One of the demands is that export duty should be rolled back in view of industry promising to hold the price line. A decision will be taken soon," Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters. The industry has also promised to restrict export at the existing level and the government is monitoring the situation closely, the minister said, adding that "we are satisfied with the industry's action."
Finance Minister P Chidambaram's budget announcement to cut the excise duty on drugs from 16 per cent to 8 per cent received a loud applause from many corners. However, the common man is yet to see its impact as there are many loose ends to be tied up and loopholes to be plugged before drug prices show any downward trend.
'We can't underestimate future threats.'
A day after Minister for Steel, Chemicals and Fertiliser Ram Vilas Paswan told Parliament that steel prices would come down by Rs 500 a tonne on account of the 2 percentage point reduction in Cenvat, makers of flat and long products quietly raised prices by Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 a tonne on March 4.
'The present timing suggests it was done under some political influence,'says Supreme Court lawyer Prasant Bhushan.
The former MP is alleged to have murdered CPM legislator Ajit Sarkar in Purnea.
India's total fertiliser subsidy burden in the current financial year is more than double the budgetry allocation of Rs 24,500 crore (Rs 245 billion) as announced in the Budget.
Steel Authority of India Ltd, the country's largest steelmaker, will invest a massive Rs 100,000 crore for expanding capacity to 40 million tonnes by 2020, Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan announced in New Delhi on Friday.
It aims at slashing the average market prices from 10 to 30 per cent for low-end brands and from 30 to 60 per cent for high-end ones.
The government does not intend to introduce a mechanism to control the prices of steel and iron ore as they are deregulated and are governed by market forces, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.
In a season of political deal-making, it would seem the BJP is not only keener to win new friends but is ahead of rival Congress in the game. Its only competition, if at all, has come from regional satraps and the Left parties, which on Tuesday resolved to fight the elections together against both the Congress and BJP.
With less than two months to go for the Lok Sabha election, the expected process of political realignments has begun, reports Anita Katyal.
The grand old party, which had gone to polls in February this year in alliances with RJD and LJP contesting 84 seats, could secure just ten and finish second in as many, polling a meagre five per cent of votes.
Confusion prevailing in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) showed little signs of let up on Saturday, with just two days to go before the filing of nomination papers for the second and final phase of assembly elections comes to a close.
The seat had fallen vacant following the death of Lok Janshakti Party founder and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
Here's how political leaders across the country celebrated the festival of colours.
Rebel Lok Janshakti Party MP Pashupati Kumar Paras appeared to have scored a point on Thursday when he was unanimously elected as the new national president even as the faction headed by his cornered nephew Chirag Paswan dug in its heels and vowed to teach the 'traitors' a lesson.
Both factions moved swiftly to take control of the party a day after Paras, the youngest brother of Paswan's father and party founder Ram Vilas Paswan, was recognised by the Lok Sabha secretariat as the leader of the Lok Janshakti Party in the House.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his Bihar assembly poll campaign, asserting that the NDA under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will break all previous electoral records. He criticized the INDIA bloc and highlighted the NDA's cohesiveness and development efforts in Bihar.
''Now the roads in Bihar are as good as any other Indian state. The power sector has improved.' 'Connectivity, law and order, gender justice...' 'Bihar now stands for all these things that were totally absent when it was under jungle raj.'
'It must be kept in mind that the LJP has never been a fan of Nitish Kumar's style of politics. He has harmed the Dalits by creating a sub-group of Mahadalits for his own political gains'
'We have done what we needed to do on behalf of the consumers'.
The seat had fallen vacant following the death of Chirag Paswan's father and Lok Janshakti Party founder Ram Vilas Paswan. The BJP has nominated former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for the seat.
Chirag Paswan says his party's support to BJP is issue-based.
Manjhi's son Santosh Suman, who is a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, made the statement a day after reports emerged that a seat-sharing formula has been arrived at in the National Democratic Alliance, and the HAM was likely to get only one of the state's 40 constituencies.
The newly elected members of the Lok Sabha will take oath on June 2 and 3 while the election of speaker is scheduled for June 4.
The TDP and the LJP also supported the Bill being sent to a parliamentary committee for further examination.
With nominations for the first phase of Bihar elections closing soon, the INDIA bloc is struggling to finalize seat sharing, while the NDA has announced its candidates. Key political figures are actively campaigning.
Electoral fortunes of 1,302 candidates, including over half a dozen ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, will be sealed on Tuesday with 3.70 crore voters eligible to exercise their franchise across 122 assembly segments in the second and final phase of the Bihar polls.
M I Khan in Patna Nearly twelve years after he left the National Democratic Alliance and resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will share the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at his 'hunkar' rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town on Monday. Paswan, who joined the NDA last week to contest the Lok Sabha polls and took a U-turn on Modi, will appear in public with the BJP's top brass including Modi at the rally. Paswan's son Chirag will also be present at the function. Upendra Kushwaha is another new face that will be at the event. Kushwaha is the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) that joined hands with the BJP last week. Both Paswan and Kushwaha are known as their own caste. Paswan is said to enjoy overwhelming support of his caste -- locally known as Dusadh, the only Dalit caste in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar categorised 21 other Dalit castes as 'Mahadalit' -- poorest of the poor. Kushwaha has been trying hard for last few years to emerge as a leader of his caste -- Koeri, an agrarian backward caste spread across the state. A senior BJP leader said that presence of Paswan and Kushwaha will send a strong political massage among respective castes in Bihar. "It will strengthen the BJP's social support base in Bihar," he said. In Bihar, the BJP is widely seen as an upper caste party. The much-hyped rally is seen as a bid to mobilise support and strengthen the support base in the state. The state in the Hindi heartland that sends 40 Lok Sabha members to Parliament is politically very important. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party had won 12 seats, while the Janata Dal-United won 20 seats, when they had contested as a combined force. It is expected that Modi will target Kumar, who has openly opposed him by repeatedly saying that the prime ministerial candidate should be of nsecular credentials.
Gold hallmarking is a purity certification of the precious metal and is voluntary in nature at present.
The Congress party on Wednesday gave a deadline to Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan up to September 23 to decide whether it wanted to come with Rashtriya Janata Dal-led United Progressive Alliance in the coming Bihar Assembly polls.
Steel Minister Ram Vilas said in a meeting that the prime minister could intervene, if need be, to provide iron ore blocks to Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal, for his two proposed 12 mn tonne steel plants in India. The world's biggest steelmaker has signed MoUs with Jharkhand and Orissa governments to set up greenfield steel plants wherein it will invest a total of Rs 80000 cr. ArcelorMittal has already been allotted two coal blocks, one each, in Orissa and Jharkhand.
80-year-old Singh, who is the Leader of the Upper House, was recently elected a member of Rajya Sabha from Assam for the fifth consecutive term.
National Democratic Alliance allies on Monday put up a united front amid vocal demands being made by some parties on their share of seats in Bihar polls but the crucial issue of seat-sharing was not discussed at their maiden joint meeting chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
Two Rajya Sabha MPs from Gujarat -- BJP president Amit Shah, now Home Minister, and Smriti Irani, who has got the women and child development ministry -- have won the Lok Sabha polls, thus creating two vacancies in the Upper House of Parliament from the state.
A number of senior faces from the outgoing cabinet including Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar and Prakash Javadekar are expected to figure in the new cabinet.
