Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
Government-controlled oil-marketing companies (OMCs) have held back petrol and diesel price revisions for a week and are expected to continue doing so, ostensibly owing to political reasons. It appears that the Centre has informally conveyed to the three major OMCs to not revise fuel prices for the time being, two people in the government said. This informal directive follows the talks between the Centre and states on cutting taxes and bringing the auto fuels under the good service tax regime not fetching the desired results, so far.
All households are entitled to get 12 cylinders of LPG or liquefied petroleum gas.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday ruled out a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel to ease prices, which have touched an all-time high, saying payments in lieu of past subsidised fuel pose limitations. Petrol and diesel as well as cooking gas and kerosene were sold at subsidised rates during the previous Congress-led UPA government. Instead of paying for the subsidy to bring parity between the artificially suppressed retail selling price and the cost that had soared because of international rates crossing $100 per barrel, the then government issued oil bonds totalling Rs 1.34 lakh crore to the state-fuel retailers. These oil bonds and the interest thereon are being paid now.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) on Wednesday said it has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on e-commerce firm Flipkart for allowing sale of substandard domestic pressure cookers on its platform, in violation of mandatory standards. Headed by Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare, the CCPA has directed Flipkart to recall all such 598 pressure cookers sold on its platform, reimburse their buyers, and submit a compliance report within 45 days. The central government routinely notifies the Quality Control Orders (QCOs), specifying compulsory conformity to a standard and use of the standard mark for a product to protect consumers from the risk of suffering injury and harm and in the interest of the public at large.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has ruled Gujarat for 27 years, is trying to retain power in the state for the seventh term in a row.
Petrol price on Friday crossed the Rs 100- per-litre mark in Chennai as well as in some places in Punjab and Kerala after fuel prices were hiked yet again. Petrol is priced at over Rs 99 a litre in Delhi and Kolkata -- the only metro cities which haven't seen the Rs 100 mark yet. Petrol price was hiked by 35 paise per litre on Friday but there was no change in diesel rates, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
"Those who ruled for decades since Independence believed Dispur was too distant from Delhi. 'Dilli ab door nahi aapke darwaaze par hai' (Delhi is not far now, it stands at your doorstep," he told a massive gathering.
A major fire on Friday broke out in a three-storeyed residential building near Byculla railway station injuring two persons but 20 other occupants were safely rescued, a Fire Brigade official said.
The government is considering a 3-rupee to 5-rupee hike in the price of diesel, which accounts for more than 40 percent of fuel use, government officials said last week, as the country looks to cut import costs by nearly $20 billion to trim a record current account deficit.
The Union government on Tuesday said it has issued 202 notices to e-commerce players for incorrect declaration of 'country of origin' on products on their platforms in the last one year. The maximum number of such violations were found with respect to electronic appliances, followed by clothing and home products. Out of 217 notices, 202 notices were issued for violations relating to 'country of origin' norm.
The presidential secretariat which was occupied by the protesters from July 9 till Friday last is re-opened and the staff reported to work on Monday, officials said.
India is back on the diplomatic table pushing oil producing countries to raise production in a bid to cool down runaway oil prices. Brent crude oil prices traded above $90 a barrel, on Thursday, for the first time since 2014. Brent is the most popular marker for crude oil trade. It is used as a benchmark for two-thirds of the world's internationally traded crude oil.
A hearty filling vegetable soup made with simple ingredients.
There were many people who wanted to seek favours from her by offering lakhs and crores of rupees even through her family members when she was Odisha's transport minister. She never allowed any kind of corrupt practices to touch her department officials, family members or the supporters who have stood by her.
Sonia hit out at the BJP, saying the ruling party's "divisive agenda" has become a regular feature of political discourse in all states and that history is being "mischievously distorted" to add fuel to its agenda.
Narendra Modi's landslide victory gives him the mandate to deregulate diesel prices as well as raise natural gas rates with a clear road map towards free pricing to cut subsidies and shrink the budget deficit.
The government's poor handling of the economic crisis where people currently endure long hours of power outages and scarcity of essentials has angered the public which planned country-wide protests on Sunday.
Amid slogan shouting by MPs from the Trinamool Congress, the Congress and other opposition parties from the Well of the House, Modi began replying to the debate on the motion thanking the President for her address to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the start of the Budget Session, and accused the Congress of adopting only 'tokenism' to solving problems the country faced.
Democratic Left Front politician Nanayakkara was among the 42 members who declared independence in Parliament from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) coalition.
Oil demand had plunged 5.9 per cent in January, the most in 13 years, after the shock demonetisation of high-value currency notes in November
Price of non-subsidised cooking gas (LPG) was today cut by Rs 43.50 per cylinder as international oil rates slumped to their lowest since May 2009.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour, MP Achuthan (Communist Party of India-Marxist) said that in Kerala public sector oil companies had made it mandatory for people to get Aadhar-linked bank accounts for getting subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas.
So far, 758 million Aadhaar numbers have been generated.
'Nationalism built on divisiveness cannot strengthen the country, or help the economy improve its performance,' points out T N Ninan.
Given that the target was to reach 80.34 million families under PMUY - within three months starting April 1 - the government should have distributed at least 241.02 million cylinders by the end of June. It actually ended up distributing only 119.7 million cylinders.
'I will give the evidence when the Indian Army constitutes an inquiry. I have given you my statement. Has the army initiated any inquiry?'
So far, 254 blocks of oil and gas have been auctioned.
Sri Lanka's former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, who is the youngest brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was stopped from boarding a flight to Dubai on Monday evening, local media reported.
'For the common man, the economic conditions are not going to get better.'
Exotic Thanksgiving-inspired recipes for any occasion.
The Supertech twin towers in Noida were demolished on Sunday, a year after the Supreme Court's direction to raze the illegally built structures to the ground. The nearly 100-metre-high structures - taller than Delhi's iconic Qutub Minar (73 metres) - were brought to the ground in seconds literally like a house of cards by the 'waterfall implosion' technique, in a breathtaking spectacle of modern day engineering. They were the tallest structures to be demolished in India.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs may raise the subsidised LPG cylinder quota from 9 to 12 at the next meeting, Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily said.
Modi was addressing the State Dinner hosted in his honour by US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the North Lawn of the White House.
The cost of non-subsidised LPG -- the one that consumers buy after exhausting their quota of 12 bottles of 14.2-kg at below market price -- has been cut by Rs 100.5 to Rs 637.
Business subsidies may attract tax
Wearing black clothes, Congress leaders hit the streets on Friday to protest against price rise and unemployment with a host of them, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, being detained by police amid dramatic standoffs outside Parliament and the All India Congress Committee headquarters in New Delhi.
Punjab's 117 assembly seats are going to be a keenly-watched contest with the Congress, the AAP, the SAD-BSP alliance, and the BJP-PLC-SAD (Sanyukt) battling to form the government in the state, with a probable entry of farmers' front in the form of Sanyukt Samaj Morcha.
In a presentation prepared for the incoming Narendra Modi-government, the ministry listed national oil companies losing focus on domestic exploration as well as legal disputes around signed contracts with private explorers among the five things that went wrong during the United Progressive Alliance regime.
One of the major challenges before the government is that the annual average refill by a PMUY consumer is 3.28 cylinders compared to seven for others.
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