Month: March 2013

Taking on Mulayam Singh Yadav over his demand to scrap UPA’s job scheme MNREGA, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh today said the SP leader’s son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav appears not to share his views. “Did his son (Akhilesh) agree with that view. His son writes to me every second day asking for more money under MNREGA. I don’t think that Mulayam Singh’s view is shared by his son. He should ask his son,” Ramesh told reporters when asked about Yadav’s demand.

Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) today told the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act Court here that it cannot provide call data records (CDR) to the accused of 2006 Mumbai train blasts case free. The company told the court that its accumulated losses as of May 31, 2012 were Rs 3031.18 crore. “If the cost of retrieving the CDRs is not allowed to be recovered, then the company which is already incurring huge losses, and ultimately its more than 4.5 lakh shareholders, would have to bear this cost,” said Prashant Padvale, Assistant Manager, in an application.

Iran today indicated that some ways might have been found to address the issue of Indian payments for Iranian oil in wake of the financial sanctions against it. “There are people on my delegation, who have been in contact with Indian players. We have been talking to each other to find mechanism. We have good results,” Speaker of Iranian Consultative Assembly (Majlis) Ali Larijani said. He was asked whether the issue of oil payments figured during his talks with Indian leaders and if any progress was made to come up with payment mechanism.

Swine flu claimed lives of two women at private hospitals here, raising the death toll to three this year in Indore, health officials said. A 50-year-old woman of Khargon city succumbed to the dreaded disease at Rajshree Hospital here this morning, while another 35-year old woman of Dewas died of H1N1 at Gokuldas Hospital on February 26, Medical Officer G L Sodhi told PTI. The Dewas woman’s H1N1 positive report came yesterday, while the Khargon woman’s report came from Jabalpur laboratory this evening, Sodhi said.

Lauding the Union Budget as a “pragmatic balance” between fiscal prudence and public welfare, Congress today dismissed criticism from Opposition and some allies that it was “anti-farmer and anti-poor”. “The interests of farmers are first and foremost in the mind of the Government and the interests of farmers will, in no way, be compromised. The budget is certainly not anti-farmer. Huge outlays have been made for farming sector,” party spokesperson Sandeep Dikshit said at the AICC briefing.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said she was happy that her party Trinamool Congress could win in one of the three bypolls in the state. “We have won at least one seat in an area where we had none,” Banerjee said. “The party has done well in the English Bazar seat in Malda district. I have congratulated our candidate Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury for his win,” the Chief Minister said. Congress candidate Rabiul Alam Choudhury won the Rejinagar seat and LF candidate Dipak Chatterjee from Nalhati. Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury won the English Bazar seat. PTI

Blunting the challenge posed by P A Sangma, Congress emerged as the single largest party in Meghalaya today bagging 29 seats falling short of majority by two in the Assembly polls and is set to retain power with the help of Independents. The United Democratic Party(UDP), which was the key ally of Congress for the past three years in the Meghalaya United Alliance coalition government, retained eight out of 11 seats it won in 2008. The two parties, however, did not have any pre-poll alliance and it was not immediately known if the two parties could again come together to form a government.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said that the UPA government’s budget lacks a growth strategy and vision to develop India’s economy. Coming down heavily on the budget, he said that there is a lack of co-ordination between the 12th Five Year Plan and the budget presented for the year 2013-14 by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Modi said that the budget is the reflection of the non-performance during UPA-II’s five-year rule and it indicates that it has no connection with the reality of the common man.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today proposed setting up an all-women bank, which will become operational by November this year. “This bank will be a reality by the end of October and I want to cross an invite to Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr L K Advani (senior BJP leaders) and all others for inauguration in November,” Chidambaram said in his post Budget interaction with media here. “I…propose to set up India’s first women bank as a public sector bank. I shall provide Rs 1,000 crore as initial capital,” he said.