Nothing is going to dramatically open up on May 3. There will be too many ifs and buts and terms and conditions and guidelines in leading one's life in various zones, reveals Sheela Bhatt.
SEZs account for just about a third of India's merchandise exports (and roughly the same proportion of services exports). Yet, the notion of creating global manufacturing centres of the kind that propelled China to superpowerdom retains a durable appeal within the Indian policy-making establishment, notes Kanika Datta.
'Even if Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech were successful in ramping up production overnight, what happens to the capacity after the demand from India is met?' asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh puts it succinctly: "Arun Jaitley was every non-BJP person's favourite BJP-ite."
India should be wary of Pakistan, Yashwant Sinha, senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, tells Aasha Khosa.
BJP member Ananth Kumar was debating Mamata Banerjee's promise to upgrade 309 stations as 'model' ones, of which 137 were in West Bengal. Intervening, Lalu Prasad Yadav said, "World-class station banana to ek soch hai. Yeh banna to hai nahi. Aap pareshan kyon ho rahe hain? In this connection, he said during his tenure also he had proposed to upgrade Patna station which never happened.
Bad loans of PSBs are at Rs 20 trillion. Most of it is, I sense, due to corruption and behest lending. Nobody pays a price for this charade. Not the promoters, the bankers, RBI officials, finance ministry bureaucrats or politicians, points out Debashis Basu.
'If you consider only demonetisation and GST as my government's work, it will be a big injustice to me.'
'Is this the only way for India to become a $5 trillion economy?' 'When you have unused foreign exchange here, why borrow more dollars?'
Rajya Sabha took up the discussion on The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill that have already been passed by Lok Sabha.
Motilal Oswal, chairman and managing director, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, tells Puneet Wadhwa that with Moody's upgrading India's sovereign rating and earnings growth coming back, the country will remain a hot destination for foreign investors.
Facing opposition criticism over alleged inaction by the Delhi police during the violence last month, Shah appreciated the police for not allowing the riots to spiral.
HRD Minister Smriti Irani is likely to be the target of Opposition attack in Parliament where Rahul Gandhi will lead the Congress charge against the government on Tuesday.
It would also be the last policy of Rajan
The navy wants to spend Rs 40,000 crore on INS Vishal, a choice the army and air force oppose. This is as much about turf as about funding. explains Ajai Shukla.
A more vigilant Opposition and a more aware civil society including the media could have certainly helped keep a check on an unhealthy trend, says A K Bhattacharya.
All eyes will be on the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Biju Janata Dal and the Sena itself to see which way they vote.
Venting his anguish over disruptions in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said his heart bleeds over what is happening in the House and it is sad for democracy.
The passing of the GST bill and the failure of India to acquire NSG membership is set to rule the agenda in Parliament.
In this pandemic, why can't we have multiple locations for various disciplines, all of it then merged into a virtual convergence called the Olympics instead of one massive event in one city, asks Shyam G Menon.
The Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) farm loan relief package announced by finance minister P Chidambaram in the budget might have become an issue of debate but write-offs are not new to the banking system. During the last five years, banks have written-off loans farm, retail and corporate -- amounting to over Rs 60,000 crore to clean up their balance sheet.
Disruption is totally unacceptable in Parliamentary system, the President said.
Hitting out at the previous National Democratic Alliance government for poor performance of the railways and inability to pay even Rs 2,473 crore (Rs 24.73 billion) dividend, Prasad said when the United Progressive Alliance government completes its term next year the Railways would have a total surplus of about Rs 1,00,000 crore. It has already generated a surplus of Rs 69,000 crore (Rs 690 billion) in the past four years.
"The ruling establishment seems to have lost all sense of balance, and of proportion. It appears determined to undermine all democratic norms. It seems hell-bent to destroy the spirit of inquiry, the spirit of questioning, the spirit of debate and dissent, said the Congress president.
As the government came under attack from the Opposition during the debate on the recent communal riots in the national capital that have claimed over 50 lives, the BJP members alleged that the violence was a pre-planned conspiracy and the home minister and authorities took pro-active steps to control the situation.
Maria Sharapova's lawyer blasted WADA chief Craig Reedie for making remarks about the five-times grand slam champion at a conference in London on Monday and said the Russian tennis player was owed an apology.
'Benefits in kind' are the ones which are not included in an employee's salary cheque or wages.
The proposal had attracted strong criticism from the salaried class.
The list of the 314 MPs, however, does not include Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, who is also a BJP MP, they said. The majority mark is 268.
The HRD minister claimed that Gandhi family had failed to deliver on their development promises to Amethi, which had to wait for all these years to get a rail line.
Enthused by the consensus in reaching four-tiered GST tax structure, particularly the unanimity achieved with Congress-ruled states, senior government sources were confident that the Central GST and Integrated GST Bills will be passed by both the Houses.
The Narendra Modi government's alacrity in promoting ease of tax administration, a critical component in the ease of doing business index, has set in motion several incremental policy and administrative reforms, says Mukesh Butani.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the improvement in tax-GDP ratio has given enough money to the Central government to vastly increase outlays. The UPA government inherited a tax-to-GDP ratio of 9.2 per cent that has risen to 12.5 per cent in 2007-08. The ratio will be 13 per cent in 2008-09 he said, replying to the debate on the Finance Bill in Lok Sabha. Improvement in tax-GDP ratio has been despite cut in customs, excise & in the current budget cut in personal tax rates.
'In his 2014 election campaign, Mr Modi had boasted that he would apply the Gujarat model to the rest of India. We just have to ensure he doesn't start with Parliament,' says Shashi Tharoor in this fascinating excerpt from his new book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi And His India.
What does a Muslim in politics do? Where does he go?
As the Aam Aadmi Party heads for a resounding win in Delhi, Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists the reasons behind Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's triumph.
While the PM sees zero tax on long-term capital gains and dividend income as unfair since the beneficiaries are not poor, he is silent on the fact that rich farmers too don't pay taxes, since farm income is tax-free, a loophole exploited by many netas and babus, says Debashis Basu.
Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said she firmly believes that culprits of such crimes like the brutal gang rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai should be given death sentence.
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