Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the states were free to announce farm loan waivers if they had the fiscal space and that there would be no shortfall this year in divestment and non-tax revenues.
'Pooja Bhatt is definitely going to lift that trophy.'
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, said that 'Khalistanis' have infiltrated the protest and he will file an affidavit along with the necessary inputs of the intelligence bureau (IB).
Addressing a press conference at Singhu Border in New Delhi, farmer leader Balbeer Singh Rajewal said that farmers never demanded the Supreme Court form a committee to resolve the impasse, alleging the central government was behind this development.
A confrontation was building up at the UP Gate in Ghazipur bordering Delhi with heavy security deployed while frequent power cuts were witnessed in the evening at the protest site, where Bharatiya Kisan Union members, led by Tikait, are staying put since November 28.
'There is no one who will be able to have a dignified life, when your brother and sister of another community are not being treated as human.'
The Bhartiya Kisan Union Lokshakti said the principle of natural justice is going to be violated as those appointed to the four-member committee 'have already supported these laws'.
"The question of entering into Delhi is a law and order matter and will be determined by the police," the bench said.
The government's ninth round of negotiations with protesting farmer unions will take place as scheduled on Friday and the Centre is hopeful of positive discussions, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Thursday.
The panchayat polls will be seen as a kind of verdict from the hinterland for Yogi Adityanath ahead of the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections.
Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary also said the government is always ready for talks but it is up to farmer unions to decide whether they want to go ahead with the scheduled ninth round of talks on January 15.
Farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu had said that 32 farmer unions from Punjab held a meeting on Tuesday and discussed the next course of action.
Farmer leaders on Saturday said the protesting unions stand firm on their demand of a complete repeal of the three agri laws and asserted that they are ready for talks with the government, but that should be held without any condition.
In his letter to Kumar, the veteran leader has made a series of suggestions including an amendment in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act, bringing Lord Buddha's begging bowl from Kabul and hoisting tricolor at Vaishali, the land of world's first Republic.
Status quo to be maintained till further order..., the court said.
Without naming the Prime Minister or using his 'andolanjivi' phrase, Tikait said, "In Parliament, they are saying these are parjivis (parasites). Was Bhagat Singh who sacrificed his life for this nation a parjivi? What about 150 farmers who died during this agitation? Were they parjivis too? Had they gone to Delhi to agitate and die?"
Besides low interest rates, a reduction in active Covid cases and strong high-frequency macro data have lifted the sentiment of both corporate India and the stock markets.
Not all change is good, but this one is, applauds Shekhar Gupta.
Falling private sector investment and farm distress are problems that call for immediate attention, says T N C Rajagopalan.
Inflation targeting has worked well and the government must stay with it, and the framework is going to work well in the period ahead also, former RBI Governor D Subbarao said on Thursday. He also said low inflation contributes to sustainable growth. Addressing the 'Times Network India Economic Conclave' virtually, Subbarao said the government's proposal to privatise some public sector units is not akin to selling family silver but it is a route for putting India on a sustainable growth path.
The Supreme Court Wednesday refused to entertain pleas seeking time-bound probe, including by an apex court-appointed commission, into the tractor rally violence in the national capital on the Republic Day saying the government is already inquiring the matter and the Prime Minister has stated that law will take its own course.
Two pleas were filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday over the tractor rally violence on Republic Day, with one seeking the setting up of a commission, headed by a retired apex court judge, to inquire into the incident, while the other urged it to direct the media not to declare farmers as "terrorist" without any evidence.
'What he says, he does.' 'People say if Khargesahab has said something, it will be set in stone.'
According to a National Crime Records Bureau report, a total of 356 cases of sedition -- as defined under section 124A of the IPC -- were registered and 548 people arrested between 2015 and 2020, out of which only six were convicted.
The school was run on strict Gandhian lines, with stress on students doing things themselves. Physical comforts were minimal, in keeping with the relatively backward geographical area. But it had a staff of teachers dedicated to educating their students, not just imparting them book-learning, remembers Shreekant Sambrani.
Reading out a reply to the government's talks offer during a press conference, farmers leaders said that they are ready for dialogue with an open mind if they get a concrete proposal, but made it clear they will not accept anything less than a complete repeal of the three agriculture laws and legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP).
While rising food inflation is a matter of grave concern for a significant chunk of the population and for policy makers as well, it marks a turnaround in the fortunes of the farmer, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
This was the one Budget that required radical departures on all these fronts, when it had none, asserts, Shreekant Sambrani.
Ramesh Menon, the veteran journalist suggests Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi what he should do if he wants to win 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
It pointed out that farm loan waivers, combined with a potential stimulus which the government is mulling now, can result in a 1 percentage point slippage in fiscal deficit
That AAP managed a sizeable vote share in Gujarat is creditable. The BJP can no longer ignore AAP's growing presence in its strongest bastion, explains Ramesh Menon, long-time observer of Gujarat politics.
The White House has said the forthcoming book by John Bolton is "full of classified information"
The Delhi police's Special Cell has lodged an FIR under sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and sections of the IPC dealing with sedition to investigate the violence at Red Fort in Delhi on January 26.
'In difficult times as now, the call of the village is all that these migrants can hear,' observes Vijaya Pushkarna.
The LDF government -- which has negotiated a series of crises in the form of natural disasters to the Covid pandemic -- cannot turn a blind eye to the accumulated debt of the state that now exceeds Rs 3 trillion and the need for more jobs, investment and industry.
The government should have mentioned clearly the specific structural reforms that were responsible for the deviation from the fiscal deficit target by half a percentage point, says A K Bhattacharya.
Farmer leader Joginder Singh Ugrahan said told reporters after the meeting that the unions urged the government to repeal the three laws, but the Centre was unwilling to do so. "We decided to meet again on January 19 at 12 pm," he said.
In a major move that will benefit hundreds and thousands of Indian IT professionals in America, the Biden administration has introduced an ambitious immigration bill in Congress which among other things proposes to eliminate the per-country cap for employment-based green cards.
'With the largest number of malnourished people on the planet, India is poised to be a nation that significantly under-performs as an economy.'
India must do away with policy paralysis to ensure growth in agriculture.
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