Jaitely asks PM: How would history judge your tenure?
Timeline Refresh
Ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's interaction with the media on Friday, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitely in his blog has asked him a few questions which he wishes to be answered.
- 1. In his opinion, how would history judge his tenure as Prime Minister of India?
- 2. Does his tenure as Finance Minister give him greater satisfaction than his tenure as the Prime Minister?
- 3. Since his government is perceived to be extremely corrupt, where does he feel he went wrong in not asserting himself when the situation so demanded?
- 4. Where does he feel he went wrong in the management of the economy which led to the breakdown of the investment cycle ?
- 5. Does he bear the Guilt of Institutional subversion (CBI,JPC,CVC,CIVIL SERVICE etc.) during his tenure as a Prime Minister?
Economist Jean Dreze writes: It is interesting how media reports of Narendra Modi's rallies differ from the real thing. To see the difference for myself, I attended Narendra Modi's recent rally in Ranchi. '
...To me it looked like Modi had failed to connect with the audience. One reason, perhaps, is that he came across as an outsider, who had been quickly briefed about Jharkhand but had no feel for it. Another reason is that he failed to go beyond the platitudinous promises of any politician who is begging for people's votes. He kept asking people to reflect on the mess they were in, blissfully forgetting that Jharkhand has been under BJP rule for 8 out of 13 years since its creation in 2000.
Demands for Ganguly's resignation from the WBHRC have echoed in several quarters following a three-judge Supreme Court committee's indictment of him over allegations of sexual harassment of a female law intern in December, 2012.
A case for removal of Ganguly from his post was made out as per Section 23 (1A) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and President Pranab Mukherjee should be accordingly advised to make a reference to the Supreme Court. -- Indian Express
Voting begins and the AAP passes the floor test.
He says the members of the house must realise why the common man fought the polls.
Kejriwal spells out the agenda for Delhi, explaining each point. We are up to #12 issue now.
He says India's common man has won.
Kejriwal says issues of corruption were raised in the debate earlier, and he says he will not spare the corrupt. That is in response to Dr Harsh Vardhan's charge that since the Congress is extending support to the AAP, it will go easy on corrupt netas.
Kejriwal points to the eight AAP MLAs and says they are here because they felt they should fight the elections and represent the aam admi.
He continues with his litany on why the AAP entered the politics.
"My sons were not involved in the case. I have not tried to save anyone," Tharoor said when reporters confronted him at the airport last evening and asked him who he thought the minister Swamy was alluding to.
Stoking a controversy, Swamy had on Wednesday alleged that a Union Minister from Kerala had used his office to get his son out of a UAE prison.
Making the allegation in the micro blogging site Twitter, Swamy said 'what prompted a Union minister from Kerala to use his office to get his son out of jail in UAE? Due to narcotic trafficking charges?'
Swamy did not name the minister.
Now, this is what Swamy tweets in response:
Subramanian Swamy: Shashi Tharoor says 'not me' to Subramanian Swamy's tweet -- does that include surrogate children too?
"It's 100% we're off! A huge thanks to all," tweeted Chris Turney, an Australian professor among the group of scientists, journalists and tourists stranded on the ship for more than a week.
A helicopter from a nearby Chinese icebreaker ferried passengers.
Read more
Indian infrastructure major GMR has sought a compensation of $1.4 billion from Maldives for the "wrongful termination" of its 25-year contract to develop and operate the Male International Airport.
Speaking on the confidence motion moved by the government in the Delhi assembly, Congress' state chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said the party could give the support even for full five years if the AAP government worked in the interest of the people.
"Kejriwal ji, you keep making statements frequently that the government could go in 48 hours. I assure you today that as long as you keep taking decisions in the interest of people of Delhi, there is no threat to your government.
"And should the need arise, we will support you for full five years so that you can give a good government...as long as we feel that decisions that you take will not halt development and there is no sense of injustice to the state, we will keep supporting you...
"Our party's support will be there for you in whatever decision you take for development and in the interest of people," he said.
The Congress leader said that his party supported the government to avoid forcing another election on the people of Delhi.
Lovely, however, at the same time attacked the government over its recent decisions on enlarging the subsidy on power and free supply of water saying it was the House that can decide on shifting subsidy from one head to another and not the government.
