The Cabinet on Wednesday empowered boards of state-owned companies to decide on the closure and divestment of units/subsidiaries. Presently, the Board of Directors of holding or parent public sector enterprises have been delegated certain powers to make equity investments to establish financial joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries and undertake mergers/acquisitions, subject to certain ceilings of net worth. However, the Boards do not have powers for disinvestment or closure of their subsidiaries or units or stake in JVs, except for some limited powers given to Maharatna PSEs for minority stake disinvestment in their subsidiaries.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has convened a meeting of Janata Dal-United MLAs and MPs on Tuesday to discuss the scenario that has emerged following the exit of former national president R C P Singh, party chief Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan said on Monday.
The decision on the DA and DR was taken at the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Union Government had frozen the three additional instalments of the DA and DR which were due from January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021. There will be no payment of arrears this time, as the rate of DA/DR for the period from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 shall remain at 17 per cent of basic pay/pension.
The BJP has nominated sitting MLA Dayanand Sopte from Mandrem assembly segment, which Parsekar had represented between 2002 and 2017.
'Why don't you resign from the Lok Sabha? Why does the Akali Dal party not withdraw support from the Modi government?'
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said speaking Hindi gives her 'shivers' and she speaks the language with hesitation.
Briefing reporters about the decisions taken by the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said 81 crore poorest will be provided 5 kg free foodgrains per person for five more months and one kg pulses per month.
Even until Monday, some senior BJP leaders, including those from Bihar, were of the view that the JD-U leader was engaging in brinkmanship to pressure his bigger partner to be more accommodative.
Chirag Paswan cryptically added that he was not ruling out the possibility of siding with the RJD.
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a revision in the formula for pricing of natural gas and imposed cap or ceiling price to help cut CNG and piped cooking gas prices by up to 10 per cent. Natural gas produced from legacy or old fields, known as APM gas, will now be indexed to the price of imported crude oil instead of benchmarking it to gas prices in four surplus nations such as the US, Canada and Russia, Union I&B Miniser Anurag Thakur told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet. APM gas will be priced at 10 per cent of the price of basket of crude oil that India imports (Indian basket of crude oil).
With the BJP denying a renomination to Naqvi to the Upper House, and no Rajya Sabha renomination either for Sayyed Zafar Islam or MJ Akbar -- both of whom are also completing their tenures soon -- the party now has no Muslim member of Parliament from either House.
'Nitish Kumar was not happy about promoting R C P Singh as Union minister.'
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said R C P Singh, whom his Janata Dal-United has denied another term in the Rajya Sabha, does not need to resign as a Union minister ahead of the expiry of his Rajya Sabha tenure.
In a statement, the lawyer of Irani's daughter, said his client is neither an owner nor operating the restaurant called Silly Souls Goa.
Department of financial services secretary Sanjay Malhotra held a meeting with heads of PSBs, insurance companies and financial institutions for identifying ways to support Agniveers on completion of their tenure of duty.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday said that during his tenure as the minority affairs minister he ensured there was no "symbolism" and asserted that going forward he would work to ensure that the party has acceptability in all sections of the society.
Gandhi had recently alleged in London that the structures of Indian democracy are under "brutal attack" and there is a full-scale assault on the institutions of the country.
Following the death of Lok Janshakti Party leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Ramdas Athawale of Republican Party of India is the lone member from the Bharatiya Janata Party allies in the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
Startling allegations of backstabbing were made against the Bharatiya Janata Party by MLAs and MPs of the Janata Dal-United on Tuesday at a meeting in Patna after which Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar pulled the plug on the alliance.
Those meeting Modi included BJP's Narayan Rane, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ajay Bhatt, Bhupender Yadav, Shobha Karandlaje, Pritam Munde and Meenakshi Lekhi, Lok Janshakti Party's Pashupati Paras and Apna Dal's Anupriya Patel, sources said.
The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal to provide Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) as part of resolution of bad loans, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. The proposed bad bank or NARCL will pay up to 15 per cent of the agreed value for the loans in cash and the remaining 85 per cent would be government-guaranteed security receipts. The government guarantee would be invoked if there is loss against the threshold value.
'The JD-U is my party and of thousands of leaders and workers.' 'It is certainly not Nitish Kumar's party.'
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared utilisation of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for provision of mobile connectivity in 7,287 uncovered villages across five states at an estimated cost of Rs 6,466 crore. Briefing media on the Cabinet decisions, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said these uncovered villages of 44 aspirational districts across five states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha will get 4G-based mobile services.
A statement to this effect was made in Patna by RCP Singh, a close aide of Kumar, amid buzz on cabinet expansion at the Centre.
According to the Committee's recommendation, while Part 1 of the Budget session would be held from January 29 to February 15, Part 2 would be from March 8 to April 8.
JD-U national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan, who addressed a press conference in Patna, however, dismissed queries about Kumar's absence at the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the terse remark 'you should ask the chief minister'.
It took note of the fact that India is due to host the FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup from October 11.
Nine MLAs, including Babul Supriyo, took oath as ministers in West Bengal on Wednesday, in a major reshuffle of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's cabinet.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha has suspended its November 29 tractor march to Parliament and it will hold a meeting next month to decide its future course of action, farmer leaders said on Saturday.
Catch all the action from the Upper and Lower House of Parliament.
Shah said that Modi has always maintained that he is in power to change the country for the better and not merely to run the government.
The Union Cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to a bill to merge the three municipal corporations in Delhi, sources in the government said.
It will benefit about 48.34 lakh central government employees and 65.26 lakh pensioners.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendment to the DICGC Act to provide account holders access to up to Rs 5 lakh funds within 90 days of a bank coming under moratorium to ensure timely support to depositors. Last year, the government raised insurance cover on deposit five-folds to Rs 5 lakh to provide support to depositors of ailing lenders like Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank. Following the collapse of PMC Bank, Yes Bank and Lakshmi Vilas Bank too came under stress, leading to restructuring by the regulator and the government.
The BJP is soon likely to announce new positions for the senior former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar, sources said.
Dearness Allowance for central government employees has been hiked to 31 per cent of the basic pay from 28 per cent with effect from July 1, 2021, the Finance Ministry said. In an office memorandum, the Department of Expenditure, under the Finance Ministry, said the term 'basic pay' means the pay drawn as per the 7th pay commission matrix and does not include any other type of pay like special pay, etc. "....the Dearness Allowance payable to central government employees shall be enhanced from the existing rate of 28 per cent to 31 per cent of the basic pay with effect from July 1, 2021," said the office memorandum dated October 25.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held deliberations with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda amid speculation about a reshuffle in the Union cabinet, an exercise Modi has not undertaken since forming the government for a second time in May 2019.
The MoD did not reveal the number of missiles procured through the latest contract.
However, this information was inadvertently revealed through an official MoD photograph that accompanied the announcement.
Dominic Xavier says there is an urgent need to implement the NEP and quickly reduce the gap in the pupil-teacher ratio.
Sliding for the fourth straight day, the BSE Sensex shed 152 points in choppy trade on Wednesday amid mixed global cues ahead of the US Federal Reserve's policy decision.
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