Congress leader and former Maharashtra minister Baba Ziauddin Siddique, popularly known as Baba Siddique, on Thursday said he had resigned from the party and will be joining the Ajit Pawar led-Nationalist Congress Party.
In an embarrassment to the United Progressive Alliance, voices of dissent emerged from within the Congress over the government's decision to bring an ordinance on convicted lawmakers with Union Minister Milind Deora today apprehending that the move "can endanger already eroding public faith in democracy".
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora would visit Pakistan early next month to sort out differences over transit fee for the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
India will make another attempt to salvage the $22-billion deal to import LNG from Iran when Petroleum Minister Murli Deora meets the Islamic country's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Thursday.
"I would say there was a good response from the people (we met today), and something substantial can come out of it. But I cannot give you the names or details of our meeting," Deora, when asked to give a sense of the meeting by rediff.com, said.
There is a growing unease among Lok Sabha ticket aspirants in the Shiv Sena amid its decision to drop three sitting MPs and the ongoing seat-sharing talks between the Mahayuti partners, party sources said.
Despite Dharavi being located in the Mumbai North Central constituency and Mahalaxmi Racecourse in South Mumbai, the issues have caught the attention of all parties and their candidates.
Union Minister of State for IT and Communications Milind Deora will be taking on Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Aam Aadmi Party candidates as he tries to win the South Mumbai seat for the third time in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
"You will have to wait for that," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told reporters. International crude oil prices are ruling at $74 per barrel on Tuesday.
In a major setback for the Congress ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan who announced his resignation from the Congress party on Monday, will join the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday.
Nita Ambani, founder and chairperson, Reliance Foundation, was presented the Global Leadership Award by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in New Delhi on Sunday, October 29, 2023.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP D N V Senthil Kumar on Wednesday apologised in the Lok Sabha for his controversial 'north-south divide' remark which had sparked a backlash.
Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora on Tuesday slammed the Mumbai police for 'acting in haste' by arresting two young girls for their Facebook post questioning shutdown of the city for Bal Thackeray's funeral and called for checks to prevent misuse of the IT Act.
'Rahul Gandhi is showing an 'I-don't-care-attitude'.' 'He is showing the same attitude towards what is happening in Maharashtra or in various parts of the country.'
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will meet Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and chiefs of airlines and oil companies to discuss a solution for dues of over Rs 2,000 crore that the domestic carriers owe the state-owned oil marketers on fuel sales.
Crude prices are hovering near $100 a barrel level after hitting a six-month low of $98 on Thursday. Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said that crude prices are expected to fall even further.
The government advised the warring Ambani brothers several times that they should stop fighting, but failed to bring about a reconciliation, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Wednesday.
Though the government had earlier this year explicitly decided to compensate Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum for the losses they incur on selling domestic liquid petroleum gas and kerosene through public distribution system by way of oil bonds, the finance ministry has not issued any bonds for the three quarters.
The government will cut petrol and diesel prices when there is a sustained drop in global crude oil prices, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Thursday.
A source said on Tuesday that 'petroleum ministry is likely to propose deregulation of petrol prices and gradual phasing out of subsidies on diesel to ease burden on public sector oil marketing companies' -- indicating a possible hike of Rs 3 per litre in petrol rates.
'Can you believe Ashok Chavan was with me in the senior leaders' meeting one day, and next day morning, he switched sides!'
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora on Monday hinted at a hike in fuel prices, asserting that a final call on it would be taken by the Group of Ministers in the meeting to be held in New Delhi on June 7.
Replying to a calling-attention motion in Rajya Sabha, oil minister Murli Deora said the $4.2 per million British thermal unit price fixed for gas produced from KG-D6 fields of RIL was lower than the average of $5.51 per mmBtu charged by UK's BG-led consortium for Panna/Mukta and Tapti gas. It was also lower than the $4.3 per mmBtu price of gas produced from Cairn's Ravva Satellite fields and $4.75 per mmBtu for the UK firm's Lakshmi fields.
Crude oil prices in July last year rose to a historic high of $147 and then plumetted to four-year low of $37 per barrel, all in just four months time. The minister said the global financial crisis which was the primary reason for the slump in international oil prices, has forced India to revise growth targets.
The drop in international oil prices has resulted in revenue loss of Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum dip to Rs 400 crore per day from Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) a fortnight back. The basket of crude oil India buys averaged $111.09 a barrel in the second fortnight of August as compared with $117.37 per barrel in the first fortnight of the month.
In a six-page reply to the Election Commission's notice, Deora said he had not made any suo moto statement on price reduction and made those reported comments on being quizzed by the media on sidelines of a hydrocarbons conference in New Delhi. The commission on Wednesday sent a communication to Deora and the ministry's Secretary R S Pandey seeking their comments on complaints by BJP that the minister violated model code of conducts.
The government on Tuesday clarified that no papers of sensitive nature were ever given to Mukesh Ambani-run RIL or its Canadian partner Niko Resources, and added they were provided only those papers needed to implement the decision on pricing of natural gas from their field.
Farhan Azmi, son of state Samajwadi Party chief Abu Asim Azmi, on Tuesday said he was in the reckoning to contest against sitting Congress Member of Parliament and Union minister Milind Deora from the posh Mumbai South constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Murli Deora, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, will be leaving for Pakistan on Tuesday. India and Pakistan's relation will get unprecedented boost if talks on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas project proceeds on a fast track, said a high-level source in the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The biggest issue in realising the TAPI pipeline project is the issue of security through Afghanistan.
'Chavan's political clout began declining since his Lok Sabha defeat in 2019.'
'These betrayers don't realise that their exit opens up vast new opportunities to those whose growth they have always stunted'
"What I would have really liked is if Rahul Gandhi got involved in a government a long time ago, like me and like a lot of my other colleagues. I think if he got into government like five yeas ago, when we came back into power in 2009, a lot would be different for our government. "A lot would be different for our party. A lot would be different for Rahul also, perhaps, in terms of being able to say he has experience," the Mumbai South member of Parliament told NDTV.
BJP leaders hit back at the DMK and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi if he agreed with the insulting remarks of its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner against the north Indians.
The country is facing no shortage of domestic cooking gas at the moment, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. As on October 1, 2007, OMCs were serving 9.79 crore LPG customers through their 9,355 distributorships. OMCs have released 27.7 lakh new LPG domestic connections in the country during April-September.
With the rise of global crude oil prices - currently nudging $100 per barrel - the "losses" of the three government-owned oil marketing companies have gone up to a whopping Rs 240 crore (Rs 2.4 billion) per day.
India expects to finalise an agreement on the tri-nation pipeline that will bring natural gas from Iran via Pakistan by the middle of next month, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Wednesday.
'The price increases, particularly in respect of cooking gas, that is domestic LPG and PDS kerosene, have been quite minimal.'
The government is likely to take a decision on revising fuel prices by the end of this month, petroleum minister Murli Deora said on Monday.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday embarked on the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Thoubal in Manipur with a promise to bring peace and harmony in the ethnic violence-hit state.
In a major organisational rejig ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Saturday appointed Avinash Pande the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, replacing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while Sachin Pilot was made the general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh.
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