Mandaviya said this is the second phase of the Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package as the Central government had given Rs 15,000 crore earlier for setting up Covid-dedicated hospitals and health centres across the country.
'Whatever ED officers do -- issue summons, conduct searches or arrest a person -- they have to face the courts.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the much-awaited 2022-23 Union Budget on February 1. While there has been strong recovery in some sectors, touch services like hospitality, tourism and leisure continue to suffer after two Covid-19 waves. Household savings have been hit due to increased spending on health care. Consumption has still not reached pre-pandemic levels.
The government last month had approved a plum Rs 69,000 crore revival package for BSNL and MTNL that includes merging the two loss-making firms, monetising their assets and offering VRS to employees so that the combined entity turns profitable in two years.
To improve compliance, govt may introduce lottery reward for filing GST. The Consumer Welfare Fund, where anti-profiteering proceeds are deposited, will be used to reward the lucky winners on monthly and annual bases. The prize money, yet to be fixed, may run into several lakhs of rupees for the annual draw, and about Rs 50,000 for monthly draws.
He recalled that the state was home to Vaishali, said to be the oldest republic in the world.
'From March 2020 to November 2021, the combined wealth of the billionaires of this country has doubled.'
Party insiders concede statements of the Raja kind have the potential to hurt the DMK's electoral chances in closely-fought seats in 2024, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday held a review meeting on credit guarantee scheme with heads of public sector banks, and asked them to expedite loan disbursement under the Rs 3-lakh crore ECLGS for MSME sector, hit hard by coronavirus-induced lockdown. The meeting on Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) was held through video conference, and the minister appreciated the efforts of banks in execution of the scheme.
'You have to be a total anti-national bozo to shut down the Nokia plant in Sriperumbudur, which was the first large manufacturing plant for mobile phones in India.' 'Why was the unit shut down? Because of somebody's ego.'
The World Bank has retained India's economic growth forecast for the current fiscal at 8.3 per cent as the recovery is yet to become broad-based. As per the first advanced estimates of the national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last week, the economy is projected to grow at 9.2 per cent in 2021-22, surpassing pre-COVID level in actual terms, mainly on account of improved performance, especially in farm, mining and manufacturing sectors. "India's economy is expected to expand by 8.3 per cent in fiscal year 2021/22 (ending March 2022), unchanged from last June's forecast as the recovery is yet to become broad-based.
Afghanistan is "heading towards civil war" and terror group Al Qaeda "will probably come back" as the security situation in the region continues to deteriorate, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Friday.
In a far-reaching verdict, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and the election commissioners will be done by the President on the recommendation of a committee, comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the CJI, to maintain the "purity" of the electoral process.
The country's exports are expected to contract by 5.8 per cent and imports by 11.3 per cent during the second half of the current financial year, though implementation of several measures by the government would help support exports going forward, according to the Economic Survey 2021. With gradual recovery of economic activities, the survey said that imports and exports have picked up. During the first half of 2020-21 (April-September), exports dipped by 21.31 per cent to $125.25 billion while imports declined by 40 per cent to $148.69 billion.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson led the tributes with UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street for the National Health Service (NHS) and other key workers across care homes and public transport at 11 am local time. So far 82 NHS staff are known to have died after testing positive for the coronavirus, including many with their roots in India.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the provisions of the Special Protection Group Act and contents of the Blue Book are "comprehensive" in ensuring proximate security of the prime minister and other SPG protectees, and any lapse in following these can lead to "devastating and serious consequences".
The Indian economy can contract by 7.7 per cent in current financial year ending on March 31 and the growth could be 11 per cent in the next financial year, according to the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The contraction in FY21 is mainly due to coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and the visible damage caused by the subsequent countrywide lockdown to contain it. The survey unveiled two days before the Union Budget is broadly in line with forecasts by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which has said it expected the country's GDP to contract by 7.5 per cent in the year ending March 31.
Most insurers aren't comfortable with subscribing to the National Pension System as they see it as competition.
The three initiatives are - pro-bono legal services, tele law and Nyaya Mitra
The Reserve Bank on Monday superseded the boards of Srei Infrastructure Finance as well as Srei Equipment Finance, citing concerns over governance and payment defaults, and decided to refer the two NBFCs for resolution under the insolvency law. This is only the second time in as many years that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is referring entities for the resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) after taking first ever such step in the case of DHFL back in 2019. Superseding the boards of the crisis-hit Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited (SIFL) and Srei Equipment Finance Limited (SEFL), the RBI has appointed Rajneesh Sharma, former Chief General Manager of Bank of Baroda as the administrator to manage the affairs of the two companies.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday night announced a statewide curfew in Maharashtra for 15 days from April 14. However, he clarified, essential services were exempt from the curbs.
'How can I pursue my dream forgoing my identity? I want to fly as a trans man.'
Here's what could be ahead for India: A $10-trillion economy by 2030-32, a Sensex at 1,00,000 by 2025, monthly GST revenues at Rs 2 trillion by 2024-25, 100 new unicorns by 2025, and poverty below 5 per cent by 2030, predicts R Jagannathan.
In a bid to incentivise its staff and improve their performance, Air India may soon offer them employee stock options (ESOPs). The erstwhile national carrier, which was acquired by the salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group last year, will be the second company in the Group to have an ESOP policy. Tata Motors is the other Group company with an ESOP policy, which was implemented in 2018.
'When resources are few; when frugality demands repairing a broken thing rather than replacing it with a brand new and expensive option, enterprising commoners in rural and urban India improvise on a daily basis and solve their problems with whatever they have,' observes Shivanand Kanavi.
Expressing commitment to augment the country's infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday proposed to significantly enhance capital expenditure to Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the next fiscal, besides creating institutional structures and giving a big thrust to monetizing assets to achieve the goals of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Sitharaman said NIP, that was launched in December 2019 with 6,835 projects, has now been expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure ministries have been completed. "For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided Rs 5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21," the finance minister said.
The prime minister was apparently referring to Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg's controversial 'toolkit', which she tweeted and then deleted, outlining ways in which people can participate in the farmers protest.
Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors. "It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the nation where he announced the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes with effect from midnight on November 8-9.
Under the Vivad se Vishwas scheme, the MNCs will have to bring in disputed amount to India, else, the entire money will be considered as loan from subsidiaries on which interest will have to be paid.
'Every Indian knows why the BJP is targeting Hamid Ansari.'
On the completion of two years of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said his government ushered a historic increase in the minimum support price (MSP) for crops and was doing everything possible to double the income of farmers.
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
The Yes Bank Reconstruction Scheme 2020, shall come into force on March 13, the gazette notification said.
Of the cash outgo, Rs 64,598 crore is for enhanced expenditure on fertiliser subsidy under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 and Rs 20,466 crore for the capital outlay in defence services.
The government on Monday ruled out the possibility of free food-grains distribution to migrants saying there is no panic situation and no complete national lockdown unlike last year.
India is investing in developing indigenous capabilities in 5G and 6G telecom technologies besides focusing on manufacturing semi-conductors, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. In a virtual address at the Sydney Dialogue, the prime minister said the "greatest product" of technology today is data and that India has created a robust framework of data protection, privacy and security. "And, at the same time, we use data as a source of empowerment of people. India has unmatched experience in doing this in a democratic framework with strong guarantees of individual rights," he said.
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