Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and other ministers took charge of their respective offices on Thursday, a day after taking oath at a ceremony held in the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The telecom ministry will decide on the merger between the state-owned telecom companies, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, only after the listing of the former.
Fifteen Cabinet ministers and 28 Ministers of State were sworn-in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday evening.
In an escalation of differences between Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi and the ruling Congress party, the former on Thursday declared as "null and void" the circular issued by Chief Minister V Narayanasamy banning the use of social media for official communication.
New body to replace Plan panel might retain 40% of existing staff
IMD is preparing a concept paper on narrowing its grid resolution from 22 sq km to 10 sq km.
Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal claimed that India has been doing better than many other countries on the outcome ratio, which is the number of recoveries from coronavirus infection versus the number of deaths.
Tharoor put the blame for the logjam in Parliament on BJP and accused the saffron party of reducing the "temple of democracy to a rubber stamp for its agenda or worse, a notice board to announce its unilateral decisions".
'While other parties generally need support directly from their central leadership to get influencers or celebrities to endorse their party, the work of identifying and contacting such influencers has been decentralised to state and district level IT cells to get more engagement in the BJP.'
Ahead of the Union Cabinet expansion on Wednesday, several Union Ministers, including Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Education Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar resigned from their posts.
The 77 ministers have been divided into eight groups to develop technology-based resources, create a pool of professionals for recruiting in their teams and other similar initiatives to be adopted in the offices of all ministers' offices to bring more transparency and further improve and efficiency of the Modi government, the sources said.
The government is currently also revising its MSIPS policy to extend its mandate apart from making it more investor friendly.
The proposed law seeks bars on storing and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual. It, however, provides for exemptions for "reasonable purposes" such as "prevention and detection of any unlawful activity including fraud, whistle-blowing, merger and acquisitions, network and information security, credit scoring, recovery of debt, processing of publicly available personal data and the operation of search engines".
A whopping Rs 62,476 crore has been "illegally" transferred by smartphone maker Vivo to China in order to avoid payment of taxes in India, the Enforcement Directorate said Thursday, as it claimed to have busted a major money laundering racket involving Chinese nationals and multiple Indian companies. This money is almost half of Vivo's turnover of Rs 1,25,185 crore, it said without stating the time period of the transaction. The crackdown on the leading Chinese company came after the federal probe agency found that three Chinese nationals, all of whom "left" India during 2018-21, and one other person from that country incorporated as many as 23 companies in India in which they were also helped by a Chartered Accountant, Nitin Garg.
From toys, footwear and furniture to insulated flasks, smart meters, and air coolers - the Central government over the last decade has mandated higher standards for production and imports of such items. Sample this: Till 2014, there were 14 Quality Control Orders (QCOs) covering 106 products. By the latest count, there are 156 QCOs on 672 products.
Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Department of Telecommunication seeking its response as to how to block websites with pornographic content in the country, particularly those featuring child pornography.
The ban has been in force since last Friday.
In order to weed out the hassle of sending by post a hard copy of e-filed return, the Income Tax department has decided to bring in the facility of electronic signatures for taxpayers to endorse their bonafides.
His son Sunil lighted the pyre and a police contingent gave the departed leader a gun salute.
Microblogging site Twitter's explanations to a parliamentary panel on showing Ladakh as part of China are inadequate and the act amounts to criminal offence attracting imprisonment of seven years, committee chairman Meenakshi Lekhi said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain DoPT, Atomic Energy as well as all important policy issues and portfolios not allocated.
The world's biggest social network Facebook wants to connect more people to internet in India which accounts for the third largest online user base globally after China and the US but has a very low internet penetration growth rate.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
In the new Parliament House, with a soft launch this Winter Session, paper is expected to disappear. For the guidance of ministers, secretaries can scribble notes on linked pads even from their offices to respond to queries from members.
The move is part of recommendations made by a task force on the use of space technology in improving border management which have been accepted by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
No lives were lost after cyclone Biparjoy made landfall. Preparations for Biparjoy were not only extensive, they were also telecast far and wide. Ahead of the cyclone's landfall, Shyam G Menon observes there was considerable publicity on how much the government was geared up to face the storm and its aftermath.
Several states and UTs including Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana have decided to opt for global tenders for procurement of anti-coronavirus shots with the domestic supply falling short to meet the rising demand.
Full list of the rejigged Union Council of Ministers
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently extended a Rs 8,000-crore (Rs 80 billion) central support for building roads in Jammu & Kashmir, Union Cabinet's approval for the big-ticket announcement came in barely 48 hours.
The union human resource development ministry has sanctioned an Indian Institute of Technology to Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy said in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
Given the security dilemma prevailing between India and China, India should curb the operation of Chinese telecom companies in India, asserts Dr Rup Narayan Das.
The US on Thursday raised concerns over India's Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill and draft non-personal data governance framework, claiming these could potentially threaten innovation and economic growth. In its latest 'Special 301' Report, the US Trade Representative (USTR) kept India on the priority watch list, maintaining the country remains one of the world's most challenging major economies with respect to protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP). In December 2021, a joint parliamentary committee released a report recommending changes to the PDP Bill, 2019, that could undermine important IP protections in India.
Agarwal said that the current 'R0' or R naught for the coronavirus infection is somewhere between 1.5 and 4.
There are unprecedented political implications of identification based on 'biological attributes of an individual', such as employed by Aadhaar, warns Gopal Krishna.
Sitharaman said the government will bring in a new national education policy to transform India's higher education system into one of the best in the world.
From trusted bureaucrat, to Wharton, MNC executive to businessman, and now politician, the man in charge of two weighty ministries is a unique all-rounder with specialist knowledge.
In the last budget, then finance minister Arun Jaitley had allocated Rs 85,010 crore for the education sector which was later revised to Rs 83,625.86 crore.
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