In the first phase this year, 1.2 crore people in about 3,331 coastal villages and cities would receive the cards.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday slammed the government for invoking the Public Safety Act against former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah and said detention without charges is the worst abomination in a democracy.
The Union Home Ministry is looking into Sports Minister Ajay Maken's demand to include sports excellence as an area of recognition for the Bharat Ratna.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, while reacting to Pakistan's claim that India had not provided any evidence against Saeed, said "Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi is one of the masterminds. There are others. We know their names and Pakistan also knows their names. If they do not bring the others to trial, then I would have to conclude, reluctantly and regretfully that they are dragging their feet," Chidambaram told media-persons in New Delhi.
The Centre will resume the stalled dialogue with separatists in Kashmir at an "appropriate time", Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said today.
After Union Home Minister P Chidambaram it now appears to be the turn of Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who is under attack by Congressmen both within and outside the government.
Facing the heat from their constituents as well as fellow legislators, Andhra Pradesh ministers hailing from Telangana region on Thursday came forward to resign from their posts but Chief Minister K Rosaiah prevented them from doing so.
The Congress leader said he made the changes to improve the quality of the language as is any lawyer's wont in the second affidavit.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram is Congress nominee from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha while senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
The CBI suspects that Chidamabaram and his son Karti also received kickbacks from other companies.
"Our party has always maintained that Chidambaram's victory was through fraudulent means. His continuance in the Union Council of Minsters is untenable," Jayalalithaa said in response to a query from rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt on the issue.
A turning point arrived in the 2G spectrum case trial on Saturday. Janta party leader Subramanian Swamy, who has been seeking the inclusion of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in the list of accused in the 2G scam, deposed as a witness in a special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had a brief meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on salient features of the Budget.
'It's the court, not the government that decides where to put the people who indulge in corruption'
"The news report published in the Indian Express (external link) today comprehensively exposes the fake controversy created by the NDA government on the two affidavits filed by the Central government in the Ishrat Jahan case," Chidambaram said in statement.
Not only did Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reject Union Home Minister P Chidambaram letter of resignation, but the PM also stood solidly behind him, by directing Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar to write to all Union Ministers not to criticise the government's handling of the Maoist issue and not to vent their feelings on Left Wing extremism in public fora.
Exclusive! Home Secretary G K Pillai on his tenure
These ministers are meeting select group of editors and senior reporters every week to put forward their viewpoints. The wooing of journalists at the ministerial level is unprecedented and shows the defensive mood prevailing within the government.
He has already been subjected to custodial interrogation by the CBI for eight days since his arrest on August 21, after the Delhi high court on August 20 dismissed his anticipatory bail plea.
'It is only under the BJP that laws are made and unmade without prior Cabinet approval'
The former Union minister alleged that the government is "intolerant to the slightest criticism".
Chidambaram came down hard on the Jahangirpuri demolitions and those in Madhya Pradesh's Khargone earlier, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders' justification of the bulldozer-enabled demolitions 'flies in the face of the law'.
Some of them also flagged a lack of consultation before finalising the reports.
Singh, a former Army officer, had been ill after a fall at his home in August 2014 and was admitted to the Army Research and Referral Hospital. He had been in and out of the hospital and was admitted again in June this year.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said the Central Board of Direct Taxes is inquiring into alleged leak of tapes of telephone conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and politicians, journalists and industrialists.
"Considering the facts and circumstances, I am of the view that police custody is justified," the judge said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday rejected Home Minister P Chidambaram's 'self-certified' non-involvement in the 2G spectrum case and maintained that he should resign from the Union cabinet.
All the seven states hit by Left wing extremism have agreed on a joint action to confront the menace firmly and decisively, and the Centre will provide them full support in terms of security forces and funds, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said.
Citing 'frail' health, Chidambaram also said he is not 'accustomed' to food given to him in the jail and has lost 4 kg weight during judicial custody.
Even though the NIA claims that more than 90 per cent of cases charge-sheeted have ended in conviction, the figure is likely misleading. To date, very few cases investigated by the NIA have resulted in a completed trial, points out former CBI joint director Navneet Rajan Wasan.
This is the first time that the 73-year-old former finance and home minister is being grilled by the ED in this case.
The Union finance ministry has kicked off the exercise for preparation of the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2012-13 and has asked all ministries to rush proposals by October 31 for inclusion in the second supplementary budget for 2011-12 to be presented in the winter session of Parliament.
The senior Congress spokesperson posted on Twitter that on many occasions in the past, he had "cautioned that the Kashmir issue or problem (or by whatever name it is called) was a festering wound".
Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah on Saturday met Home Minister P Chidambaram and discussed the prevailing situation in Kashmir. Abdullah, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and patron of the ruling National Conference in the state, discussed with Chidambaram the steps being taken by the Centre and the state government to bring back normalcy in the state. Barring Sopore and Pulwama, curfew was lifted temporarily in the Kashmir valley.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said India is not facing recession but only a slowdown.
The former union home and finance minister also alleged that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government would not have taken the bold decision had Jammu and Kashmir been a "Hindu-dominated" state.
Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Abhishek Singhvi said the judgement of the Supreme Court in cases concerning the abrogation of Article 370 has decided many issues but has left some.
Singh, now a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Bihar, said what was the reason for the change of the affidavit when the Intelligence Bureau had said that Ishrat had links with Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists.
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.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu charged that the Central Bureau of Investigation was misused by the then United Progressive Alliance government to harass its political opponent and 'defame' the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
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