Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Tuesday met Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das and discussed various issues including financial inclusion, payment systems, microfinance and digital lending among others. "Mr.@BillGates visited RBI Mumbai today and held wide ranging discussions with Governor @DasShaktikanta #RBI #rbitoday #rbigovernor #shaktikantadas #BillGates," RBI said in a tweet. Gates Foundation pursues a lot of activity in India including promotion of financial inclusion, health sector and climate change.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has accused the BJP of rigging the Maharashtra assembly elections and called for a return to ballot paper voting. He also criticized the Modi government for selling off public assets, undermining democratic institutions, and promoting communal polarization. Kharge's remarks come as the Congress prepares for its AICC session in Ahmedabad, where it will present its political and economic views.
he Punjab government had also sought a judicial declaration that the assembly session held on June 19 and 20 was "legal and that the business transacted by the House is valid".
The Samajwadi Party today opposed the proposed Women's Reservation Bill, terming it as a "conspiracy" against the leaders who have reached the Lok Sabha through "hard struggles" and warned of people's movement if the UPA pushes the legislation.
High frequency indicators, like vehicles sales, air traffic, steel consumption and GST E-way bills, point towards a sequential pickup in momentum of economic activity during the second half of the fiscal 2024-25 and sustain moving forward, RBI Bulletin said on Wednesday. However, a strong dollar, driven by US economic resilience and trade policy pivots, could exacerbate capital outflows from emerging economies, push risk premiums higher, and intensify external vulnerabilities, said an article on 'State of the Economy' published in RBI's February bulletin.
Seasoned bureaucrat and a stickler for rules Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey will be at the helm of capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for three years. The 1987-batch Odisha-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Pandey, would replace Madhabi Puri Buch, whose three-year term ends on Friday.
A bill to allow the private sector to mine six atomic minerals, including lithium, and deep-seated minerals like gold and silver was approved by the Lok Sabha on Friday.
While the Rajya Sabha had exactly six years ago passed the Women's Reservation Bill, the legislation has since been pending in Lok Sabha.
In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider the separate pleas of opposition-ruled Kerala and West Bengal, alleging the denial of assent to bills passed by the respective legislative assemblies.
A meeting of the floor leaders of all political parties has been convened on September 17, a day before the start of a five-day Parliament session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said on Wednesday.
The government may table the two key Bills on women's reservation and food security soon in Parliament to take the wind out of the Opposition sails.The Women's Reservation Bill, aimed at providing one-third reservation to women candidates in state Assemblies and Parliament, is bound to split the Opposition. The Food Security Bill, which will provide 25 kg of rice or wheat at Rs 3 per month to families below the poverty line, will be showcased as the government's effort.
The Bill also seeks to extend nomination of Anglo-Indian communities to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies by another 10 years. The Constitution (109th Amendment) Bill 2009 moved by Law Minister M Veerappa Moily seeks to extend the reservation beyond January 25, 2010 when the time period of 60 years under Article 334 of the Constitution lapses.
The Congress on Wednesday sought to give credit to president Sonia Gandhi for the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. "We thank the media for acknowledging the personal stamp of Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the passage of the Bill," party spokesman Manish Tewari told reporters in New Delhi. The party also expressed its gratitude to the opposition parties which helped in getting the Bill passed. Tewari said the bill was historic.
Looking at the history of women representation in Lok Sabha, the percentage remained about 5 till the 1970s and it was only in 2009 that it could reach a double-digit figure.
Non-banking entities such as fintech firms will have to tap into use cases beyond peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions to scale up the presence of the retail version of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is also known as the e, said industry players. These use cases will enable programmable transactions across domains, including the government's direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes, with subsidies restricted to specific purposes such as food coupons, hospital bills, fertilisers, pesticides, and cross-border remittances.
Opposition BJP and the Left have unequivocally supported the Women's Reservation Bill describing it as "the most progressive", but slammed the government for mishandling the process of "historic" amendment to the Constitution.
