It is for the first time in the history of Independent India that not a single Muslim is part of the Union Cabinet.
What some of our politicians were up to on Friday, October 18, 2024.
'If it doesn't, it will continue with measures to infuse liquidity, signalling a new cycle,' predicts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
From the outcome of the general elections and then Union Budget to tepid corporate earnings in the September 2024 quarter (Q2-FY25), sticky inflation and Reserve Bank of India's stance on interest rates, extreme weather conditions, Indian stock markets have braved it all in calendar year 2024.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's call for making lending rates affordable may not resonate anytime soon as banks still struggle with margin compression, and await clues from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on liquidity and rate action. Hinting that any lending rate cut was some time away, State Bank of India (SBI) managing director Vinay M Tonse said there was still some aggression in the market regarding deposit pricing.
Chirag Paswan said he believes two classes of people -- rich and poor -- exist in the society and persons of different castes and religions fall in both categories.
Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas leader Chirag Paswan is planning to convene a meeting of Scheduled Caste MPs of different parties as he works to mobilise support ahead of his party filing a review plea in the Supreme Court against its judgment allowing sub-categorisation of reservation within the community.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Priyanka Chaturvedi on Wednesday took potshots at the rival Shiv Sena over its minister not finding a place in the reconstituted NITI Aayog.
Union minister Chirag Paswan has caused a flutter by stating he would choose to give up his ministerial berth instead of a compromise on his principles, in keeping with the precedent set by his late father Ram Vilas Paswan.
Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have topped an index that ranks states on food safety parameters for the 2020-21 year, according to an FSSAI report unveiled by Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday. The index ranks states on five parameters of food safety: human resources and institutional data, compliance, food testing facility, training and capacity building besides consumer empowerment. Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have topped in the list of large states on the index.
Farmers will march towards Delhi on Tuesday after a meeting with two Union ministers over their demands, including legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP) for crops, remained inconclusive.
'I am optimistic about the Budget because of the fiscal discipline the government has committed to.'
Borgohain took the bronze medal after she lost the women's welterweight (64-69kg) semi-final bout to Turkey's Busenaz Surmeneli the just-concluded Tokyo Olympics.
'It is the first technology in history which is not just a tool, it is an agent.' Yuval Noah Harari on the dangers on AI.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the weather situation with senior officials and asked them to incorporate technologies such as drones to assess the deluge and accordingly plan the relief works.
According to CITU, around 90% of the 1,723 workers of the Sriperumbudur plant are participating in the strike. Samsung said it is ready to talk to employees and not a third party like CITU.
Unprecedented bribery charges, farewells, separation, failed union, monumental mergers and record-breaking IPOs, along with a healthy dose of online happenings in the form of spat and lessons in customer care, corporate India saw it all in 2024.
Amid the political blame game over Bengal's potato ban, which led to shortages in Jharkhand and Odisha, Uttar Pradesh farmers are the unlikely winners.
A low-intensity blast occurred near a multiplex in Delhi's Rohini on Thursday, injuring one person and sparking panic. The explosion took place near a park in the same area where a previous blast occurred in October. Delhi Chief Minister Atishi accused the BJP-led central government of failing to maintain law and order in the national capital.
Student bodies protested outside the Jamia Millia Islamia against what transpired at JNU and to demand that food choices cannot be imposed on people in the name of Ram Navami.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
The leaders also noted the "negative impacts" of the war in Ukraine with regard to global food and energy security, especially for developing and least-developed countries.
Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the hospitality industry would be asked whether it can do it "voluntarily" or or needed the government to make legal provisions for it.
A tiny dead snake was allegedly found in a packet distributed under the mid-day meal scheme meant for children aged between six months and three years at an anganwadi or a government-run nursery school in western Maharashtra's Sangli district, prompting the authorities to launch a probe.
The Centre on Friday said it will sell 'Bharat Rice' in the retail market at Rs 29 per kg from next week to give relief to the common man and has also directed traders to disclose rice/paddy stock, as part of its efforts to control prices that have risen by around 15 per cent in the last one year. In a press conference, Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra exuded confidence that these two measures along with the various restrictions of exports will help in cooling down the prices. Seeking to dispel market rumours, he categorically said the government has no plans to lift restrictions on rice exports any time soon.
Shah, while releasing the saffron party's manifesto 'Sankalp Patra' for the upcoming assembly elections in Jharkhand, announced that a Displacement Commission would be formed to ensure rehabilitation of people displaced by industries and mines in the state.
The senior Paswan sought an appointment and waited for more than three months but Rahul Gandhi did not relent, said Chirag Paswan, who at that time too was keen to leave the UPA and join the National Democratic Alliance.
Union ministers Ravneet Singh Bittu and George Kurian were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha Tuesday along with senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and former minister Upendra Kushwaha.
The members of the cabinet committees included Union ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party and its National Democratic Alliance partners like Janata Dal-United, Telugu Desam Party, Janata Dal-Secular, Shiv Sena and Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned twice in the post-lunch period on Thursday as a war of words broke out between the treasury and opposition benches, triggered by Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi's spat with the Bharatiya Janata Party's Ravneet Singh Bittu.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
'Retail investors, who had not seen such a massive correction in the SMID universe since COVID-19, are witnessing something like this for the first time. Panic profit booking may continue.'
Agitating junior doctors, whose nine representatives are on a fast-unto-death demonstration, termed talks with senior officials of the West Bengal government as 'the most disappointing meeting so far'.
The home minister said the central forces deployment will be increased, if required, and that they should be deployed strategically to restore peace and tranquillity in the state, according to an official statement.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday commended Indian financial sector regulators for doing a "world-class job" and bringing greater transparency into the system. Underlining that she is not against questioning or critiquing regulators, Sitharaman said there is a need to be "extremely conscious" about contributions made by them as well. Speaking at the Financial Express Best Banks Awards, the finance minister said, "I strongly recommend that facts are taken on board before we discuss anything to do with the regulators, strictly speaking."
'The Kerala BJP leadership is doing the job of clerical staff. What the boss orders, they just follow them.'
The Tirupati Laddu row intensified on Friday with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which is managing the super-rich temple, backing Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu's claim that the famous 'prasadam' had animal fat and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy dubbing the accusations as 'atrocious'.
Uzbekistan lives comfortably in several centuries but is also a forward-looking nation, Deepa Gahlot discovers on a visit to this Central Asian country.
Many individual states experienced higher inflation than the all-India figures during the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). Retail inflation figures in Telangana, Haryana, Rajasthan and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have been higher than national numbers every month of this financial year, shows a Business Standard analysis of state-wise figures, after the March inflation data was released on Friday. Experts noted that persistent high food inflation along with differences in the weights of rural and urban indices plays into the regional variation in inflation rates.
He argued that if inflation is low, stable and moving towards the 4 per cent target, why has the RBI not revised downward the bank rate fixed in June 2023?