The Janata Dal-United supremo was replying to queries from journalists in Darbhanga district which he visited as part of his state-wide mass outreach programme 'Samadhan Yatra'.
A proposed Rs 9,000 crore (Rs 90 billion) greenfield modernisation and expansion programme is expected to give a fresh lease of life to Iisco Steel Plant, a unit of Steel Authority of India.
As per the new guidelines, the wholesalers will get 15 per cent margin while retailers will 35 per cent over the cost of manufacturing of generic medicines, Minister of Chemicals and Fertiliser Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters.
A delegation of members of Parliament and civil society members, who are on a "fact-finding" tour of Jammu and Kashmir, on Saturday asked the Centre to start a dialogue process for resolution of Kashmir issue and include separatist leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani in it.
Roads and bridges that Nitish Kumar built have brought his alliance back to power. They made his journey safer. The mandate is clear.
'The arithmetic of the outcome shows that Nitish is not likely to jettison the BJP, which he might have been tempted to do had he won a majority on his own.'
'Mere communal-secular binary of political rhetoric will hardly help the Congress to attract enough votes to get power.'
The government today said it will look into the matter relating to a ship named SS Oceanic carrying 250 tonnes of asbestos, which is reported to be heading towards the Alang shipbreaking yard in Gujarat.
Yadav scion also threw a challenge to Nitish Kumar for a debate on any achievement by the Janata Dal- United government in the past 15 years.
Another CD on the cash-for-votes episode surfaced on Monday with three United Progressive Alliance parties claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party had stage managed the entire show for political gains.
Sonia held discussions with Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan in an effort to break the logjam over the issue that has created a face-off between the Congress and the Left parties. The leaders of the UPA constituents conveyed to Sonia that they back the nuclear deal, but do not favour early polls, particularly because of high inflation.
''I strongly denounce the way you are conducting yourself. It is shameful and disgusting behaviour,'' Chatterjee told BSP member Brajesh Pathak, who continued to agressively counter Union Fertilizer Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, despite repeated requests from the Chair to resume his seat. But Pathak refused to listen to the Chair, prompting Chatterjee to remark: ''Ham yeh hone nahin deyenge... Hamko hataiye yahan se .
Insiders say the BJP is now concerned the LJP putting up a good fight against the JD-U would mean benefitting the MGB in those seats. Moreover, Chirag and Tejaswi are known to be friends, and the former is battling for his political survival.
The National Democratic Alliance was set to sweep the Bihar assembly polls, surging ahead in over 200 of 243 seats on Friday with the Bharatiya Janata Party emerging as single largest party with about 90 per cent strike rate, reaffirming the popularity and campaign clout of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the face of the ruling alliance through the poll battle in the highly sensitive political state.
The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared the proposal to hike dearness allowance for central government employees following the rise in inflation.
The 11-member Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance has frozen the prices of all decontrolled medicines until March 31, 2005, in view of high inflation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar is in trouble ahead of the upcoming state assembly polls as two of its ally the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party on Sunday played pressure game to bargain for more seats.
Expressing concern over depleting mines reserves in the country, Minister of Steel Ram Vilas Paswan today said the Indian government is looking out for overseas acquisition of mines.
The leak was not from any tanker lorry, sources said adding, FACT officials had informed them the trucks were not filled with the gas since Union Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan visited the unit on Thursday.
The new pharma policy proposed by Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan is likely to call for a central mechanism to oversee research and development projects in the country.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said his party would contest the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar in alliance with the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Lok Janashakti Party, but ruled out conceding more than 13 seats given to the United Progressive Alliance allies in 2004 elections.
'The possibility of Nitish Babu continuing at least for some time is very much there, but don't rule out the artistic possibility of a leadership change executed very elegantly.'
The government has already decided to accord priority to fertiliser and power units for allocation of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin. According to sources, the empowered group of ministers on gas, which met last week, has made it clear it will be able to provide additional gas to steel firms only after meeting the requirements of the power and fertiliser units. Among the steel majors, Essar, Ispat and Vikram Ispat have gas-based units.
Keeping its word to make drugs affordable to consumers, the government on Thursday announced caps on margins on the sale of pharmaceutical products.
It is estimated that over 95 per cent of drugs being produced in India are off-patent and would not be affected by introduction of product patent,
LJP sources said the BJP's defeat in the five state polls have ignited a rethink in the party over its ties with the saffron party.
The RJD, which has been voicing apprehensions that the SIR might have been carried out to "help" the BJP-led NDA, also urged the EC to divulge details of the 3.66 lakh persons whose names were deleted from the final electoral roll published earlier this week.
The effort was aimed at bringing greater cohesion in the alliance ahead of the assembly polls in three states, including Bihar.
Manmohan Singh and almost all his Cabinet colleagues were among those who drove to her 10, Janpath residence in New Delhi to wish her.
The government on Tuesday said the steps taken by the national pharmaceutical pricing authority for enforcement of prices fixed by it had resulted in recovery of an overcharged amount of Rs 80.08 crore (Rs 800.8 million) till October this year.
The BJP is seeking to make an issue out of Kanchi Shankaracharya's arrest and Jharkhand Mukthi Morcha chief Shibu Soren's reinduction into the Union Cabinet.