After 13 years in hibernation, the prospects of passage of the controversial women's reservation bill brightened with sharp divisions coming to the fore among one of the main the opponents of the measure--JD(Uas Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar declared his support.
Moily said there would be no change in the bill compared to that passed in the Rajya Sabha and exuded confidence that it would get through the Lok Sabha also in April.
Credai is the apex body for real estate developers in the country and represents over 9,000 developers through 128 chapters in 20 states
Former Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has said his party will withdraw support to the Women's Reservation Bill during its passage in the Lok Sabha if the government tried 'backdoor' reservation for minorities in the measure. "The BJP is clear that the strength of the Bill is its non-communal nature. This country was once divided on the basis of religion. The BJP will not support the Bill if the government tries backdoor representation for Muslims," he said.
After his threat of withdrawal of support to the United Progressive Alliance government, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Monday met President Pratibha Patil and apprised her of his party's stand on the issue of the Women's Reservation Bill. Yadav, whose party, along with the Samajwadi Party, are strongly opposing the bill in its present form, told Patil that his party is not against the reservation for women.
Slamming the women's reservation bill as a "dangerous" one, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav alleged on Sunday that it was a conspiracy to prevent Muslims, backwards and Dalits from entering Parliament and state assemblies.
Will the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi be finally successful in pushing through the Women's Reservation Bill that provides 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and legislative assemblies? The government wants to have the bill listed in the Rajya Sabha for consideration and passing on March 8, aiming to make a statement on the International Women's Day. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has called the presidents of the state mahila units of her party.
Amid demands for getting the long-pending Women's Reservation Bill passed, the government on Wednesday said it is ready to extend the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha if the House agreed.
Opposition MPs in the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Waqf (Amendment) Bill are scheduled to meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday to protest its chairperson Jagdambika Pal's alleged 'unilateral' decisions and attempts to 'bulldoze' proceedings, indicating that they may disassociate themselves from the panel.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday defended her party's decision to abstain from voting on the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, but said she was in favour of the constitutional amendment.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will hold talks with the opponents of Women's Reservation Bill before the government's takes the next step on it, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said on Thursday.
"We have given time to the Haryana government to bring and pass the Jat reservation Bill by March 31 (when the ongoing Budget session ends)," Malik told media persons.
The move, a first in the country after the Supreme Court order, is intended to consolidate the BJP's Dalit outreach in Haryana.
Differences cropped up among Bharatiya Janata Party MPs on the issue of providing reservation in promotion for SC and ST government employees a day after a bill in this regard was passed by the Rajya Sabha.
With the tagline "Na duri hai, na khai hai, Modi hamara bhai hai, (there's no detachment, there's no chasm, Modi is our brother)", the campaign aims to attract at least 1,000 Muslim women towards the party.
The bills that repeal and replace the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act will usher in a new era in the criminal justice system, Home Minister Amit Shah said
This was announced by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi shortly before the conclusion of the winter session of Parliament during which the government had promised to bring the Constitution amendment Bill.
Greenpeace has also launched a petition addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which the organisation claims has been signed by over 21,000 people.
The chief minister underscored the back-to-back suicide deaths of a son and his father on August 12 and 13 respectively due to the stress of NEET.
"The prime minister is likely to convene an all-party meeting (to evolve consensus). We are taking all efforts to bring the bill in the Lok Sabha in the winter session of Parliament," the minister of state for planning and parliamentary affairs told reporters in Chennai.
The much-delayed Women's Reservation Bill may not come up in the Budget session of Parliament as it has to be scrutinised by a new Parliamentary panel. A Union minister, who declined to be identified, said work needed to be done on the Bill which was before the Standing Committee on Law and Justice.
Reservations for women will not dramatically and automatically redeem systematic, pervasive discrimination reservations but it will play a key role in bringing women's concerns to bear on public debate and official policies.
