Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The TMC chief had said that she would never allow the Centre to conduct a similar exercise in West Bengal.
'Persisting with the inequalities, indeed seeing them get worse, is no one's prescription for national unity,' notes T N Ninan.
Of the 294 candidates declared with serious criminal cases, 76 were from the TMC, 52 from the BJP, 47 from the CPI-M and 31 from the Congress.
The government is considering to roll back 10 per cent excise duty on branded garments, due to large scale protest by industry bodies in many parts of the country, including West Bengal, which goes to polls next month.
The byelections are of critical importance to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the assembly poll to Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.
'GST gives a huge relief to small businesses of India and West Bengal.'
With a very severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal likely to trigger surge of tidal waves up to six feet high and a high-speed gale in coastal Orissa, the state government has begun evacuation of people from sea-side villages in six districts.
7 states account for over 80 per cent of the total direct tax collections by the Union government.
Copies of the bill, to be moved by Finance Minister Amit Mitra tomorrow for consideration and passage, were circulated among members on the first day of a two-day special session of the Assembly on Monday.
C M Bachhawat, who has served as finance secretary in the Trinamool government earlier, will take over as the industry secretary from Alapan Bandopadhyay. Bachhawat will also be given additional responsibility as executive director of WBIDC.
Banerjee asked Modi not to allow "an insufferable blow to the federalist polity of the nation" by depriving the states of the GST compensation. "I am deeply anguished by the Goods and Services Tax imbroglio which tantamounts to a betrayal of the trust and moral responsibility of the Government of India towards the states, violating the very premise of federalism."
Ratan Tata, chief of Tata Group, on Friday said the ambitious Rs 100,000 car will be manufactured from three-four places, including West Bengal and Uttaranchal.
At the end of March 2016, Uttar Pradesh was the most indebted state, with an outstanding liability of Rs 385,300 crore, followed by Maharashtra at Rs 351,400 crore and West Bengal at Rs 314,700 crore.
'The pace of disbursement and project recommendation picks up as the tenure of the House draws near and usually all amount is released.'
Arun Jaitley on Friday said he would defer the move.
'The market has picked up for commercial vehicles. We are very close to pre-pandemic levels.'
West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, on Friday invited industrialists to set up base in the state, but cautioned against acquiring land forcefully.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
The finance minister will also visit the school in Tamil Nadu where she studied from KG to Class 5.
Bailout packages for fiscally stressed states are in the works, as the government seeks to garner political backing for the key policy reforms it plans to fast-track after the five state elections. A senior finance ministry official involved in the process said a high-level committee under expenditure secretary Sumit Bose had held consultations to identify measures to help West Bengal, Punjab and Kerala.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi will not be attending the swearing-in of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee as West Bengal Chief Minister in Kolkata on Friday.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh late on Tuesday night and is understood to have briefed him about his talks with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will meet on December 31 and discuss, among other things, report of the panel of state ministers on rate rationalisation. This will be a physical meeting, which will also discuss correction in duty inversion in certain goods. The 46th GST Council meeting will be held on December 31 in Delhi, an official said, adding that it will be an extension to the pre-budget meeting with state finance ministers on December 30. The Group of Ministers (GoM) on rate rationalisation will submit report to the Council.
In an interview with CNN-IBN, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seemed reluctant to embrace Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as her party's choice for the post of the President of India.
It is 10 years since Bandhan Financial Services became the first microfinance institution (MFI) to receive the universal bank licence. A year later, in 2015, it started operations. Bandhan's entry into banking was seen as a vote of confidence by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the country's microfinance sector. Subsequently, the RBI awarded small finance bank licences to nine MFIs.
The state government was under a mammoth debt of Rs 2 lakh crore.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said the wrong policy and non-functional police of the Left Front government in West Bengal were responsible for the rise of Maoism in the state. "The Left Front government should be blamed for the rise of Maoists in West Bengal. Their wrong policy and non-functional police have allowed the Maoists to enter the state and strengthen their base in Junglemahal," the senior Congress leader told an election rally at Harishchandrapur.
party chief whip in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandhopadhay told PTI in Kolkata, "We took a decision that our MPs will abstain from Parliament.We want to send a message to the central government that it should act on state-sponsored terrorism in West Bengal. The Left Front government does not have the moral right to continue."
Ahead of the crucial third phase of assembly polls, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday said that West Bengal was the 'worst-governed' state in the country and blamed the CPI-M and its cadres for spreading violence and turning the state into a 'killing field'.
Addressing her first press conference after the election results were declared, she accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of polarising the people on religious lines to garner votes in West Bengal.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said he was confident that the Congress and Trinamool Congress would contest next year's assembly elections in West Bengal jointly even though the two parties are going to fight separately in coming civic polls.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, on Saturday joined Trinamool Congress days ahead of the high-octane West Bengal assembly polls.
"It is a dastardly attack and I can only tell it has strengthened our resolve to fight against this menace...," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, when asked about Monday's attack by the Maoists.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's maiden visit to the financial capital Mumbai drew an enthusiastic response from India Inc with industry captains queuing up to attend the meeting called by her.
As the Centre pushes reforms in the power sector, especially for the beleaguered electricity distribution segment, several states, especially those ruled by Opposition parties, are clamouring against it. Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerela have voiced their reservations against the proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003. The irony is the states opposing the amendments on the ground of threat of privatisation already have private partnerships in power supply. The proposed Bill was slated to be placed on the floor of Parliament in the Monsoon session. But it still awaits Cabinet approval amid several states complaining that they have been not consulted on the issue.
The total balance in 255 million Jan Dhan accounts now stands at Rs 66,637 crore against Rs 45,637 crore on November 9.
A member of the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning squad, Azad was suspended from the Bharatiya Janata Party for openly targeting the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over alleged irregularities and corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association in December 2015. He joined the Congress in 2018.
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