It will be interesting to see whether India-China border tensions figure during the deliberations of PLA deputies to the NPC and CPPCC, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
Railways to hive off all production units and workshops into new govt-owned company; may invite bids from private players to run passenger trains in next 15 days, with ownership vesting with the government.
Rediff.com does a quick checklist on what the two manifestos have to say on hot-button issues of the day.
Most of the scanty 6.35% rise in the defence budget is accounted for by manpower and running expenses.
Deadline to submit convincing reform plans is this week.
The minister plans to reinstate the Railways as the backbone of the economy
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.
'The non-implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, almost a year after it was implemented for civilians, is gradually beginning to hurt morale in the armed forces,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
Yoga sessions will be organized for central government employees and their dependents by the 'Grih Kalyan Kendra', a welfare society working under the aegis of the Centre.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the nation for the seventh time from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day on Saturday and it will be his second speech of the second term in office.
After assuming power in 2014 with a full majority of its own, the BJP-led NDA government started an ambitious process of reforming labour laws in the form of codes aimed at making the framework less cumbersome with a variety of alterations. It had planned four codes each for industrial relations, wages, social security and welfare, and occupational safety, health and working conditions. To this end, 35 central labour laws were to be converted into four codes that would have had the virtue of streamlining labour relations. But none of the proposed code Bills could be converted into a law principally because neither trade unions nor industry representatives came on board. They hold the key to India's low-growth-high unemployment paradigm but the government may struggle to push them through this time as well. Somesh Jha explains why
The country's new economic roadmap highlights the importance of creating a virtuous cycle of investment, savings and exports in order to sustain rapid economic growth over the next five years.
Long-term funding was a requirement for infrastructure projects, and asset-liability mismatch in the banking system, impacts the access to finance for infrastructure projects. One of the key challenges would, however, be to get private sector back into investing.
The march, which commenced from Nashik on March 6, will culminate in Mumbai on Monday and protestors plan to gherao the Vidhan Bhavan where the Budget session of the state legislature is underway, said organisers.
Many exemptions make little sense, such as a monthly exemption of Rs 100 for college education and Rs 300 for hostel fees.
A way out of the economic slump is to revisit the template of 15 years ago and follow its constituents, recommends Ajay Shah.
Universal basic income or social security? Economist Nitin Desai feels we need a blueprint for universal health care and pensions to help the vulnerable section.
'An expanding army, rising salaries due to the 7th pay commission, and raised pensions due to OROP are consuming money at the cost of badly needed bulletproof jackets, rifles, artillery, submarines, warships and fighter aircraft,' notes Ajai Shukla.
What does Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee thinks about India's education sector?
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
The defence sector is seeing renewed interest by Indian corporates, says Jyoti Mukul
In other welfare schemes, such as those for cooking gas, pension and scholarships, which are linked to DBT, cash is transferred directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.
It is easy to criticise but difficult to transform an institution, says CJI Misra
The Modi government has not lived up to the muscularity the prime minister promised while campaigning, says Ajai Shukla
'We should hope and pray that the PM's sentiment is not held ransom by machinations and craftiness of a few junior babus who throw in an imaginary impediment at every welfare measure and snigger and giggle at the sidelines every time a soldier is ill at ease,' says Major Navdeep Singh on the one rank one pension debate.
Recently, the government announced yet another ambitious scheme aimed at providing health insurance to 50 crore individuals.
Air India must tighten costs to comes out of the red or it wil perish in no time, says experts.
The defence minister clearly asserted that there will be no budgetary constraints to enhance the capability of the Army and meeting its other requirements.
The Budget will 'further reignite our growth engine, signalling the dawn of a prosperous future.'
Here are the key highlights of the Interim Budget 2019-20 presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal in the Lok Sabha on Friday.
Khan in his maiden speech at the 74th UNGA session suggested that nuclear-armed Pakistan may not have much of a choice if a conventional war were to break out between Pakistan and India which he described as a country seven-times its size.
The key gain from using Aadhaar will be a drastic cut in impersonation and fictitious identities, thereby plugging a major loophole through which a lot of leakage in subsidy payment takes place.
SBI has been reeling under a mountain of bad loans for the past few years as the key sectors in the economy are faltering.
In April, the US stopped funding to WHO as the Trump administration reviewed the ties.
If new goals have emerged, this is the time to make fresh investments.
'Now, we have a minimum pension of Rs 1,000 annually.'
While diligent paperwork helps claim tax benefits, with employers under pressure from the government, any lapse in documentation by an employee will lead to sharp cuts in salary.
Rajiv Chandrashekhar, Rajya Sabha MP, explains that the argument that other government servants are eligible for OROP is incorrect and the comparison is laughable.
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