August 15, 2023 became for me, an extraordinary Independence Day. I will remember it as the day the country's largest political party -- one that struts around like a colossus and tutors us in apt behaviour -- suddenly looked bankrupt in terms of ideas and had to take out a personal guarantee from the prime minister to underscore its capacity to deliver our future, observes Shyam G Menon.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP).
His remarks came after the Union cabinet on Tuesday approved a bill to unify the three civic bodies -- North, East and South -- in Delhi.
Nadda's three-year term will end in January next year, and the BJP parliamentary board, its apex body, is expected to endorse an extension for him before that, sources said.
The editorial in Saamana said, 'Since Rane is not a normal person, he undermines the pride and prestige of Maharashtra. The BJP should at least understand now.'
In a bid to pitch India as an uplinking hub, the government on Tuesday announced relaxation in guidelines for compliance for television channels and also made a 30-minute daily public interest broadcast mandatory, mainly for entertainment channels.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday proposed enhancing the funding under the PLI scheme for domestic solar cells and module manufacturing to Rs 24,000 crore from the existing Rs 4,500 crore to make India an exporting nation. "For facilitating domestic manufacturing for the ambitious goal of 280GW of installed solar capacity by 2030, an additional allocation of Rs 19,500 crore for PLI scheme for manufacturing of high efficiency (solar) modules with priority of fully integrate manufacturing units for polysilicon to solar PV modules will be made," Sitharaman said in her Budget speech in the Lok Sabha. In April 2021, the Union Cabinet approved a Rs 4,500 crore production linked incentive (PLI) scheme to boost domestic manufacturing capacity of solar PV modules.
As many as six merchant bankers are vying to handle and manage the sale of the government's 29.53 per cent residual stake in Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL), according to an official notice. ICICI Securities, SBI Capital Markets, HDFC Bank, IIFL Securities, Axis Capital and Citigroup Global Markets will make their presentations via video conferencing before the government officials on Friday, highlighting their plans in managing the offer for sale. The bankers to manage the sale process would be finalised after the presentation and opening of financial bids on August 12, as per the notice.
The mission has proposed pilot projects for replacing fossil fuels and fossil fuel-based feedstocks with Green Hydrogen and its derivatives.
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.
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.
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 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?'
Shapoorji Pallonji Group's head Pallonji Mistry died at his residence here, company officials said on Tuesday. Mistry, the largest individual shareholder in the Tata Group with a 18.4 per cent holding in the conglomerate, was 93.
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 loss of trusted allies like Shiv Sena in recent past and the realisation that in the caste-dominated politics of Bihar, BJP cannot do without Nitish Kumar, forced BJP to finally give Singh and the JD-U their honourable due.
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).
'Nitish Kumar was not happy about promoting R C P Singh as Union minister.'
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.
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.
Without naming anyone, Mann, who is an MP from Sangrur, claimed that a senior BJP leader contacted him four days ago and asked him, "What would you take to join the BJP?"
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.
Union minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is gathering information on the security breach during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Punjab and "big and tough decisions" will be taken.
The 51-year-old BJP leader Vaishnaw, born in Rajasthan's Jodhpur, is a suave and former Odisha cadre IAS officer from the 1994 batch. He managed to wrangle support from the ruling BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik despite being in the rival camp.
Influential Patel community leader Parshottam Rupala, minister in the first Narendra Modi government Mansukh Mandaviya and three-time MP Darshana Jardosh, all from Gujarat, were among those inducted in the Union cabinet on Wednesday.
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.
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.
Sober by temperament and nature, Kharge has never landed in any major political trouble or controversy.
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.
If elected, he will be the second All India Congress Committee president from Karnataka after S Nijalingappa, and also a Dalit leader to hold the post after Jagjivan Ram.
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.
'The JD-U is my party and of thousands of leaders and workers.' 'It is certainly not Nitish Kumar's party.'
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.
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