"You are new to the government. The officials should have briefed you properly. The earlier budget had approved certain subsidies and that cannot be changed now. The House should have been involved. You have to fix accountability on the officials who misled you," Lovely told the Chief Minister.
This is the first part and this is the second part.
This is the first day of the state cabinet meet this year. Chavan expresses his
condolences for the 27 deaths in the ST bus accident in Malshej Ghat.
"In the last few days, we have seen a gradual decline in the functioning of Ariel Sharon's vital organs, which are essential for his survival," Professor Ze'ev Rotstein, the head of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer said.
Tiwari, our sources tell us, wanted to hold the presser to be held in the new National media centre in Raisina Hill road.
At the presser will be 175 senior media persons, one from all language dailies, five TV and five still camera photographers.
This will be the PM's first presser in three years. It is expected to begin at 10:45 am tomorrow.
An APML spokesperson said that Musharraf had suffered a severe heart attack. He was conscious but admitted to the Critical Care Unit.
"We can confirm that former president Musharraf is admitted in a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He is conscious, oriented in time and space and is being examined by Pakistani military doctors," Dr Raza Bokhari, international spokesperson of Musharraf, said in a statement. "We pray to Allah for his speedy and full recovery".
On December 20, the Cabinet rejected the report of the judicial commission of inquiry on the Adarsh scam, tabled in the Legislative Assembly.
The report of the two-member commission headed by retired High Court judge JA Patil indicted several politicians including four former chief ministers-Ashok Chavan, late Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde and Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil- for blatant violations of statutory provisions. Several bureaucrats were also indicted in the report.
However, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi last week disapproved of the decision of the state government to reject the commission report and said it should be reconsidered.
The EOW of the Mumbai Police on December 16 arrested eight top members of Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd, a franchise of Hong Kong-based company Qnet, that was allegedly indulging in a binary scheme one where existing members are required to bring in more members.
Padmashree awardee and billiards champion Michael Ferreira is an 80 per cent shareholder in this company.
Earlier, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the AAP had based its campaign and come to power with rhetorical pledges to fight corruption and rid the country of malgovernance. But by joining forces with the corrupt Congress, it has lost the moral right to play the part of national crusaders.
Lovely says when Kejriwal speaks of probing corruption in Delhi, he does not only mean of the Congress governments, but also BJP governments.
This is the same MLA that had accused the Kejriwal-led party of running away from its responsibility of forming a government in the national capital.
These will be clubbed with the sexual harassment charges, and the home ministry will place the views of Attorney General (AG) G E Vahanvati, who has noted that a case can be made out against Justice Ganguly.
Once the Cabinet clears the proposal, it will be sent to President Pranab Mukherjee for approval.
Political parties and women's rights activists have demanded that Justice Ganguly resign as head of the West Bengal human rights commission.
Justice Ganguly says he has not taken any decision to resign, but admitted he had seen media reports on his removal.
Dr Harsh Vardhan asked the new chief minister if he would keep his promise and start investigating allegations of corruption against Congress leaders. "AAP had earlier said it would not take Congress support, but now they are in a coalition," he said.
He said the SC had already outlawed the use of red beacons, so Kejriwal disallowing his party to use them, was just in line with the SC ruling.
now talks about AAP's
Dr Harsh Vardhan speaking now. Congratulating AAP, he speaks about the genesis of the party and the hope that AAP symbolised for the people of the country.
The first motion on the trust will be placed soon. The BJP MLAs seem to have a problem with the AAP MLAs wearing their caps in the house.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is not wearing a cap, but has a muffler wrapped around his head. The AAP cap says "Main Aadmi Hoon", which the BJP says is not as per protocol since you cannot be indicating which party you belong to.
It is not merely the Indian middle class which is the strong opinion maker. There is additionally a substantial aspirational class in India whose level of expectations is entirely different. "
Arun Jaitley on the year that was and the year that is. Read
Meanwhile, BJP MLA from Janakpuri Jagdish Mukhi has filed his papers for the post of Delhi Assembly Speaker. Mukhi filed his nomination for the post on Thursday even as the BJP issued a whip to its MLAs for the vote of confidence motion to be brought by the Aam Aadmi Party government. His opponent is AAP MLA from Jangpura Maninder Singh Dhir.
Mukhi, the senior-most MLA in the current Assembly, had earlier refused the post of pro-tem Speaker to administer the oath to the newly-elected legislators.
