Prasad said country's postal department is 150 years old and needs improvement and the government is trying its best to do the needful.
Modi seems to have an innate faith in his capabilities to handle the myriad challenges confronting the nation and would rather manage the affairs of the nation as a CEO would of a large industrial-business empire, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The minister said that the priority for him will be "rolling out all stuck highway projects that include many of the IL&FS projects within 100 days".
Of the total cash outgo Rs 40,000 crore is towards enhanced expenditure under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program and Rs 33,771.48 crore have been sought for direct benefit transfer under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and National Social Assistance Programme.
"Vaccination is our big weapon in the fight against COVID-19," he said. He added that India is the fastest country globally to reach the landmark of 17 crore doses in 114 days and thanked all the states and UTs for their contribution in achieving this feat.
'The Modi government must create conditions to integrate millions into the rural economy as many migrants are certainly not going to return to live an undignified life,' notes Ramesh Menon.
'The threat of ceding space to China in Afghanistan appears to be one factor propelling our government to get a bit more active now.'
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on Monday the plea of farmers' organisations challenging legality of the fresh promulgation of the land acquisition ordinance by the Narendra Modi-led government.
My aim will be to get the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, recently cleared by the cabinet, tabled and passed in Parliament, says Girija Vyas.
The government is organising the event-- Zara Muskura Do (Smile Please)-- which will have several performances and programmes highlighting its "achievements".
Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, speaking on the Motion of Thanks on the President's address, charged the government with not delivering on its various promises, including generating two crore jobs per year.
'We can't have the best of both worlds -- large, efficient, world class government-owned banks, doing social banking and making profits. 'Why not set them free from the shackles of such obligations and run them as business units?' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Dr C P Joshi, the rising star in the Congress party, explains his strategy for the Rajasthan poll.
In a bid to support revival of sectors hit most by the Covid-19 pandemic, Reserve Bank of India on Friday decided to open a separate liquidity window of Rs 15,000 crore for certain contact-intensive sectors like hotels and restaurants, tourism and aviation ancillary services.
Kamal Nath, minister of road transport and highways, pitched for American investment and advanced technology transfer in infrastructure development in India's road sector in New York last week.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
Making water available is always a serious challenge in the summer for all public authorities. This year, the challenge is higher when hand-washing at every opportunity has become a necessity. So keeping potable water lines running without a glitch has become most necessary.
The government has asked the Indian Banks' Association to make sure that IDBI Bank's wages are on a par with other banks.
Experts said a dip in consumption expenditure indicated an increasing prevalence of poverty in the country.
There's a looming water crisis facing the country, and it comes down to how the states are faring in water resource management.
Corporate affairs ministry sending notices seeking details of fund disbursal
Under the scheme, the government proposes to provide electricity to all households by December 2018, ahead of the earlier target of March, 2019.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala released a list of 55 persons who lost their lives while standing in queues at banks and ATMs in the wake of demonetisation and demanded compensation to their families besides probe into their death.
In its new avatar as the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), it will directly be responsible for 'the welfare of traders and their employees'.
It will be interesting to see whether India-China border tensions figure during the deliberations of PLA deputies to the NPC and CPPCC, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's maiden speech from Red Fort last Independence Day outlined some grand programmes. Shehzad Poonawalla does a quick check on the progress made.
Maharashtra is in the beginning of a second COVID-19 wave, a central team report has said, highlighting that there is very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts, and there is no adherence to COVID appropriate behaviour among people in rural and urban areas in the state.
However, ration card, driving licence, voter identity card, Kisan passbook with photo, job card issued under MGNREGS and a certificate issued by a gazetted officer or a tehsildar will be admissible as proof of identity for people to get the benefits under the scheme till the time they get Aadhaar.
'We have 25,000 private hospitals participating in this exercise and if each of these hospitals does 200 vaccinations per day, that makes it 50 lakhs.'
Khandu emerged as the new star on the north eastern horizon when he was elected leader of the Congress in Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday.
The second part of our series on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ministers with a criminal record.
'Today we see the worrisome phenomenon where honest officers who run afoul of the government being chased, hunted down and dirt being dug up on them.'
'The regime -- and particularly the home ministry under Amit Shah -- have sought to suppress and destroy these struggles through intimidation, bullying, threats, through false cases, arrests, custodial torture, the use of draconian laws like the UAPA.'
Concerned by GDP slowdown and unrealistic tax targets, the economists urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to implement long-term structural steps like land and labour reforms. Warning against any off-Budget financing the economists said the government should prepare a statement of intent for its social, rural and welfare sector expenditure.
"Grassroots democracy must get precedence than any other considerations, including security," the functionary said.
The Postal Department has geo-tagged more than 1,50,000 post offices on geo-portal Bhuvan, developed by ISRO
'This is not a Sanjay Baru or Natwar Singh type of book. It's not a memoir. It's not a book to reveal conversations, real or imaginary. This is not a book to position myself at the centre of the world.' Jairam Ramesh on his stint as environment minister.
