The Supreme Court has refused to interfere with the government and RBI's loan moratorium policy, and declined to extend the six-month loan moratorium period.
Haryana Police lobbed tear gas shells at farmers from Punjab at Shambhu border between the two states as thousands of protesters stayed put there on Wednesday, the second day of their 'Delhi Chalo' march.
The four choices offered to candidates were: Sharad Yadav, Shatrughan Sinha, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Vijay Rupani.
The reservation would include a 10 per cent horizontal quota for Agniveers in the posts of constable, mining guard, forest guard, jail warden, and special police officers.
He said that the voices of the weak, did not reach the BJP and the RSS.
Bengal corporate leaders on Thursday termed the 2013-14 Union budget a reformist one and said despite being the last budget of United Progressive Alliance before it goes to poll, Finance Minister P Chidambaram restrained from being populist.
While releasing the guidelines to operationalise the Rs 71,680-crore (Rs 716.8 billion) loan waiver scheme for farmers, he said: "The scheme of this nature has never been attempted. The NDA government could not even contemplate a scheme of this kind during their six years of rule." The United Progressive Alliance government completed on Thursday four years in office.
The Congress on Thursday released its manifesto for the forthcoming Karnataka polls. The Congress has chalked out a separate manifesto for Bangalore. Apart from promises of providing 25 kg rice at Rs 2 and a free colour TV to families living below the poverty line, the Congress has also promised 24-hour electric supply to both urban and rural areas.
Among the other promises made by the party are purchase of wheat and paddy at Rs 2,500 per quintal and Rs 400 per quintal for sugarcane.
A panel of Union ministers held a fourth round of talks with farmer leaders in Chandigarh on Sunday over their demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP, as thousands of protesting farmers camped at the Punjab-Haryana border.
With hardly anything positive to flaunt before the electorate while seeking a third consecutive term at the Centre, Sonia Gandhi's Congress is desperately hoping that the food security law will help it win the support of the people much like the national rural employment guarantee or the right to information acts or the farm loan waivers had done for it in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, says Saroj Negi
'The lack of a majority isn't the issue. He has enough in 240, especially as none of his allies can pull down his coalition.' 'That's why he's started as if this were just another, normal term. That pretence is vital for him.' 'The change for Modi 3.0 comes not from numbers, but from the new environment of contestation,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
For the first time in the state's history, over 10,000 thousand farmers have gone on strike.
The country's largest lender State Bank of India on Monday said it has reduced interest rates on home loans by up to 10 basis points (bps) and is offering loans starting from 6.70 per cent rate. The new rates are based on loan amount and CIBIL score of the borrower, and are available till March 31, 2021, according to a statement. The bank said the home loan interest rates will start from 6.70 per cent for loans up to Rs 75 lakh and 6.75 per cent for loans in the range of Rs 75 lakh-Rs 5 crore.
Those behind recapitalisation are neither aware nor do they care. After all, they have no skin in this game. And the Lok Sabha elections are round the corner. That's what they care about, points out Debashis Basu.
Without strong storage facilities, bumper harvest has resulted in price crash
Over 93% of the orders in the year came from the central and state governments, PSUs, and NHAI.
The march, which commenced from Nashik on March 6, will culminate in Mumbai on Monday and protestors plan to gherao the Vidhan Bhavan where the Budget session of the state legislature is underway, said organisers.
'If the government had not spent an incredible amount of energy on demonetisation it may -- may, because it had not done anything the previous six months either -- have been able to pay attention to the deeper problems of low investment and job creation.'
The Congress has so far announced 82 candidates for the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls beginning April 19.
Authorities in New Delhi intensified security arrangements on Tuesday to stop the farmers' march from entering Delhi as the Singhu and Tikri borders were shut while the Red Fort complex was closed temporarily after peasants on their way to the national capital clashed with the police at the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab.
Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal on Tuesday night suspended Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who is at loggerheads with Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on the Centre's reported conditional loan-waiver offer, from the party on the charge of anti-party activities.
UPA-2 seems to have completely lost direction in almost every single way be it in governance, national security, internal security, development initiatives, poverty alleviation and corruption eradication, says Pramod Kumar Buravalli.
Pipliyamandi becomes the epicentre of the current farmers' agitation across the country, demanding better price for their produce and loan waiver and a political hot-potato for all.
Speaking at the inauguration and laying of foundation schemes of various schemes, Modi said, Leh and Ladakh will also be benefited by this.
With almost one third of the season over, rainfall until, last week was 23 per cent below the 50-year average.
RRBs, which cater to the rural sector, are sponsored by major public sector banks, and Centre and State governments also hold stake in them. Earlier, the bankers told Chidambaram that they were facing liquidity crunch due to delay in the relief package, and were unable to provide credit to farmers.
Low home loan rates by banks could put large players in an advantageous position over smaller non-bank players, believe analysts.
We must stop stigmatising business failures. Particularly when startups are mushrooming all around, the financial system, backed by the RBI and the government, can explore ways of extending support to restart the journey of a failed entrepreneur by finance as well as counselling, recommends Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Revive growth by taxing fuels less and lowering interest for productive loans.
Opposition parties on Monday slammed the government for ignoring the interests of farmers and said funds allocated in the General Budget for agriculture ministry were not sufficient.
Ayyakannu, who is also president of the National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association, said the decision to contest the polls from Uttar Pradesh was to urge the Bharatiya Janata Party to include in their manifesto that their demands, including "profitable prices for farm produce," would be fulfilled.
PM assures all help to Mamata but non-committal on debt waiver.
Scenes from Azad Maidan.
Sidhu asserted that he will continue to appear on The Kapil Sharma Show.
Pawar convened a meeting of senior officials and took stock of the situation in the agriculture, which would require a fresh impetus in the face of increasing debt burden on farmers despite loan waivers. He takes over the reigns of the agriculture affairs when the country has harvested a bumper foodgrain production and the central pool are overflowing with wheat and rice.
Opposition members again demanded loan waiver and a fiscal package for farmers in the Rajya Sabha soon after obituary references and raised anti-Government slogans.
Modi slammed the opposition alleging they "remember farmers once in 10 years -- just before elections".
While a lot of TN farmers are indeed in a very bad condition, the agitation at Jantar Mantar doesn't seem to be apolitical, says Sudhir Bisht.