The district disaster control room said as of now seven deaths are confirmed but the number might go up as there were 40 passengers in the bus at the time of the accident.
"The bus was headed towards Ahmednagar," District Disaster Control Officer Jaideep Visave said.
The injured are being rushed to hospitals at Murbad and Tokawade.
According to unconfirmed reports, the mishap occurred when driver of the bus lost control while negotiating a sharp turn.
"The district headquarters got the message around 10.30 am and a team comprising police personnel, medical attendants and rescue workers was rushed to the spot. The number of casualties is not known immediately as the spot of the mishap lies deep into the valley," Visave said.
Malshej Ghat is a famous picnic spot located in the Sahyadri mountain range, situated on the border of Thane and Ahmednagar districts.
The administrative calendar -- one of the most ambitious projects of chief minister Mamata Banerjee -- will be launched today as part of the government's initiative to ensure proper and timely delivery of services by the 61 departments.
Governor MK Narayanan will release the calendar at a programme in Nabanna. Read more
The scheme, "Mangalya lotteries", was approved by the state cabinet yesterday.
The proceeds from sale of tickets of the draw would be utilised for giving Rs 30,000 for wedding of girls from BPL families and also for those from APL families with an annual income not exceeding Rs one lakh, official sources said.
In an interview, Varshney spoke on the changing contours of Indian politics, the spectacular debut of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the impact of growing urbanization on politics. Edited excerpts from his interview with Mint. Read
Also see: Rahul outlines strategy to contain price rise in Cong-ruled states
The Maharashtra government had on December 20 rejected the report of the judicial commission of inquiry on the Adarsh scam, tabled in the Legislative Assembly.
The report of the two-member commission headed by retired High Court judge J A Patil indicted several politicians including four former Chief Ministers -- Ashok Chavan, late Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde and Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil -- for "blatant violations" of statutory provisions.
Several bureaucrats were also indicted in the report. The panel found 25 of the society's 102 members ineligible and 22 cases of benami purchase of flats.
However, four days back Rahul Gandhi disapproved of the decision of the state government to reject the commission report and said it should be reconsidered.
"We cannot believe it. For the past month or so, in fact ever since the Assembly election results were out (on December 8), AAP and Arvind Kejriwal have raced past Modi on Twitter trending.
Barring the day when an Ahmedabad court rejected a protest petition against Modi, Kejriwal has mostly walked away with the TV headlines and has been the centrepiece of the debates,' rued a member of the BJP's IT cell. Read more
The Delhi assembly on Wednesday completed the formality of oath-taking by the members, including the chief minister and other ministers, with senior Congress member Matin Ahmed functioning as the pro-tem Speaker. Read more
Donations are pouring in and volunteers are lining up to join the party, including some senior corporate leaders who are chucking up prized jobs to work with AAP. Read more
The girl's father rushed to governor M K Narayanan to complain against police high-handedness and demanded action against the "tyrannical" officers.
Read more
"Yes I have become the member of AAP, have got the confirmation today," Mr Balakrishnan told PTI.
His move to dabble in politics comes three weeks after his sudden exit from India's second largest software services exporter, Infosys.
The strike will directly affect work in all public hospitals of the state.
"The home ministry will place a note before the cabinet tomorrow. The cabinet will take a call," Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said yesterday.
Sources said once the cabinet clears the proposal, it will be sent to President Pranab Mukherjee for approval. Since the President can only act on the advice of the cabinet, he had referred the matter to the government.
The accused have been charged with murder. They were landlords of the property on which the victim used to stay.
The police say that the new development comes after investigating into the victim's dying declaration.
The police had earlier said that the girl killed herself after the rape.
A 16-year-old girl, who was gangraped twice in a day around two months ago at Madhyamgram in North 24-Parganas district of West Bengal succumbed to her injuries at a hospital in Kolkata on Tuesday.
Around 1,010 students of the Kharagpur campus accepted job offers in the first round of placements, which ended in December.
At IIT Mumbai, there were 900 offers while IIT Delhi got about 750 offers and IIT Kanpur had around 700 offers.
IIT officials said, Kharagpur has achieved a new record with the maximum number of students getting jobs in the IIT system in one phase.
In addition to big names like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Shell, Deutsche Bank, ITC, Schlumberger, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Abbott and EXL, start-ups like Flipkart and Housing.com were the ones who made multiple offers in dual figures.