'I want to ask the entire nation and the opposition. Can a Chief Minister, Prime Minister, or any leader run the country from jail?'
Manmohan Singh's reign as prime minister has been severely criticised by his former ministerial colleague Natwar Singh, who says he leaves no legacy after being in power for 10 years.
New British Prime Minister David Cameron will meet his Indian counterpart in Toronto on Sunday on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit, his first after assuming office last month. Cameron, who heads the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government, will meet Singh to take forward his administration's commitment made in the Queen's Speech to 'work to establish a new special relationship with India.'
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the United Progressive Alliance government led by him for allegedly trying to shield the guilty persons in the 2G spectrum scam. He was addressing a meeting of party workers in Delhi."Dr Manmohan Singh is leading one of the most corrupt governments in the country since independence," he said.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The Union Cabinet on Friday approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the Census of India, 2027, which would include the caste enumeration for the first time.
The senior Congress leader was in a coma since October last year, when he was admitted to AIIMS after he suffered a brain haemorrhage.
Seventy six-year-old Dr Singh drove to Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday morning from his 7, Race Course Road residence to greet Patil on the occasion, a PMO spokesperson said.
Here are some facts related to the Budget presentation in independent India.
'To suddenly give the impression of taking a position that is hostile to Iran, or, at least, not friendly to Iran, is not a good thing.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 will present a record eighth consecutive budget that is expected to contain measures to shore up weakening economic growth and ease the burden on the middle class struggling with high prices and stagnant wage growth while being fiscally prudent.
'I had to persuade him. I think he was a sceptic to begin with, but later on he was convinced that what we were doing was the right thing to do, that there was no other way out.'
Over the next month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to review the performance of his ministerial colleagues in their first six months in office. This review exercise could be a precursor to a Cabinet reshuffle, the first since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government entered its second term in office.
This has been our history of good governance: Things that were difficult to do and required planning and implementation were first taken up and then abandoned, notes Aaakr Patel.
"I don't want to be decided by the prime minister but he knows what he is saying is not true," Singh told reporters after casting his vote at Dispur Government High School in Guwahati.
'Personalities are temporary, policies provide for stability.' 'With the former, when personalities change so does the nature of the relationship.' 'Policies and structures, on the other hand, are idiot-proof, as well as maverick-resistant,' explains Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
School students in Rajasthan will no longer study two-part supplementary textbooks with state Education Minister Madan Dilawar arguing that these reading materials are not required because they glorify the Nehru-Gandhi family and carry no marks for students.
The intriguing bit is that Trump is likely to attend the talks in Islamabad this weekend -- if he does, it will be the clearest signal yet that the US is ready to exit the war with some sort of win to show, since he cannot afford to go for the talks and return empty-handed, notes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the Iran War
A Russian defence expert says the reported sale of RD-93 engines to Pakistan for integration into the JF-17 will actually benefit India, dismissing criticism of the Indian government by the opposition.
'You cannot run Parliament with 800 MPs as nobody will get time (to speak in Parliament). And Parliament sits for barely 60 days in a year.' 'Look at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. They have 650 MPs and they sit for 150 days on an average in a year.'
P V Narasimha Rao strongly felt that the reforms would have to be mindful of Indian concerns and would have to protect the interests of our poor and our working people, he said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to create history when she presents her seventh straight Budget on Tuesday for the fiscal 2024-25, surpassing the record of former prime minister Morarji Desai. Sitharaman, who will turn 65 next month, was in 2019 appointed as India's first full-time woman finance minister when Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a decisive second term.
K Natwar Singh wore many hats as he straddled the worlds of diplomacy, politics and writing but what remained consistent across decades was his sharp-wit and plainspeaking.
In a firm message to China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday night voiced India's serious concern over the recent Chinese incursion in Ladakh and told his counterpart Li Keqiang that in the absence of peace and tranquility along the border, bilateral ties will suffer as the two leaders held hour-long cordial but candid talks.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appears to have hit it off with United States President Barack Obama and he got on famously well with his predecessor George W Bush as well.
This will be the first time South Africa hosts the IBSA Summit since its inception.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margin of the BRICS Summit in Durban, in the first structured high-level contact between the two countries since the change of leadership in China.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday attacked the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre and accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of neglecting and using Assam, which he has been representing since 1991, for his "political advantages".
Three expert members -- Rajendra Singh, Ravi Chopra and Rashid Siddiqui -- have resigned from the National Ganga River Basin Authority.
Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh will be inducted as a Union Cabinet minister on Sunday in a minor expansion of the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Now if only Manmohan Singh showed such acumen in dealing with other crises his government is facing, says Shivam Vij.
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman Finance Minister, broke away from the colonial tradition of carrying a Budget briefcase in July 2019, opting instead for a traditional 'bahi-khata', to carry the Union Budget papers.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh doesn't seem to have stopped smiling since he met Barack Obama at Delhi airport on Sunday.
Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore witnessed history being written when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the Maldivian parliament -- the first foreign dignitary to do so since it came into being in 2009
Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya, who is travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka, reports on the outcome of Dr Singh's deliberations with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina.
India and Bangladesh on Tuesday finally laid to rest the niggling boundary issues that the two nations have grappled with since Partition. But some thorny issues like Teesta water sharing and transit rights remained unresolved.
