Construction of all ten buildings of the Common Central Secretariat (CCS) is slated for completion in the next 22 months. Several ministries currently housed in Shastri Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan, Nirman Bhavan, and Udyog Bhavan will begin relocating to four new locations. The first building, Kartavya Bhavan, will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Results of the Delhi assembly election are not a vindication of Prime Minister's Narendra Modi's policies but a referendum on Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party, the Congress said on Saturday as it vowed to bounce back from another whitewash.
Former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Kerala BJP leader C Sadanandan Master and Delhi-based historian Meenakshi Jain have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
'China reduced its exports of urea to India gradually.' 'In 2020-2021 we imported 28 lakh tonnes of urea which reduced to 16 lakh tonnes in 2022-2023 and that has now reduced to 1 lakh tonnes in 2024-2025.'
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar discusses India's approach to cross-border terrorism following the Pahalgam attack, emphasizing a firm response and no compromise on nuclear blackmail.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders said the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case was a "slap on the face" of people who coined the term "saffron terror".
GST 2.0 may cushion consumers against US tariffs, but like the 2019 corporate tax cut, it risks being another tactical fix rather than a structural growth strategy, expects Debashis Basu.
'Trump has no more elections to fight and his soaring ambition, which is no secret, will be to carve out a presidential legacy that outshines by far all his mediocre predecessors.' 'Trump's turnaround on the H-1B visa debate shows that he can take tough decisions and there are no holy cows in his domain,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The next Census' findings will help identify the extent of India's ageing population and vulnerability levels.
Currently, the NAPCC has eight active missions across sectors like water, energy, and agriculture, aimed at addressing climate change.
The first-ever Khelo India Water Sports Festival is all set to reveal the iconic Dal Lake in a new avatar.
The former finance minister also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the words he chose to attack his predecessor Manmohan Singh, saying he should remember that the Chair he sat on was used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use right language.
'Both initiatives are welcome moves and we would commit ourselves with focused attention aligned with the national priorities, and pursue our exploration initiatives.'
'Anybody who says one critical word can be branded as somebody who's glorifying terrorism.'
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi slammed Pakistani politician Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his "blood would flow in rivers" remark and called former cricketer Shahid Afridi a "joker" for his comment on the Pahalgam terror attack. Owaisi also supported India's decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty and called for Pakistan to be placed on the FATF grey list. He also advocated for cyber attacks against Pakistan.
India's unpopularity coincides with China lengthening its shadows in Nepal, says Rajeev Sharma.
Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus has said that his interim government wanted good relations with India, but 'something always went wrong'.
Murmu's address to the joint sitting of Parliament will also be the first after the constitution of the 18th Lok Sabha.
Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday assumed charge as the Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister for the second consecutive term and is slated to soon present the final Budget for FY '25 that is going to set the tone for the Modi 3.0 government's priorities and direction for Viksit Bharat. Upon her reaching the North Block office, Sitharaman was greeted by Finance Secretary T V Somanathan and other top officials. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary was also present. Chaudhary assumed charge on Tuesday evening.
BJP had attacked previous UPA govt over policy paralysis.
Both prime ministers believed in crafting schemes to help the common man. Modi used quite effectively the instruments Dr Singh introduced. In assessing Modi's success with many schemes, Dr Singh's fundamental work should not be ignored, points out A K Bhattacharya.
...the DMK chief minister's campaign -- which includes criticism of the BJP's 'pro-Hindutva, anti-Tamil, anti-federal' policies and building on his own government's social welfare programmes targeting especially women and youth -- appeals to Tamil Nadu's voters in next year's assembly election, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
P K Mishra, a retired IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, is currently serving as the principal secretary to the prime minister.
'If you speak against them, then you are going to invite a raid, and if not arrest, then something (else).'
Hailed as the architect of India's economic reforms, former prime minister Manmohan Singh in one his last interviews had said in 2019 that the country's economy was 'over-regulated', the government exerted control and interferences were aplenty with even regulators having 'morphed into controllers'.
He said the transformation brought about by the fintech sector in India is not just limited to technology, but its social impact is far-reaching. He also stressed that fintech has dented the parallel economy and is bridging the gap between villages and cities on the financial services front. The prime minister also said that in the last 10 years, the fintech space has attracted investments of more than $31 billion and fintech startups have grown by 500 per cent.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a news conference on reciprocal tariffs will be made later on Thursday.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated India's readiness to assist Pakistan in combating terrorism if it cannot act on its own, highlighting Operation Sindoor as a demonstration of India's capabilities. He also criticized Pakistan's appointment to a UN counter-terrorism committee.
'Undeniably, Modi's position has stabilised and he has staged a comeback of sorts from the weeks after the Lok Sabha results.' 'Coalition partners are likely to be more tolerant of Modi... The forthcoming elections in Delhi and Bihar will determine whether this continues or not.' 'To win Delhi and Bihar, Modi will have to work in conjunction with the RSS.' 'However, because of the 'truce' that has been worked out within the Sangh Parivar, Modi will have to be more consultative than he has been in the past ten years,' reveals Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
If India caves in to US pressure as Trump hopes it will, he will further try to blackmail it into submission, points out Ramesh Menon.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks that the Constitution of India is 'blank' because he has never read it.
'A less tense US-China relationship would make Beijing less likely to provoke India -- including on the border -- in retaliation for its close defence ties with the US.'
March 31 marked 10 years since the Modi government introduced its first Foreign Trade Policy (FTP 2015-20) that lasted for 8 years before the current FTP 2023 came in. Here is a brief assessment. In 2015, the government said that it aims to increase India's exports of merchandise and services from $465.9 billion in 2013-14 to approximately $900 billion by 2019-20 and to raise India's share in world exports from 2 per cent to 3.5 per cent.
India looks less equal to China than 5 years ago, the strategic alliance with the US is hobbled by trade, and Pakistan is looking anything but chastened by Balakot. What has gone wrong? asks Shekhar Gupta.
What India needs more than one simultaneous election is better governance both at the central and state level. Yes, we need reforms, but our priority should be to make elections less expensive, make it more democratic, do away with freebies which are actually bribes before elections, allow only those who are educated to contest, and bring in a bill to make it impossible for criminals to contest, advocates Ramesh Menon.
The Centre's retreat from the farm laws is likely to have a significant bearing on the fate of laws that the Centre has made, for instance, in labour and electricity, predicts A K Bhattacharya.
'I don't know whether the top Gujarati leaders of Indian politics (Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah) in Delhi realise that the narrative of HindiHinduHindustan will eventually destroy their own language too.'
Vijay, with his chief ministerial ambitions, is a one-man army, at least as of now, and his campaign team considers him omnipresent. He has to be present in all districts, if not all constituencies at the same time, as there is no second-line leader or platform speaker in the party, who can draw crowds, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
