All of Tang's personal property will be confiscated and his illegal gains from bribery recovered and turned over to the national treasury, the court said.
Maharashtra minister Manikrao Kokate was shifted from the agriculture ministry to the sports and youth welfare department in a late-night reshuffle. Dattatrey Bharne will be the new agriculture minister. The reshuffle comes after Kokate faced controversy for playing online rummy during a legislative council session and allegedly equating farmers with beggars.
India's onion production is expected to rise by 19 per cent to 288.77 lakh tonne in the ongoing crop year ending June 2025, according to the agriculture ministry's latest estimate.
In a significant policy shift aimed at boosting agri-productivity and rural prosperity, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced six new agricultural schemes while increasing the subsidised Kisan Credit Card loan limit to Rs 5 lakh from the existing Rs 3 lakh, benefiting 7.7 crore farmers, fishermen, and dairy farmers.
Farmer representatives and agricultural stakeholders urged the government to provide cheaper long-term credit, implement lower taxes, and double the PM-KISAN income support during a comprehensive pre-budget consultation with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday. The two-hour meeting saw a detailed discussion of proposals, aimed at addressing multiple challenges in the agricultural sector, with key demands focusing on financial relief, market reforms, and strategic investments.
The National Informatics Centre uses AI to automate document analysis and detect fraud in government departments.
Ministers' resignation accepted, portfolios farmed out
In their letter to Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, the Congress leaders said during a discussion on the functioning of the ministry of agriculture and farmers' welfare on August 2, "misleading and incorrect assertions" were made by the minister.
The government on Saturday lifted the ban on onion exports but imposed a minimum export price (MEP) of $550 per tonne, amid ongoing Lok Sabha elections in the country. Last night, the government imposed a 40 per cent duty on export of onions. In August last year, India had imposed a 40 per cent export duty on onions up to December 31, 2023.
Area under paddy has gone up nearly 3 per cent so far in the ongoing kharif sowing season to 411.52 lakh hectare, while pulses acreage declined 5 per cent, according to the agriculture ministry data. Paddy acreage stood at 400.72 lakh hectare (LH) in the same period last year. As per the data released on Friday, area under pulses declined 5 per cent to 122.57 LH from 128.49 LH in the year-ago period.
The ban on export of onion will continue till its previously announced deadline of March 31 as the government is keen to keep prices under check and ensure domestic availability, a top official said on Tuesday. On December 8, 2023, the government had banned export of onion till March 31. "Ban on onion exports has not been lifted. It is in force and there is no change in the status," consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh told PTI.
Security personnel deployed outside the Transport Bhavan, metres away from the Parliament complex, did not allow anyone to go beyond the barricades they had put up before checking their identity cards and entry passes.
The department of commerce has urged the agriculture ministry as well as the diplomatic mission in Tehran to apprise it of details as to why Iranian buyers have stopped import of rice and tea from India, a senior government official said. Exporters said that exports of items such as high quality tea and rice have stopped since last week. As of now, there has been no confirmation from the authorities and the response from the embassy in Tehran is also taking time, they said.
This was the first meeting between Sharad Pawar and the group-led by Ajit Pawar after he rebelled against his uncle and joined the Eknath Shinde government on July 2.
India's recent move to remove additional 'retaliatory' duty on eight products from the United States (US), including apples and walnuts, would not have any negative impact on the domestic producers, the government clarified, even as the issue threatened to snowball into a political slugfest between the ruling and Opposition parties. The move would, in fact, result in competition in the premium market segment, ensuring better quality at better prices for consumers, especially for apples, a senior government official said. "There were certain concerns that were being raised on the mutually agreed solution that has come in, more specific to seven-eight agriculture products where we had levied additional import duties in retaliation to the steel and aluminum measures (imposed by the US)," Peeyush Kumar, additional secretary in the commerce department, told reporters in a briefing.
Fearing likely shortage, the government on Thursday said it has made an advance plan to import about 10 lakh tonne higher quality of tur dal via private trade this year to meet the domestic requirement. The issue was discussed in a high-level meeting called by the cabinet secretary to review the prices of essential commodities, especially pulses and onions. Tur production is pegged lower at 3.89 million tonne in the 2022-23 crop year (July-June) from 4.34 million tonne in the previous year as per the initial projection made by the agriculture ministry. Tur is a kharif crop.
Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar was given the finance and planning portfolio on Friday, nearly two weeks after he broke away from the original party and took oath as Maharashtra's deputy chief minister.
Northwest, central and east India are predicted to record maximum temperatures three to five degrees above normal over the next five days, the India meteorological department (IMD) said on Thursday.
A preview of many of the tableaux, some of which are still being constructed or given finishing touches, was held at the Rashtriya Rangshala Camp in the city.
