'Currently, our individual first premium would be in the Rs 3,000-Rs 3,200 crore range. We want to take that to about Rs 6,000 crore in three years.'
The government has approved the 'Terms of Reference' for the 16 Finance Commission, which makes recommendations on sharing of tax revenues between the Centre and states. The recommendations would cover a five-year period commencing April 1, 2026, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said on Wednesday, giving details about the decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting last evening. The commission would submit its report by October 31, 2025, Thakur said.
A 24-hour control room was set up in the neighbouring district of Wayanad following the Nipah outbreak in Kozhikode
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Wednesday announced five guarantees for women, including annual direct cash transfers of Rs 1 lakh to one woman from each of the country's poorest families and 50 per cent quota in all new recruitments in central government jobs.
The Congress' strength in the 230-member MP assembly came down to 65 after Shah's exit.
High drama was witnessed during the Himachal Pradesh Cabinet meeting on Saturday with ministers Jagat Negi and Rohit Thakur leaving midway following a 'heated debate' over policy decisions, sources said.
To make the scheme attractive, the government has announced a rate structure wherein the operators may take the optical fibre on lease and provide broadband connectivity to customers.
Strongly defending Khap Panchayats (caste councils), Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Saturday said they don't order "honour killings" and most such cases involve relatives of boys or girls, whose relations are opposed by their families.
Trinamool Congress supporters celebrate their party candidates' victory in the West Bengal panchayat elections 2023, at counting centres in North 24 Parganas, Howrah and Birbhum on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.
With an eye on next year's panchayat polls, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday showered more sops on the Muslim community, including new loan schemes and an employment bank. The announcement comes days after she declared a monthly honorarium and housing subsidy for imams in the state.
The Odisha assembly has a strength of 147 MLAs while there are 21 Lok Sabha MP seats in the state.
A Trinamool Congress legislator on Sunday threatened to not support any bill tabled by the government in the West Bengal Assembly in the future and abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in the state if 'atrocities' on his loyalists allegedly by a rival faction continued, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party said the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government was just a matter of time.
A Haryana panchayat said that the two rape accused cousins be hit by shoes five times in public and submit a paltry fine of Rs 50,000.
While the state government, contending that it had the power to notify panchayat elections under section 42 of the state Panchayat Act and as such notified the election in two phases on April 26 and April 30, the poll panel refused to budge.
The court noted that no appreciable steps have been taken ever since an order was passed by it on June 13 to deploy central forces in sensitive areas for the poll process.
Efforts have also intensified to extinguish the raging forest fires in the state, especially in the worst-affected areas of Nainital, Haldwani and Ramnagar forest divisions, forest officials here said on Sunday.
The Calcutta high court on Tuesday refused to accept the West Bengal State Election Commission's plea for 800 companies of central armed police force for holding the panchayat poll in the state and directed that the state may requisition them from other states or the Centre if there was any shortfall.
The connectivity will not only improve delivery of government schemes but will also empower people, he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in New Delhi.
At least eleven people were killed in police firing and seven CRPF personnel and policemen injured in violence in Goalpara district during the third and final phase of the panchayat elections in Assam on Tuesday.
Aggrieved by the violence that marked the panchayat poll in West Bengal which claimed at least 12 lives and left 43 injured, several candidates who were in the fray had met the SEC officials and demanded the repolling.
The Jammu and Kashmir government has finally decided to hold Panchayat elections in the state which were postponed last year in the aftermath of the deadly summer unrest, in March.
The Delhi Police late on Thursday night arrested Ranglal Singhal, who, according to his confession, stabbed his son Gaurav in his house while the preparations for his wedding were in full swing.
'If people don't see you, they might be hesitant, but once they see you, they are confident that this is the person they will vote for,' says political debutant Shambhavi Choudhury, 25, alumnus of the Lady Sriram College and the Delhi School of Economics.
Police earlier claimed the three "Naxalites" were killed on a forested hill between Bhomra-Hurtarai villages under Koyalibeda police station limits on Sunday morning in an encounter with security personnel during an anti-Naxal operation.
In a bid to increase its sales from rural India, the country's largest car maker, Maruti Udyog Ltd, is offering over 2.1 million functionaries in panchayats (local self-governing bodies in villages) its cars at special discounts.
The Janata Dal-United on Saturday hit out at Khap Panchayats over the recent incident of a village Panchayat in Uttar Pradesh issuing a diktat on the movement of women, saying strict action should be taken against such people engaging in such tendencies.
A first information report (FIR) has been lodged and efforts are on to trace the culprit while taking note of a message on social media using abusive language against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and threatening to kill him, police said on Thursday.
Banerjee said the Border Security Force must work impartially as the BJP "may not be in power tomorrow".
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The court made the observation while dismissing a petition connected with defection in one of the local self government bodies in Idukki district.
If the concerns over risking political capital are overcome, the long-term gains for the Indian economy will be immense, asserts A K Bhattacharya.
Of the 20,831 voters in this assembly constituency, an overwhelming majority of around 18,000 are not tribals.
A panchayat in Bihar has ordered a minor rape victim to take Rs 2 lakh and undergo abortion to settle the issue, the police on Wednesday said.
Suspended IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi on Wednesday hit back at the BCCI, questioning the legality of its July 3 Special General Meeting convened to determine his fate and called it a "khap panchayat".
Eleven persons were injured in a clash between the Trinamool Congress and Congress party workers at Sabong in West Midnapore district as the first phase of panchayat polls began on Thursday in West Bengal. In another incident, senior Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Surya Kanto Mishra was involved in an altercation with local Trinamool Congress supporters outside a polling booth at Khadurdah gram panchayat area in West Midnapore district.
Kharge will take care of IT & BT along with existing portfolio, while Large & Medium Industries Minister M B Patil has been given the additional charge of Infrastructure Development.
A panel of Union ministers held a fourth round of talks with farmer leaders in Chandigarh on Sunday over their demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP, as thousands of protesting farmers camped at the Punjab-Haryana border.
The sources said Bose briefed Shah about the prevailing situation and his assessment of the polls marred by violence that claimed 15 lives.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat on Tuesday announced 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in local bodies like panchayats, municipalities and civic corporations on the basis of a commission's report, paving the way for polls in these self-governing institutes.