In a snub to Public Accounts Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has returned the controversial draft report filed by him on the 2G Spectrum allocation. "The draft report on the 2G issue has been returned to the PAC Chairman", sources in Parliament's PAC said on Tuesday.
Jaswant Singh's expulsion from the the Bharatiya Janata Party has caused further embarassment for the party as Speaker Meira Kumar had just appointed Singh as chairman of the prestigious Public Accounts Committee of the Lok Sabha.
Politics is going to get even more sharply polarised in the weeks and months to come. And the 2G scam is not going to die down so easily, says Neerja Chowdhury
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's offer to present himself for questioning appeared to have weighed in on the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee with the PAC giving him a clean chit in its draft report, while indicting arrested former telecom minister A Raja and seeking re-tendering of the 2G licences he had given for a song, causing a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore (Rs 1.76 trillion) to the exchequer.
Agarwal handed over his resignation from the state Assembly to UP Vidhan Sabha Speaker Sukhdev Rajbhar on Saturday morning. The resignation of Agarwal, who was also the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, has been accepted, the Speaker told UNI in Lucknow.
Anil Ambani, chairman of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and a former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, was made to wait for over an hour by the Murli Manohar Joshi-led Public Accounts Committee before he was called in for intensive questioning on the 2G spectrum issue. He pleaded that since the name of his company and some key officials figure in the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the massive scam, he would not like to say anything.
Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has called leading industrialists, including Ratan Tata and Anil Ambani, and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia to appear before the panel in connection with the 2G spectrum scam which it is probing.
Murali Manohar Joshi, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said on Thursday that no decision had been taken regarding the offer made by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to appear before the PAC for questioning in the 2G Spectrum scam.
Journalists, whose names have cropped up in the 2G scam tapes, will face the Public Accounts Committee, PAC Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi has said.
A cursory look at the speech revealed that the telling lines where he says that he has nothing to hide and makes the offer of appearing before the PAC, "I sincerely believe that like Caesar's wife, the prime minister should be above suspicion and it is for this reason that I am prepared to appear before the PAC even though there i no precedent of this."
Minutes after Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's speech at the 83rd Congress plenary on Monday, where he offered to appear before the Public Accounts Committee in the wake of scams that have rocked the nation, he came under the fire of the Opposition.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, speaking on the second day of the Congress plenary meet on Monday in New Delhi, said the PM's post should be above suspicion and that he is ready to appear before the Public Accounts Committee in the 2G spectrum scam even though there was no precedent to do so.
The defence ministry received the bags from a French firm at a cost of 11.86 million Francs, a parliamentary panel said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called for tough decisions and unity within the party after the Congress suffered electoral defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana. In a meeting with top party leaders, Kharge highlighted the need to strengthen the organization from the grassroots, fix accountability, and address internal bickering. He also urged leaders to remain united and avoid public criticism of each other. The Congress chief expressed concern over the party's performance in state elections despite a strong showing in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year. He acknowledged the need to learn from the setbacks and improve the party's strategy and communication to counter its rivals' propaganda.
'Gyanendra back on the throne would be bad news for the Nepali people. He may not have learnt from his experience, but we have.'
Jaswant Singh could stick out like a sore thumb for BJP even in the Lok Sabha after its attempt to remove him from the Chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee has been virtually rejected by Speaker Meira Kumar.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday approved a Rs 2.11 lakh crore dividend payout to the central government for 2023-24, more than double the amount it paid for the previous 2022-23 financial year. The decision was taken at the 608th meeting of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India held under the chairmanship of Governor Shaktikanta Das.
'The approach today is, instead of giving loans to 100 MSMEs, let us give one loan to a big-ticket corporate.' 'And so many of these big fish deceived the banks and the banks are in the doldrums now with high NPAs.'
The Central Board of Direct Taxes was pulled up by the Public Accounts Committee for delay in tax recovery from the hosts of the 1996 cricket World Cup.
Sanjay Malhotra takes charge as the 26th RBI governor at a time when headline retail inflation has shot up to 6.2%.
A meeting of the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday witnessed a verbal slugfest between its chairman Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and MPs from the ruling National Democratic Alliance as the Congress leader sought to raise the issue of COVID-19 vaccination drive for discussion in the panel, sources said.
IOA president P T Usha on Sunday slammed the revolting executive council members, saying they 'seem more focused on self-serving power play and monetary gain'
The bad assets or gross NPAs of commercial banks fell to a 12-year low of 2.8 per cent in March 2024 and may go down further to 2.5 per cent by the end of the current fiscal, said the RBI's Financial Stability Report (FSR) released on Thursday. Scheduled Commercial Banks' (SCBs) gross non-performing assets (GNPA) ratio fell to 2.8 per cent, and the net non-performing assets (NNPA) ratio to 0.6 per cent at the end of March 2024. "The asset quality of SCBs recorded sustained improvement, and their GNPA ratio moderated to a 12-year low in March 2024. Their NNPA ratio too improved to a record low," said the June FSR.
Jaswant refuses to step down as PAC chairman
Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Tuesday rejected the party's demand to step down as chairman of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, saying a decision on this could be taken only by the Lok Sabha speaker and not by the party.
He said the multi-party committee formed by the Speaker in Himachal Pradesh would discuss all issues about street vending on October 3. Singh's remarks came a day after the Congress top brass chided him over his remarks on mandatory display of names by the street vendors and told him that no one was allowed to go against the party's policies and ideologies.
The government had taken kickbacks when coffins meant for Kargil martyrs were purchased, she said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday returned to power in Delhi after more than 26 years to sweep away the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party with a two-thirds majority on the back of a hyper localised campaign and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'AAP-da'(disaster) blitzkrieg.
In FY24, the net income generated from Waqf properties fell to about Rs 1.26 crore from Rs 150 crore in FY20.
Four more people die in Uttar Pradesh floods, as the overall toll rises to 67.
The senior IPS officer said that 45 percent of cyber financial frauds taking place in the country are originating from the South East Asia.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari objected to Roy's elevation, arguing that the MLA, who had crossed over to the ruling Trinamool Congress last month after winning the polls on a BJP ticket, cannot be considered a legislator of the saffron camp.
Or do you think there is a realistic chance of the government being brought down?
The government refuses to make available the Central Vigilance Commissioner's report on defence purchases to the Public Accounts Committee.
The committee said the defence ministry had refused to provide the Central Vigilance Commission report on the matter.
Congress members repeatedly stormed the well raising anti-government slogans forcing Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed to adjourn the House for the day.
'Whenever the hike in voting percentage is more, the NDA gains more, and when the hike is negligible, the NDA falls.' 'I have established this in UP, Haryana and Jharkhand.'
A group of onion traders gathered at the Pimpalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), near Nashik, to inspect one of the season's final harvests of red onions as they look to place their bids. They were surrounded by farmers, who brought their produce here from different parts of the district. Farmers have reasons to be optimistic.
Freedom At Midnight is a bold attempt to revisit the whole discourse about Partition, its causes, and the predicament under which the Congress leaders accepted it. It perfectly captures the extremely confused and complicated situation to which it seemed the only viable solution, observes Utkarsh Mishra.
