Pranab Mukherjee's stewardship of the economy will stand out as much for the manner in which he managed controversies as for creating quite a few of them, says A K Bhattacharya.
Joint Parliamentary Committee Chairman P C Chacko on Wednesday rejected Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha's demand for Prime Minister Minister Manmohan Singh's appearance before the panel probing the 2G issue, saying the committee has "passed that phase".
Rejecting Opposition demand for removal of P C Chacko as Joint Parliamentary Committee chairman, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday asked the panel chief and members to work out an agreeable solution to end the current "impasse" on its report on 2G Spectrum.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday sharpened its attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with party leader Yashwant Sinha holding him "personally responsible" for "failure" of his government on all important issues, including excesses against women in Delhi
Citing former telecom minister A Raja's communication to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G scam, Bharatiya Janata Party member Yashwant Sinha on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asking him to appear before the committee, following the allegations levelled against him. In his letter, Sinha said any hesitation on the PM's part to appear before the JPC will prove that he has "something to hide".
The Modi government is notoriously honest about one fact: It does not listen to economists, observes Shekhar Gupta.
With the prime minister rejecting his demand for appearing before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha has alleged that Manmohan Singh gained "cheap publicity" by announcing at the Congress conclave that he was ready to appear before the Public Accounts Committee when he did not intend to do so.
Joint Parliamentary Committee chairman P C Chacko on Tuesday hit out at BJP leader Yashwant Sinha for writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to appear before the panel examining the 2G spectrum scam, dubbing it as a "political stunt" and against established "norms".
The government on Tuesday gave a clean chit to former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in the multi-crore stock markets scam of 2001
There are enough indications that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, with a third term victory behind him, intends to set the pace of events inside the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national level, says Neerja Chowdhury.
A big question mark looms over whether Bharatiya Janata Party members in the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G spectrum allocation case will attend Thursday's meeting with the Opposition still adamant that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram should be examined by the panel.
Bharatiya Janata Party members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the 2G spectrum issue on Thursday boycotted the meeting of the panel in protest against Chairman P C Chacko's refusal to accede to their demand to summon the prime minister and the finance minister.
Hitting out at JPC Chairman P C Chacko for not inviting former Telecom Minister A Raja to depose before it, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha alleged that the panel could be used to "conceal the truth" in the 2G scam rather than expose it.
In a bid to stop the party leaders' infighting in public, Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Saturday issued a gag order on its leaders and functionaries from talking to media, formally or informally.
Amid tight security, 62.60 per cent of 56,18,267 voters exercised their franchise in 17 to decide the fate of 309 candidates.
During a meeting with a visiting Indian parliamentary delegation on Wednesday evening, the lawmakers, including former ministers Mani Shankar Aiyar and Yashwant Sinha, noted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had "rightly said that Yusuf Raza Gilani was a man of peace".
Expressing his dissatisfaction over Dr Singh's reply on the discussion over the Indo-Pak Joint Statement, former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha told rediff.com the facts given by the prime minister in the Lok Sabha are at variance with what happened at Sharm-El-Sheikh.
With the Constitution Amendment Bill on Lokpal failing in Lok Sabha, Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday night demanded resignation of the UPA government on moral grounds.
Submitting a dissent note against the JPC report on 2G spectrum, Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said it was flawed and a bundle of contradictions drafted by people in the government on the directions of the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister as a "cover up" exercise.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday demanded an immediate session of Parliament to move breach of privilege motion against the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for "misleading" the two Houses on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Finance Ministers play a key role in shaping the economy of a country.
The murder of ace crime reporter J Dey has once again put Maharashtra's nefarious oil mafia under the scanner. Through various criminal acts, the men behind the racket have proved that they are no strangers to violence.
Two other ministers Swantradev Singh and Mohsin Raza also took oath.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision to keep the finance portfolio for himself drew sharp criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party which said it was too vast a ministry to be adjunct of the PMO.
Shortage of ICU beds, oxygen, ventilators, vaccines, doctors, nurses and crematorium space in India has dominated headlines around the world in the past few weeks with Covid-19 cases surging beyond control and the government failing to deliver. Yes, election rallies, Kumbh Mela, blatant flouting of social distancing and mask protocols coupled with a messy vaccination process are said to be responsible for the health crisis of colossal proportions that India is facing today. But an analysis of Budget speeches made by finance ministers over 75 years also offers a glimpse of how low on the priority list healthcare has featured for the political class and policy-makers, which is a significant reason for the current situation.
Yeshwant Sinha has been made vice president. Arun Jaitley is secretary of the party's Parliamentary Board.
BJP deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde has been appointed Chairman of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), a post vacated by expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday said she was considering BJP's breach of privilege notice against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for announcing outside Parliament the rejection of the demand for setting up of JPC in the IPL and phone tapping issues.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha, who is in charge of party affairs in Karnataka, briefed the top party leadership about the crisis in the state following the suspension of talks between the BJP and JD (S) abt the impending power transfer
Prof H S Sabharwal died from wounds sustained when students attacked him.
Former Union minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi is likely to become the next chairman of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee while Yashwant Sinha will replace him as head of the Standing Committee on Finance, BJP sources said.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his handling of foreign policy, Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday said India has completely reversed its position on terrorism emanating from Pakistan, and warned that the mention of Balochistan in the joint statement would 'trouble' the country. Initiating a debate on the 'Issues arising out of Prime Minister's recent visits to foreign countries', BJP leader Yashwant Sinha also targeted the government.
On mid-term parliamentary polls, he said that it cannot be ruled out and added the party is prepared for it.
Bhartiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh said that the party should jointlytake responsibility for victory or defeat. "If any individual must own up the defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, I as the president of the party I accept the responsibility," he said while making opening remarks at two day meeting of the national executive at Parliamentary Annexe in New Delhi on Saturday.
The Opposition wanted the PM to respond to their questions but the Chairman did not allow it.
With raging dissent in Bharatiya Janata Party coming out in the open, a senior party Member of Parliament on Wednesday said that the points raised by veterans like Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh should be given due importance.
'Mamata will beat the living daylights out of BJP workers with the result that people who are not totally committed, they will promptly leave the party and go back to Trinamool.' 'Or when they find they cannot get what they came to the BJP for they will go back to Trinamool.'
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of the appointment of controversial Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission chairman Anil Yadav, who was accused of turning the state's highest recruitment body into a private fiefdom by handpicking largely Yadavs for all top jobs.
"We are little perplexed that the two cases are listed on two different dates when the order was that these matters will be heard together," the bench said.
Before 2019, an estimated 22 million individual income-tax returns did not have to pay any taxes. But after the change in the exemption level, another 13 million individual tax returns did not require to pay taxes. Thus, of about 58 million returns, as much as 63 per cent or 35 million went out of the direct tax net, A K Bhattacharya points out.
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