The colourful rally galvanised the BRS workers who shouted slogans hailing the party-led regime's welfare schemes in Telangana and peppy political songs praised Rao's 'national' emergence.
While presenting her 2021-22 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set a fiscal deficit target of 6.8 per cent of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) against the 2020-21 Revised Estimate of 9.5 per cent. The fiscal correction in the upcoming 2022-23 Union Budget is unlikely to be that steep. Even as discussions among top Budget-makers are ongoing, the fiscal deficit target for 2022-23 may likely be in the range of 6.5-6.8 per cent.
'This is going to generate a new debate on reservation because the quota for Economically Weaker Sections is 10%, and that is for nearly 16% of the population.' 'For 16% you are giving 10%. This is set to raise eyebrows among the OBCs after the caste survey.'
If we as citizens, do not take ownership of public places, public facilities and public conveniences, Swachh Bharat will remain just a hollow slogan, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
He also accused the TMC government of politicising the administration and criminalising the police.
False and acrimonious debates such as Modi versus Manmohan might allow for victories that are political and partisan. But the real loser is the nation, India and Bharat, notes Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor to the Modi government in its first term.
He also launched 70-lakh tree sapling planting drive to commemorate the 70th birth anniversary celebrations of late Jayalalithaa.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated the Rs 17,840 crore Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sewri-Nhava Sheva Atal Setu, the longest bridge as well as the longest sea bridge in the country connecting south Mumbai with Nhava-Sheva in Navi Mumbai.
Universal health scheme on the cards; Spend on the sector likely to be raised.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the Constitution intended to bring about a 'sense of social transformation' and it would be 'dangerous' to say that the private property of an individual cannot be regarded as material resources of community and taken over by state authorities to subserve 'common good'.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday embarked on his 'Seva Yatra' to tour all districts of the state to review the implementation of development schemes and the Right to Service Act.
Realising, that there was a ground swell of anger against several lower level TMC leaders who were often accused of petty corruption in execution of public welfare schemes, Kishor designed the 'Didi Ke Bolo' (Tell Didi) campaign under which citizens could directly approach Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with their grievances.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Maneka Gandhi on Saturday indicated that her son Varun Gandhi's writings that were sometimes critical of the government may have cost him the party's Lok Sabha ticket from Pilibhit but asserted that he would do very well even without it.
A remarkable story which helped in transforming a bureaucratic organization, to a customer centric organization. This experience may inspire several government / private organizations to modify or adopt digitisation to transform their business, notes Professor N Ravichandran (retd).
It will help to control the subsidy bill.
Alas, the 'basic income' schemes that have hit the headlines in the recent past are a far cry from the genuine article in terms of coverage and fiscal implications, says Vijay Joshi.
It is not unlikely that ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP government comes up with more imaginative schemes aimed at constituency-building. The party under Modi's leadership has a more modern thinking in such matters unlike its rivals, which are still steeped only in ideology, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The VHP, in its letter to the state law commission, has not just cited policy's adverse impact on children, it also lists imbalance in communities as 'different communities respond differently to incentives or disincentives related to family planning and contraption'.
Though the mandate is seen largely an outcome of Banerjee's welfare schemes, she has promised to industrialise at a faster pace, or so read the manifesto.
The political crisis arose in Himachal Pradesh during the recently held polling for the Rajya Sabha elections as nine MLAs, including six Congress rebels and three independents, voted in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan.
The Congress leader also said that the BJP wants to change the Constitution, and reduce and weaken the rights given to the people through the statute book.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday said he will attend the inauguration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya in January if he is invited to the programme.
"I sometimes think of leaving it, but the chief minister's post doesn't leave me," Ashok Gehlot famously said earlier this year, in part as a signal to the Congress top brass not to pick someone else for the job if the party wins the assembly polls.
The Election Commission on Friday cited convention followed in 2017 for not announcing the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat together and underlined that the model code this time has not been "unnecessarily extended".
Contrary to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's claim that money was not diverted from SC welfare schemes, Delhi government has used funds from these programmes on various Commonwealth Games projects, arguing that these facilities will also be used by members of scheduled caste.
'UBI is a tricky subject.' 'Our worry is the government could get rid of UPA's social welfare schemes targeted at the poor.'
Migrant workers play a very vital role in building the nation and their rights cannot be ignored at all, the Supreme Court said on Thursday while asking the Centre to devise a mechanism so that they receive food grains without ration cards.
Each family was given two acres for agriculture purposes, a residential plot measuring 200 sq metres and a house in Kanpur Dehat district.
The committee will hold regular meetings with district officials and collect information of registered and unregistered inter-faith and intercaste marriages; on such marriage that took place in places of worship and marriages took place after elopement.
Seeking to gauge his party's strength and weakness in Odisha ahead of next general election, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi Monday wanted partymen to make people aware of various development and welfare schemes undertaken by the United Progressive Alliance government.
'If Pinarayi Vijayan gets another term, Kerala will be a state where everybody has a house.'
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
Leader of Opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly Tejashwi Yadav on Monday said the caste-based census will help in preparing welfare schemes for people from different sections of society.
In an indication that the BJP is looking to welcome politicians from other parties into its fold, Shah asked party members to connect with well-known personalities and leaders from different communities if they want to be part of the "nationalist mainstream".
'The pandemic had a significant impact on child trafficking.' 'With economic hardships, traffickers exploited the situation to target desperate parents and children.'
How can Aadhaar be deemed 'voluntary' if service delivery is being made dependent on it, asks Gopal Krishna
The government's subsidies on food, fertilisers and petroleum are estimated to decline by 39 per cent to Rs 4,33,108 crore this fiscal and fall further by 27 per cent to nearly Rs 3.18 lakh crore in 2022-23. In its revised Budget (RE) estimate for the 2021-22 fiscal, the government has pegged total subsidies to be at Rs 4,33,108 crore against the actual Budget estimate of Rs 7,07,707 crore in the previous financial year. Out of which, the food subsidy is estimated to decline to Rs 2,86,469 crore in the current fiscal from Rs 5,41,330 crore in 2020-21, while petroleum subsidy is estimated to fall to Rs 6,517 crore from Rs 38,455 crore in the said period.
Interacting with the Finance Minister P Chidambaram, party general secretaries and other functionaries urged populist measures such as farmer loan help, minority and tribal welfare schemes, while reaching out to the middle class by increasing the income tax exemption threshold and doubling the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders.
A ministerial panel looking into the reasons for the Congress' poor performance at the recent bypolls on Wednesday discussed ways to effectively publicise the welfare schemes being implemented by the Andhra Pradesh government to reach out to the masses.
'The prime minister's comment on 'revdi culture' was welcome. But I am disappointed he did not follow up on that.' 'All political parties, including the BJP, have been guilty of this.' 'Now, Modi's guarantees, the Congress's 'nyay' path and both ruling and Opposition parties are vying with each other for freebies in my home state Andhra Pradesh.'
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