The Congress is nervous about the PM penning his memoirs.
Widening of the tax base, doing away with cess and surcharge, improvement in compliance and moderation in tax for emerging sectors are some of the suggestions submitted to the Finance Ministry ahead of the Budget by Think Change Forum (TCF). Experts are of the opinion that there is a need to grow tax revenues for the government to drive economic growth and make investments in developmental activities, TCF, the think tank said in a statement. Towards this end, poor compliance was identified as a weak link in achieving targeted collections leading to complex issues like overtaxing, complicated tax structures, rising litigation, among others.
Interrelations of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan on Thursday took centre stage at the Jaipur LitFest where panelists discussed the upswing in talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan besides India's ties with its neighbour.
Amid a row over Natwar Singh's comments about Sonia Gandhi in his book, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said it was a bid to market his product and dismissed his contention that PMO files were sent to the Congress president for approval.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi was never shown any government files, her political secretary Ahmed Patel said while terming as "baseless" the charges made against her in a book written by Prime Minister's former media advisor Sanjaya Baru.
Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday came out in support of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling him the 'super prime minister' in the United Progressive Alliance, amid the storm created by Sanjaya Baru's tell-all book that raised questions over the political authority of the prime minister.
Here's a recap of the events from the past 24 hours.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday made a five-point poser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi questioning them whether Cabinet files were shared with Gandhi and if Singh forefeited his prerogative to decide his cabinet as per disclosures in a book by a PM's former adviser
The Prime Minister's Office on Thursday came out with data to highlight the progress made under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the last 10 years in an effort to counter the damaging claims made by his former media adviser Sanjaya Baru.
Natwar Singh, former Congress leader, on Friday said that the strong reaction from Sonia Gandhi to his new book, proves that it has touched a "raw nerve" and something has "upset" her so much that she came out.
A day after Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi took a jab at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and dubbed the Gujarat development model as a 'toffee model', Modi on Tuesday compared Gandhi to a child and said the word toffee had caught his fancy after he had repeatedly spoken about balloon.
Sanjaya Baru, Manmohan Singh's former media advisor and author if The Accidental Prime Minister defends his controversial memoir
'Given his stint in Beijing, as India's longest serving ambassador there and that too through some challenging and interesting times, Jaishankar ought to have been appointed as foreign secretary in 2013 itself,' says Sanjaya Baru.
Nothing 'accidental' about this movie, feels Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Narendra Modi on Sunday dubbed the United Progressive Alliance government as "remote controlled" and "lame" as he raised the pitch for a strong and stable government at the Centre.
"We want a drop in interest rate. This (interest rate) is a huge problem now for us. Real interest rate in India today is touching six percent," Ficci chief Pankaj Patel said, arguing that there should be balance between growth, inflation, and interest rates.
Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi got more than 33 per cent coverage on national TV channels during prime time in March and April, beating the likes of Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and Congress' Rahul Gandhi.
'While it may not be an out-and-out hit job on the Gandhi family, the movie is all about one aspect: How Dr Singh struggled with the family and the party all through his prime ministership,' notes Utkarsh Mishra.
Launching a frontal attack against the Congress top brass including Manmohan Singh, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi on Thursday took swipes at him over a book written by his former aide and said the current Lok Sabha polls was all about a "decisive" prime minister.
Chief Minister Kamal Nath said that he 'doesn't have any intent to impose a ban or any prohibition on any movie'.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
"Who will be his men?" a distinguished official close to the prime minister asked. Frankly, nobody has an idea. Hardly seven weeks are left for a regime change, but the idea of Narendra Modi on Raisina Hill looks abnormal, if not unreal. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt captures the uncertain mood in the capital's bureaucracy ahead of the largest democratic transfer of power in the world.
From bikinis to superhero spandex, it's all in a day's work for these film folk!
The Congress leaders maintained that such propaganda against the party would not work and the truth shall prevail.
'People have a certain perception about my political leanings -- and rightly so.' 'But I am an actor first, and then an activist.' 'And I am not an accidental actor.' 'There was no way I was going to be dishonest with my acting,' Anupam Kher tells Veenu Sandhu.
Kangana Ranaut, Hrithik Roshan and Ajay Devgn get ready to live real lives.
Sukanya Verma looks at the recent spate of book-to-screen adaptations.
Former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Dr Sanjay Baru, the author of the controversial book 'The Accidental Prime Minister' that put Dr Singh in the dock over his alleged unassertiveness on policy issues, however points out that it was during the Indo-US nuclear deal discussions that the prime minister put his foot down and even staked his political future 'for the honour of commitment'. Bikash Mohapatra reports.
In a full-scale offensive, Narendra Modi on Sunday charged that Sonia Gandhi's "blind love" towards her son Rahul Gandhi had left the country in "ruins" and the United Progressive Alliance government was "remote-controlled" by her.
'While they were respectful of the PM, it was clear that as ministers, they owed their positions as much, if not more, to Mrs Gandhi.' 'When attacks were mounted on the PM, there was very little coordinated effort by the Congress, UPA ministers or other politicians to speak up in his favour and strongly defend him.' B K Chaturvedi, Cabinet Secretary during the early years of UPA1, reveals how the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi equation worked. A riveting excerpt from Chaturvedi's memoir, Challenges Of Governance: An Insider's View
Attacking "glorification" of only "one-family" by the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said that if voted to power the party would review christening of more than "600 schemes" in the name of three generations of Gandhi dynasty.
While China is bigger and feels mightier at the moment, Beijing's rulers would be well advised not to be tempted to provoke India, for that would only trigger a chain reaction around the world that would not serve anyone's interests, says Sanjaya Baru.
A day after the Prime Minister's Office sought to counter the perception that Manmohan Singh has been "weak" in his tenure, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Saturday took potshots at him.
Launching a scathing attack on the Congress for seeking to pocket the credit of empowering Dalits, Narendra Modi on Monday accused the Gandhi family of stopping implementation of rights given by B R Ambedkar and even "snatching" prime minister Manmohan Singh's right of free speech.
Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister in 2004 because of strong opposition from her son Rahul Gandhi who was afraid she would be killed like his father and grandmother if she accepted the post, former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh claimed.
In a major embarrassment to the United Progressive Alliance government, Rahul Gandhi on Friday denounced the controversial ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as "complete nonsense" and said what "our government has done is wrong".
Ex TRAI chief says Manmohan Singh warned him of harm on 2G issue
T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan on what's so fascinating about politics that books by journalists about it sell so well.
'What matters is meeting the needs and expectations of the people who have voted to provide governance for the country.'
How seriously should we take Natwar Singh's book? Indeed how seriously should all such memoirs and autobiographies be taken? The answer, I imagine, depends on the intent. If the authors are merely settling scores, as many think Natwar Singh is, future historians would be entitled to ignore such autobiographies. But if there is no mens rea (guilty mind), so to speak, these books must be taken seriously, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
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