The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the setting up of the 15thFinance Commission. Under Article 280 (1) of the Constitution,it is a Constitutional obligation. The Terms of Reference for the 15thFinance Commission will be notified in due course of time. Background: Article 280(1) of the Constitution lays down that a Finance Commission (FC) should be constituted “…within two years from the commencement of this Constitution and thereafter at the expiration of every fifth year or at such earlier time as the President considers necessary…”.In keeping with this requirement, the practice has generally been to…
Author: Aruna Sharma
(NDTV) Amid the ongoing tension between the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) and the Congress over allocation of tickets for the Gujarat polls, Patel quota stir spearhead Hardik Patel today claimed his outfit never demanded any seats and said “the BJP and the Congress are the same”. Referring to the 2015 quota stir, Hardik said he would not forget the sacrifice made by the Patidar “martyrs” for the sake of just three-four tickets.”Just remember one thing, we have to decimate those who have committed atrocities on us. I will not tell you who to vote for. Both the BJP and…
(PTI) हिमाचल प्रदेश के ज्यादातर हिस्से आज भी शीतलहर की चपेट में रहे तथा कुछ क्षेत्रों में पारा लुढकर हिमांक बिंदु पर आ गया। स्थानीय मौसम विभाग ने बताया कि अधिक ऊंचाई वाले जनजातियों क्षेत्रों में सभी जलस्रोत जैसे झील, झरने, नाले और चंद्रभागा नदी के विशाल हिस्से में पानी जम गया है। रावी , ब्यास एवं सतलुज नदियों में जलप्रवाह घट गया है। अधिक ऊंचाई वाले क्षेत्रों में पारा शून्य से 11 डिग्री सेल्सियस नीचे तक चला गया है। लाहौल एवं स्पीति के किलोंग एवं काल्पा तथा किन्नौर में क्रमश: शून्य के नीचे 6.6 डिग्री सेल्सियस और 2.0 डिग्री…
(NDTV) BJP president Amit Shah today asked Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to make his stand clear on Rohingya Muslim refugees as well as the issue of autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir. Rally in poll-bound Gujarat, he said Mr Gandhi and the Congress should state what the situation in Kashmir was when the party was in power. “Terrorists killed our soldiers and people with impunity during their rule,” Mr Shah said at the rally in Bhavnagar. The BJP government, on the other hand, carried out a surgical strike against terrorists, he said. “We conducted a surgical strike. Our soldiers entered Pakistani…
(Tribune) Uttarakhand will receive between 802 million units and 900 million units of electricity in December to March from Punjab, to offset the gap between demand and supply in the lean winter months.In the winter months the water discharge in the rivers decreases which in turn affects production of electricity, for this reason Uttarakhand has to rely on other sources for procuring power through power banking.In the summer months, Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) had provided around 806 million units of electricity to Punjab which, it will now return to Uttarakhand.In the last four years, Haryana was the main source…
(LiveMint) Public sector banks are queueing up to raise funds from the equity market, especially through qualified institutional placements (QIPs) against the backdrop of improved investor sentiment on account of the government’s bank recapitalisation plan and a recent upgrade of India’s sovereign rating by Moody’s Investors Service. After the government announced the Rs2.11 trillion bank recapitalisation plan in October, PSU banks have announced plans to raise more than Rs13,000 crore through QIPs since 24 October as against a total of Rs8,419 crore raised in the last four years. On Tuesday, Bank of Baroda’s board approved fund raising up to Rs6,000…
(LiveMint) Two months after a run-in with US giant General Electric Co. (GE) over the manufacture of diesel locomotives, Indian Railways has decided to phase out diesel engines in the next five years and switch entirely to electric ones. By phasing out diesel locomotives, the national transporter will save around Rs11,500 crore annually, railway minister Piyush Goyal said at a meeting of the executive committee of the industry lobby group Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci). “We have planned to switch all trains to electric-driven in the next five years,” Goyal said on Tuesday. “The diesel locomotives will…
(Tribune) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat today asserted that any development activity in Uttarakhand should be in consonance with disaster management norms and asserted that this was important to safeguard lives of the people.The Chief Minister was addressing the inaugural session of the two-day national workshop entitled – Disaster Resilient Infrastructure in the Himalayas: Opportunities and Challenges – that started in Dehradun today. He said development and environment must go together. “While there is a growing demand for development, there are commitments too for the cause of environment conservation”, he pointed out. He said disaster management norms must compulsorily be…
(AT) बीते कई हफ्तों से देश में प्याज, टमाटर, अंडा, तेल और रिफाइंड ऑयल जैसे जरूरी खाद्य उत्पादों की कीमत में लगातार इजाफा देखने को मिल रहा है. केंद्र सरकार कुछ उत्पादों के लिए दावा कर रही कि इजाफा मानसून की चाल या डिमांड-सप्लाई में डिस्टर्बेंस के चलते हुआ है.हालांकि माना जा रहा है कि देश में महंगाई दस्तक देने के लिए तैयार है और ये इजाफे महज एक संकेत हैं. इन्हीं संकेतों से सरकार भी सकते में है और लगातार कोशिश कर रही है कि देश में जरूरी खाद्य उत्पादों की डिमांड-सप्लाई में बैलेंस बना रहे. गौरतलब है कि…
(PTI) Scurrying for solutions to fight the toxic air pollution, the government has said it plans to transport coal in covered rail wagons and trucks across the country. Ferrying of coal in uncovered vehicles and rail wagons is said to be one of the key reasons behind high pollution levels along the transportation route from coal mine or importing sea port to user plants like power generation houses. “We are looking at better and more environment friendly transportation of coal.I have ordered that we will design a covering over every truck and railway wagon that transports coal across the length and…