A labour ministry note sent to the rural development ministry (MoRD) says the minimum wage notified in each state - often higher than the NREGA set one - has to be paid. But MoRD has written to the PMO that the NREGA enactment has clauses that exempt it from all other laws, including the Minimum Wages Act. Hence, MoRD is not legally obliged to pay at any other rate.
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
"Keeping in view the ongoing CBI investigation in the matter, disclosure of information may be withheld for the present, in terms of Section 8 (1)(h) of the RTI Act," the PMO said in reply to an RTI query.
In a recent circular, the cabinet secretariat has told all ministries that if they find that either the PMO or the cabinet secretariat have been made parties in a court case relating to their department, they should immediately implead themselves as respondents and try to get the names of the principal secretary to the prime minister and the cabinet secretariat removed as respondents.
The party prayed for the removal of the advertisement and action against its authors and publishers.
The Central Information Commission has issued a show-cause notice to Prime Minister's Office for not replying to an RTI query filed nearly one-and-a-half years ago.
The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Prime Minister's Office officials for not holding a meeting of Cauvery River Authority, headed by the Prime Minister, to resolve the water-sharing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
At least three Israelis were killed and six others injured when Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem, breaking an uneasy peace in the city since the outbreak of the current round of violence in the region.
Addressing an election rally in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol, Gandhi claimed the 'Agniveer Yojana' was conceptualised by the prime minister but the Army doesn't want this scheme.
The complete dossier containing evidence linking Pakistan-based terrorists to the Mumbai attacks was handed over by the Home Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office to help it raise the issue with the Pakistani delegation, official sources said.
Launching a vitriolic attack on Team Anna, Union Minister V Narayanasamy on Saturday charged that Anna Hazare was surrounded by "anti-national elements" and those supported by "foreign forces". "Anna is a simple man, but he is surrounded by anti-national elements and people who have been supported by foreign forces," the minister of state in PMO told the media at Chennai airport.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
Forwarding a letter written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, wherein the younger Ambani had sought a direction to the ministry of petroleum and natural gas 'to cease from overtly and covertly attempting to intervene in our commercial dispute with RIL," the PMO asked the ministry to examine the matter and submit their comments urgently.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had first on June 27, 2013, and then on December 19, 2013, decided to price all domestically produced natural gas, including unconventional fuels such as coal-bed methane and shale gas, at an average of international hub rates and the cost of importing liquefied natural gas.
Pulok Chatterjee, secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, has been appointed as executive director in the World Bank
Government websites -- including those of the Prime Minister's Office, home and petroleum ministries, and the department of telecommunications -- were out of service for many hours on Monday. An official attributed the cause to firewall problems.
The Prime Minister's Office has told the Central Information Commission that it cannot declassify files related to freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose as it will adversely affect relations with foreign countries.
It is possible to be blind to this and pretend to carry on as if nothing has happened but that will not change the reality, asserts Aakar Patel.
A woman official from the Research and Analysis Wing allegedly tried to commit suicide on Tuesday by consuming poison right outside the Prime Minister's Office in a dramatic incident that brought the country's external intelligence agency in public gaze yet again.The employee, identified as Nisha Bhatia, was posted at the training centre of the RAW in Gurgaon and had alleged sexual harrassment by her superiors.The government has already constituted an inquiry.
At a time when the defence ministry was considering his date of birth issue, Army Chief General V K Singh had approached the prime minister's office seeking its intervention in the matter.
The prime minister's office on Sunday dismissed suggestions that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had sought to look the other way in issuance of controversial 2G spectrum licenses and said suggestions had been made informally to the Department of Telecom to ensure that there was level-playing field between the existing operators and new entrants.
Is the Modi government serious about the safety of women in India?
The CPIO had said that the file was destroyed in 1972 during the routine process of review and weeding of old records.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
'He is trying to divert attention. The media is creating unnecessary hype. When Raja says he was doing things at PMO's behest it does not necessarily mean that the prime minister is involved. Dr Manmohan Singh is a person who needs to be revered than merely praised,' says Constitutional expert Fali S Nariman.
'Why do they talk about Narendra Modi insulting Oommen Chandy when he himself informed the PMO that he would not be available? Why did he write to Delhi that he was preoccupied on the 15th? After that, he should not make such noise about the function.'
Earlier, 40 MPs had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the intentional delay in appointing the chairmen.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday exchanged jibes over the red diary that a sacked state minister claims records financial misdeeds of the CM and his colleagues.
The Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday sought to dismiss the alleged nexus between realty giant DLF and Priyanka Gandhi's husband Robert Vadra as 'false'. An affidavit filed by PMO Joint Secretary Dheeraj Gupta before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court termed as "false, vexatious and based on hearsay" the allegations about DLF having extended undue favours to Robert Vadra.
They have three children: Xavier (15), Ella-Grace (14), and Hadrien (9).
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
'The question is: Who misrepresented the facts to the then PM? It was not A Raja but Pulok Chatterjee, in consultation with T K A Nair, as he had suppressed the most relevant and controversial part of the letter of A Raja from the then Prime Minister,' says the special CBI judge in his 2G spectrum case verdict.
The ball is now in the government's court to decide on the contentious issues on OBC quota including the creamy layer with the Moily Committee submitting its final report to the Prime Minister's Office.
The Prime Minister's Office has sought clarity on a Rs 57-crore project of Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi to establish an India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management at Dwarka in New Delhi as the Cabinet note did not contain comments from various union ministries.
The People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, leading the protest against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant, on Saturday threatened to sue the Prime Minister's Office for linking the stir to foreign funding.
In a letter dated November 30, the PMO asked the commerce ministry to prepare a detailed note on the venture, in the anticipation that it would come up for discussion in Parliament.
Why is the Indian cricket team still using the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) logo which resembles 'Star of India' honour given by the British to their favourite princes in colonial times?