The south-west monsoon on Tuesday started withdrawing from parts of south-west Rajasthan and adjoining Kutch in Gujarat, with at least eight states, including rice bowl states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar reporting deficient rains. It was for the first time since 2016 that the monsoon started withdrawing in the third week of September. "Southwest monsoon has withdrawn from parts of southwest Rajasthan & adjoining Kutch today, against its normal date of withdrawal from southwest Rajasthan of September 17," the India Meteorological Department (IMD) tweeted.
The government on Thursday imposed a 20 per cent export duty on non-Basmati rice except for parboiled rice to boost domestic supplies amid a fall in area under the paddy crop in the current Kharif season. According to a notification by the revenue department, an export duty of 20 per cent has been imposed on 'rice in husk (paddy or rough)' and 'husked (brown) rice'. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs further said the export of 'semi-milled or wholly-milled rice, whether or not polished or glazed(other than Parboiled rice and Basmati rice)' will also attract a customs duty of 20 per cent.
States have been told to prepare in advance to counter any impact of an adverse southwest monsoon.
Farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar said the government has also made some corporate people members of the MSP panel.
After imposing 20 per cent export duty on non-basmati rice, the government has banned the export of broken rice with an aim to increase domestic availability, according to a government notification.
India's wheat production is projected to have declined nearly 3 per cent to 106.84 million tonnes while the overall foodgrain production is estimated to have touched record 315.72 million tonnes in the 2021-22 crop year. The wheat production is estimated to have declined due to heatwave that resulted in shrivelled grains in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana. Releasing the fourth advance estimate for the 2021-22 crop year, the Union agriculture ministry on Wednesday said a record output is also estimated for rice, maize, gram, pulses, rapeseed and mustard, oilseeds and sugarcane.
The government has no plans to import wheat as it has sufficient stocks to meet the country's requirements, official sources said. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has enough stock for public distribution, they added. "There are no plans to import wheat into India. "The country has sufficient stocks to meet our domestic requirements," a source said.
The country's wheat output is estimated to drop by about 3 per cent to 106.41 million tonnes in the 2021-22 crop year (July-June) from the previous year, agriculture ministry said in its latest estimate released on Thursday. The production is, however, lower by 4.61 per cent from the earlier estimate of 111.32 million tonnes projected for the 2021-22 crop year, the data showed. Wheat production stood at a record 109.59 million tonnes in the 2020-21 crop year.
'...Market-linked debentures, high-value insurance, exemptions from capital gains by investment in real estate, etc.' 'So, there are a number of measures directed at collecting a fair share from higher income individuals.'
India has banned wheat exports with immediate effect as part of measures to control rising domestic prices, according to official notification. However, the export shipments for which irrevocable letters of credit (LoC) have been issued on or before the date of this notification will be allowed, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification dated May 13. "The export policy of wheat ... is prohibited with immediate effect...," the DGFT said. It also clarified that wheat exports will be allowed on the basis of permission granted by the Government of India to other countries to meet their food security needs and based on the request of their governments.
'We were among the first organisations to voice our opposition to the three Acts long before anyone else and had sent memorandums collected from 3,000 tehsils across the country to the agriculture ministry to amend the Bills, but nothing was accepted,' says BKS general secretary Badri Narayan Chaudhary.
Johnson will be the chief guest at the event next month.
The agriculture ministry, in the last few weeks, issued guidelines and letters to states to ensure agriculture and food products reach consumers in a timely manner, while farmers don't have to come to the mandis to sell them.
The sowing area under pulses went up by 7 per cent to 132.56 lakh hectare, against 124.15 lakh hectare area.
Though agriculture ministry officials are confident of a bumper harvest due to record increase in kharif acreage, experts and farmers said the on-ground situation in some crops is not that encouraging as incessant rains since the last few weeks and pest attack could impact the final yield.
No breakthrough has been possible in the five rounds of talks so far as the protesting farmers have stuck to their demand for the repeal of the laws despite the government's assurance to look into specific issues without abolishing the legislations.
All India average retail tomato price, which has shot up by 63 per cent to Rs 67 per kg over the last year due to unseasonal rains, are likely to soften from December with the arrival of fresh crop from northern states, the government said on Friday. In the case of onions, retail prices have substantially subsided below to the level that prevailed in 2020 and also 2019, it said. "Tomato arrivals from north Indian states will start from the beginning of December itself, which will add to availability and lead to fall in prices.
The Agriculture Ministry has incurred an expenditure of Rs 67,99,750 on production of three promotional and two educational films on the farm laws for its wider publicity through electronic media, social media and webinars.
In the last eight months, the government has received over a lakh representations from various organisations from across the country
New ministry will bring much-needed transparency in the functioning of the cooperatives, which so far have been riddled with allegations of political interference and mismanagement.
Pawar alleged that the Centre neither consulted states this time, nor it called any meeting with state agriculture ministers before preparing these bills.
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