Seeking to woo Muslims as well as upper castes, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday promised quota in police and other government jobs for minority community, release of "innocent" youths jailed on terror charges and constitution of an upper caste commission in its manifesto brimming with sops.
Demonetisation should be judged to have delivered some immediate gain if at least around Rs 2 trillion gets immobilised.
Changes in threshold not to have a significant revenue impact, say officials
'Alas, in this scheme there is nothing to stop the black money flows of the future.' 'On the contrary Modi has sown the seeds of more, through the issue of Rs 2,000 notes.' 'But have you heard one politician decrying this aspect of the scheme?' 'They must be secretly rejoicing that while Modi is taking away their past, he has not shut the door on their future,' says banker S Muralidharan.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 73rd Independence Day.
The industry's reactions to the Budget have been mixed.
Born in poverty and subjected to inhuman abuse, Kalpana Saroj overcame all hurdles to emerge a success story.
Salil Dhawan shares his stock market wisdom as 2017 is all set to ring out.
Here are some pointers that should serve as red flags for you
Parth Gupta quit a good corporate job to work for the welfare of farmers in rural Madhya Pradesh.
'There are so many schemes announced for the benefit of farmers, women and less privileged sections of our society. But how many of these are being availed of?'
Menstruation is not a disease. Yet, in villages, women die due to poor hygiene during their periods.
Payment banks may not be viable option to attain financial inclusion.
Mohandas Pai took part in an hour-long chat on rediff.com
Public sector banks are inefficient, poorly governed and beset by largescale corruption.
Clearly, rich Indians have little confidence in India. Perhaps we are also chronically dishonest.
Aseem Chhabra looks at the year's best Non-Hindi Indian movies.
Low consumer demand, a slide in investments and troubles in the banking sector should prompt the government to recalibrate taxes and expenditure. It is also important to ramp up spending on health care and education, says CII president Sumit Mazumder.
One can only imagine how it is at the receiving end of the bomb. The sound is deafening, splinters and rocks fly like missiles and the blast sucks in the air around asphyxiating everyone. The shock waves can be felt for miles around.
Sandeep Shanbhag, a chartered accountant and director of Wonderland Consultants, a tax and financial advisory firm, discussed the impact of Budget proposals in a chat with Rediff.com's readers.
With a sole mandate of inflation targeting, RBI wears many hats.
'We are completely engaged in fighting poverty; alas, our neighbour Pakistan seems only engaged in fighting us.'
Even as there is a strong anti-incumbency mood in Punjab, the multi-cornered contest has made the 2017 assembly polls prediction more difficult.
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.
'In Rajiv Gandhi's time, out of every Re 1 spent by the government only 15 paisa reached the public.' 'At this moment, I cannot say that the entire Re 1 reaches the common man's pocket, but yes, two-thirds of that money definitely reaches the common man.' 'And the rest of the money will also reach soon.'
Days after the PM announced a financial inclusion package, a look at how banks and insurance firms are going about it and what lies ahead.
'Every few days, I wake up with a sense of restlessness that time is running out'... 'We have created a due process for stressed assets to resolve, but there is no concrete plan in place for public sector bank balance sheets,' says RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya.
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The ability and quality of implementation of development initiatives remains India's Achilles' heel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on range of issues -- from Rafale deal to Ram temple and triple talaq.
Vasanthakumar, who started his career as a salesman, today owns a retail empire.
Hyderabad-based Andhra Bank is aiming to get a significant proportion of the state government's business, to boost its share of low-cost deposits
One popular strategy is to hire contract workers.
'Our first great challenge is to create 12 million new jobs each year, to make the demographic dividend an economic dividend.' 'We are nowhere near that,' points out Mohan Guruswamy.
'70 per cent of sewage flows untreated into the river along its entire course. Hardwar and Rishikesh remain two of our holiest cities. Then why has the government failed to do anything?' 'If Modi can do with the Ganga what he has done with the Sabarmati, that will be a major achievement.'
'The transmission sector is going to be the next sunrise industry.'
Contrary to the bragging that marked its two-year anniversary, the government's timidity on reform is simply astounding.
A mother-daughter duo is working tirelessly to revive the art and empower rural artisans too.
In a nation divided by many things, the 12-digit unique identity number is holding lives to ransom.
Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who as Gujarat chief minister was considered close to certain business groups and industrialists, has hardly been seen with any Indian business head.
