The fragmentation of politics and the pressures of coalition management have contributed to a near-secular rise in budgetary social expenditures and spending on subsidies since 1991, leaving little fiscal space for government-led capital investment.
Maharashtra Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Jayant Patil appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai on Monday in a money laundering case linked to alleged financial irregularities in the now bankrupt financial services firm Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS), an official said.
With the acquittal of arch rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa coming as a reversal for it, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam top brass on Monday went into a huddle to work on a political and legal strategy following the development.
Once the Canadian investigation runs its course, Ottawa may put on the public domain further accusations passing for "evidence" -- and that could happen at some point closer to our general election. All in all, the big question is, what is it that the US is really up to, asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The judge could have given him a six-month, one-year, or one-and-half-year sentence also because the maximum punishment for defamation cases is two years.' 'Disqualification happens only if one is sentenced for two years; it does not happen if the disqualification is for one-and-half years.' 'But the period of sentence is the judge's discretion.'
Here's what India's youth think about the politicisation of Ganesh Chaturthi, speaking their minds about how this tide can and should be turned around.
India on Friday expelled senior American diplomat within hours of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade being asked to leave the United States after her indictment in a visa fraud case for which she was arrested nearly a month ago, triggering strong reaction from the government here.
Take a break and rest your tired heels in a dysfunctional ATM.
Allies since the 1990s, the JD-U and the BJP have in the recent past squabbled on issues ranging from Agnipath, caste census, population law and ban on loudspeakers.
The indebtedness of Indian companies has had an adverse impact on the economy's investment climate apart from weakening their performance and seriously impairing the financial health of the banking sector. Unless both the problems are resolved, there is little chance of reviving investment and boosting growth on a sustainable basis, says A K Bhattacharya.
Sharad Pawar has left the door open for his nephew's return by not suspending him from the party for his rebellion.
The Union Minister for Culture Ambika Soni, under whose control the Archeological Survey of India falls, was in Japan.
Ganguly broke down as she raised the issue of eight people, including two children, being burnt to death in Bogtui village in Birbhum, saying to be born in West Bengal is not a crime.
Two snowshoers from Kashmir have alleged they have been denied visa to the United States of America due to "current (US) policy" even as the American Embassy in New Delhi maintained that Indians are not affected by the recent executive order of President Donald Trump.
The former footballer who later became editor of a vernacular daily Naharolgi Thoudang, has managed to strike a chord with the youth, promoting entrepreneurship through programmes such as 'Start-Up Manipur' as an alternative for young people who were being attracted to insurgency.
The attackers then manhandled him and also tortured his driver before fleeing from the scene.
'Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti acted single-mindedly right from day one of the three month-long crisis.' 'She pursued her chosen administrative course, unmindful of the menacing jingoistic drum beating in the coalition backyard.' 'At one point, I asked her if she was willing to pay the price for taking her line of action to its logical conclusion.' '"Yes," was her spontaneous response,' reveals Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir.
"Several (Congress) meetings happened, but not even a single suggestion was taken," Azad said.
Those who worry that the Adani saga will turn the world off India are not looking at the entire picture, asserts Mihir S Sharma.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday said he was yet to receive minister T S Singh Deo's resignation from the panchayat department and that he learnt about the latter's move through media.
A college student, who was critically injured during protests demanding a separate Karbi Anglong state, succumbed to injuries in Diphu, even as curfew continues to be in force at a district headquarter town of Assam.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
The Supreme Court Thursday ordered that the report of a high-level committee on the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case relating to Indian Space Research Organisation scientist Nambi Narayanan be given to the Central Bureau of Investigation and directed the agency to conduct further investigation on the issue.
On her first foreign trip since taking office, May told Merkel that her government would not ask to leave the EU before the end of 2016.
World boxing icon Manny Pacquiao announced his retirement from what he called the "greatest sport in the world" on Wednesday to focus on a run for the Philippines presidency, the biggest fight of his career.
'The biggest problem that faces the Opposition in Gujarat is just a day or two before voting is scheduled, Modiji goes on a spree of emotional appeals.' 'That process has been set in motion much earlier this time in Gujarat.'
Governments in most of the world saw their approval ratings dip as they struggled to contain the raging virus, which hit economy hard everywhere, but Indian politics followed a different script, with the outgoing year marking further shrinking of a rudderless Congress while the ruling BJP soared riding on Modi's enduring appeal.
The sectarian killings by hit-and-run groups have revived and sharpened communal fears among the victims while the Poonch encounter reveals how deep the terrorists have dug in without getting noticed in the porous border area, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
Today, a friendship forged by common ideals behind prison walls has become a transactional understanding, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) has criticised the world governing bodies for basketball and men's tennis, saying they were preventing athletes from representing their countries at international events.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has for the first time acknowledged that it uses drone aircraft domestically for surveillance in a "very minimal way", even as the Obama administration grapples with the fallout from the public disclosure of its covert spying programmes.
Structural changes to government finances could be focus of the Union Budget, says Mihir S Sharma.
'A one-party State is not possible in a diverse country like India.'
Success in Karnataka's assembly polls will hinge on two factors: Drop a large number of incumbent MLAs and project Modi and not the state leaders, least of all Bommai.
The truth is not that Chandrababu Naidu's centre-right policies led to his defeat but rather almost the reverse: his defeat, and for that matter that of the NDA at the Centre, was widely -- but falsely -- interpreted as a rejection of their economic policies, rather than put down to bad luck and conventional anti-incumbency., say Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya.
For the very first time, India's Raksha Mantri, Manohar Parrikar, a senior member of Narendra Modi's Cabinet, has openly said that the people who took the political decisions of conducting the September 29 surgical strikes should reap the profits of that decision.
The Congress hit out at the BJP, demanding the immediate arrest of those who have defamed India at the international level instead of enacting a "drama of action".
Pranab Mukherjee's stewardship of the economy will stand out as much for the manner in which he managed controversies as for creating quite a few of them, says A K Bhattacharya.
Singh Deo will, however, remain the minister for Health and Family Welfare, Medical Education, Twenty Point Implementation and Commercial Tax departments.
