's public meetings could have seen people flocking, if only to hear him mimic Modi. In a completely Modi-centric election, the presence of a 'rival' -- if only for a smattering of audience at his meetings -- would not have been particularly appreciated by Modi, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
The result is a big blow to the military establishment, revealing the limits of 'political engineering'. It reflected the anger of the electorate, especially its younger voters, who have spoken decisively against the persistent harassment and victimisation of Imran Khan's political party, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Will BJP campaigners start using the term 'Ram Rajya' to refer to the nation under Modi's rule, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi said today "we all have reached an important and historic partnership".
The government had committed to increasing spending in infrastructure
Adani Power, part of the Adani group, plans to add close to 6 gigawatts (Gw) of new power assets in the next five years, according to an investor presentation by the company. That is clearly meant to ride on India's burgeoning power demand. But there is another side to it: All of this new capacity is expected to be thermal power, or power produced from coal.
Neither the BJP, nor the Congress before it, made any manifesto commitments on defence spending, even though allocations have plummeted from 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1980s to less than 2 per cent today, points out Ajai Shukla.
Trinamool Congress is the second highest recipient of political donations through electoral bonds.
Narendra Modi is India's most successful prime minister and the greatest global leader of current generation, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said on Wednesday as he flaunted his group Reliance Industries' Gujarati heritage and its over USD 150 billion (Rs 12 lakh crore) investment in last 10 years.
'I'm talking about that predator in your house, and how one should protect one's children from him.'
Yes. Whilst public expenditure is kicking in, the key reason is the decline in private investment
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday said it has arrested Jaffer Sadiq, a Tamil Nadu-based alleged dealer of narcotics, in connection with an international drugs trafficking investigation case.
India's first-ever Olympic medallist in women's boxing Mary Kom has been honoured with the Global Indian Icon of the Year award at the annual UK-India Awards in Windsor.
With land acquisition completed and infrastructure work streamlined, India's bullet train dreams are slowly, but finally, inching closer to reality.
Mahua asserted that despite all efforts by the Bharatiya Janata Party to "sound the death knell" for constitutional democracy, India is too great a country to be destroyed by the fascists.
The project is the largest investment undertaken by any private sector entity in CSP in India.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
Of the eight RBI governors who have held office since the 1991 economic liberalisation, Bimal Jalan had the longest stint and S Venkitaramanan, the shortest. Current Governor Shaktikanta Das will overtake Bimal Jalan before completing his second term in December, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Elections in Jammu and Kashmir can be held "anytime from now" as the work on updation of voters list is almost over, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Thursday but remained non-committal about setting a time-frame for restoration of statehood to the Union territory (UT).
To curb mis-selling of policies and rationalise commissions, radical changes have been proposed to help investors.
The poll panel also referred to the instances of "inappropriate vocabulary and language" used during the ongoing campaign by persons, "in particular, by those invested with the statutory status of star campaigner".
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
In the first nine months of financial year 2022-23, India's exports of medical devices have grown by 17 per cent, while imports have declined by around 8 per cent, show the latest data compiled by the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD). However, import of 30 medical devices from China has risen between 25 per cent and 152 per cent during this period, the AiMeD has written to Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal in March. The AiMeD is an umbrella organisation of medical device makers.
Holding their first comprehensive Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in Beijing on Monday, India and China have reached an understanding to deepen bilateral investment cooperation, further open up markets to each other and improve the investment environment.
The Commerce Ministry earlier this week commissioned a study to assess the impact of free trade agreement with South Korea, with which India had a trade deficit of about $9 billion in 2012-13.
The further expansion and upgrade of the Chinese military does not augur well for India, which continues to confront an increasingly belligerent China on its borders, notes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Ajay Banga was on Wednesday appointed the next president of the World Bank, becoming the first-ever Indian-American to head the global financial institution which said it looks forward to working with him at a time when it's tackling the toughest development challenges facing developing countries. "The executive directors of the World Bank today selected Ajay Banga as president of the World Bank for a five-year term beginning June 2, 2023," the bank said in a press statement. In February, President Joe Biden announced that the US would be nominating Banga, 63, to lead the World Bank because he is "well equipped" to lead the global institution at "this critical moment in history."
For the longest time, the court did not even hear important matters that the government did not want it to. Of late, it has begun to form benches. Meanwhile a lot of the damage has been done and continues to be done, asserts Aakar Patel.
The company signed a JV agreement with Coal India to set up 5000 Mw of solar and thermal projects. These projects are expected to commence between 2023 and 2027.
In a major relief to Indian information technology (IT) companies operating in Australia, Canberra has agreed to amend its domestic laws to stop taxing offshore income of such Indian companies, as part of the free trade deal inked. This may lead to savings up to $200 million each year for over 100 Indian IT companies operating in Australia. "The Government of Australia has agreed to amend the domestic taxation law to stop the taxation of offshore income of Indian firms providing technical services to Australia. "This will resolve the issue that the Indian government has raised about the double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) between the two governments for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income," said a commerce ministry official.
Google, in its latest appeal to the Supreme Court, has said the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is protecting Amazon's interests after having complained that India's anti-competition body (CCI) had copied part of a European Commission ruling against it for allegedly abusing the market dominance of Android. The latest twist to the Google-CCI case comes as Google filed an appeal in the Supreme Court on June 26, against the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's (NCLAT's) March 29 order. The tech giant's contention is that the NCLAT failed to apply the "effect analysis" part in the CCI order.
India's high commission in Canada said on Wednesday that the country's officials will resume processing some types of visa applications for Canadians applying from across the country as well as abroad.
Pai is the fourth Indian-American to become part of Trump's administration.
Addressing a BJP rally, Modi said after he levelled the "10 per cent commission" charge against the Siddaramaiah dispensation recently, he received many calls, with people disputing his information about the cut it received, and claiming it was much more.
The 64-year-old Planning Commission, a vestige of the socialist era, will soon become history.
Extreme poverty in India declined by 38 million in 2021 to 167.49 million after a surge in the two preceding years, but remained above the 2018 level, the latest World Bank data shows. While for most countries poverty rose in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the global economy, the data shows poverty shot up in India a year earlier in 2019 to 176.09 million from 151.79 million in 2018, the lowest pre-pandemic count. India's poverty rate at 11.9 per cent in 2021 also remained higher than the 2018 level of 11.09 per cent, though easing from 14.72 per cent in 2020.
Policymakers should aspire to restore the pre-Independence environment where the rupee was trusted and used all over South Asia, in Southeast Asia, in West Asia, and in East Africa, suggests Ajay Shah.
The equity cult has grown at a rapid pace in India in the last few years, with retail investors latching on to the stock markets like never before. At 126.6 million, the number of dematerialised (demat) accounts, where investors hold their securities in electronic form for trading purposes, are at record high levels. The growth rate, on an annualised basis, stood at 27 per cent in 2022-2023, up from barely 6 per cent a decade ago.
Expressing its keenness to invest in infrastructure development projects in India, Singapore on Friday said it was considering making investments in the modernisation of airports in the country.
'Revision of the base year for both CPI and GDP are long overdue.' 'The basic data that went into the 2011-2012 series were mainly from surveys done in 2011 or earlier.' 'We have since seen the emergence of new sectors like platform-based work and online marketing.' 'The employment surveys and the consumption surveys need to reflect these adequately.'
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