Month: July 2014

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday announced a sum of Rs.200 crore to help the Gujarat government erect a statue of India’s first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The Gujarat government has embarked on a mission to build the world’s tallest statue.

Named the “Statue of Unity”, it will be erected in appreciation of Patel’s distinct contribution to uphold the integrity of India.

“To support the Gujarat government in this initiative to erect the Statue of Unity, I propose to set aside a sum of Rs.200 crore,” Jaitley said while presenting the union budget here.

–IANS

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has started an airlift operation to deliver emergency core relief items for 50,000 people in northeastern Syria, the organisation said in a statement Thursday.

The first round of airlifts from Damascus to the province of predominantly Kurdish city of Qamishli started Wednesday, as part of an operation that will involve 11 continuous rotations, Xinhua reported citing the statement.

Wednesday’s shipment carried 22 tonnes of non-food relief supplies provided by the World Food Programme.

The government will spend Rs.7,060 crore to turn into reality Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of building 100 smart cities in the country.

Presenting his first budget in parliament Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Modi “has a vision of developing 100 smart cities as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities”.

“To provide the necessary focus to this critical activity, I have provided a sum of Rs.7,060 crore in the current fiscal,” Jaitley said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday proposed hiking steeply the excise duty on cigarettes, pan masala, tobacco products and aerated drinks while reducing the rates on sports equipment like gloves and specified food processing and packaging machinery.

“These are healthy measures and I hope everyone would welcome them from the point of view of human and fiscal health,” Jaitley said, presenting his maiden budget in parliament.

Jaitley proposed to increase the specific excise duty on cigarettes in the range of 11 to 72 percent.

E-visa facilities will be introduced at nine airports in the next six months to attract more tourists, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Thursday.

“Tourism is one of the larger job creators globally. Many economies world over are supported by tourism. In order to give a major boost to tourism in India, the facility would be introduced in a phased manner at nine airports,” Jaitley said while presenting the budget for 2014-15.

He also said the necessary infrastructure would be put in place within the next six months.

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has announced that it will launch six new routes in the first half of 2015, including Kolkata in India.

Daily flights will commence to the European capitals of Madrid and Edinburgh next year, together with Kolkata, the historic capital of India’s West Bengal state, and one of the most important business and government centres in East Africa, Entebbe, Uganda.

The government will ensure sanitation in every house in the country by 2019 under the Swatchh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Thursday.

“The government intends to cover every household by total sanitation by 2019, the 150th year of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,” Jaitley said while presenting the Narendra Modi government’s maiden budget.

It was a day of a few firsts for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who did not appear to be in his elements, apparently due to a backache. Jaitley presented his maiden budget Thursday – also the first budget of new NDA government – and he became the first minister in recent memory to read out most part of his speech sitting down.

Wearing a canary yellow Nehru jacket on a white kurta, Jaitley, 61, began his speech by talking about the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance success in the Lok Sabha elections and “exasperation of people with the status-quo.”

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday slammed the union budget 2014-15, saying the Narendra Modi-led government has “become a government of the FDI, by the FDI and for the FDI”.

Presenting his maiden union budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government has decided to increase the FDI in insurance sector to 49 percent from the current 26 percent while the FDI in defence sector also was raised to 49 percent from 26 percent.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley provided a sum of Rs. 7060 crores in the current financial year for developing 100 smart cities.

Delivering his maiden general budget Speech in Parliament, Jaitley said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a vision of developing one hundred ‘Smart Cities’ as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities.

Jaitley said that with development reaching an increasingly large number of people, the pace of migration from the rural areas to the cities is increasing.

At least five persons were injured today in a bomb attack in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The bomb was planted on a motorbike on the Railway Road near a bank in Bannu city, police said.

Five people were injured in the attack. Some nearby shops were also damaged. Police and intelligence agencies launched probe into the attack.

Bannu is the last district on the major road to North Waziristan where army launched operation last month.

The offensive displaced over 800,000 people. Majority of them are living in Bannu.

—PTI

Actress Nargis Fakhri, who is making her debut in Hollywood with the film ‘Spy’, says she is comparatively more comfortable in Bollywood.

“I think I am feeling comfortable in Bollywood more than in Hollywood because I have spent more time here now and I am understanding a lot of things. I am feeling pretty good here. I really don’t plan on running off anywhere,” Nargis, who finds it ‘easier’ to communicate in English, told IANS.

“What I do love so much is music and dancing so, that’s why I prefer to give more attention here. I love music,” she added.

Centre proposed to launch a pan India Programme called “Digital India” to further bridge the divide between digital “haves” and “have-nots” here on Thursday.

This would ensure Broad band connectivity at village level, improved access to services through IT enabled platforms, greater transparency in Government processes and increased indigenous production of IT hardware and software for exports and improved domestic availability.

Three naxals have been arrested in separate operations in naxal-hit West Singhbhum district, police said Thursday.

Acting on information, the district armed police and CRPF launched a search operation in Goirabeda jungle under Manoharpur police station and intercepted two persons travelling on a motorcycle yesterday, Superintendent of Police N K Singh said.

Government has introduced a new scheme called Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, which will help in generating awareness and improving the efficiency of delivery of welfare services meant for women with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in his maiden Budget Speech that government would focus on campaigns to sensitize people of this country towards the concerns of the girl child and women.

He said that the process of sensitization must begin early and therefore the school curriculum must have a separate chapter on gender mainstreaming.

An angry lawmaker, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting them to fully explore the potential ramifications of Facebook’s experiment.

Facebook has reportedly apologized for altering 700,000 users’ news feeds as part of a psychology experiment in 2012 but a lawmaker is still angry because of the experiment and he is hoping that Facebook will have to answer to the FTC

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has ended the presentation of his maiden General Budget for the year 2014-15.

Jaitley, who began presenting the budget proposals for fiscal 2014-15 with the permission of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan at 11 a.m. on Thursday, ended the presentation at 1.15 p.m.

Soon after ending the presentation of the General Budget proposals for fiscal 2014-15, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till 11 a.m. on Friday.

ngredients

8 Bread slices
2 teaspoon unsalted butter
1 small onion
1 tomato
1 capsicum (bell pepper)
1/2 cup pizza sauce
1/2 cup cheese, grated
Salt to taste

Instructions

Arrange the bread slices on a chopping board, spread a good amount of butter and pizza sauce on all bread slices. Bread Pizza Recipe step 1

A 29-year-old police constable was allegedly abused and attacked on the premises of a local court by an undertrial prisoner and his mother, a senior officer said Thursday.

The constable, Bhavesh Ramesh Meher was part of a squad escorting about a dozen prisoners from Thane Central Jail to the court.

“The alleged incident occurred outside the court of district judge V K Shewale last afternoon when the undertrial prisoner Etsham Iqubal Shaikh was being given a cigarette by his mother Zakira, which Meher objected to,” said senior inspector DP Boraste of Thane Nagar police station.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday announced a scheme to support community radio stations and allocated Rs.100 crore for the same.

“So far around 400 permissions for setting up of community radio stations have been issued. To encourage the growth in this sector, a new plan scheme is being taken up with an allocation of Rs.100 crore,” Jaitley said in his budget speech.

“This scheme would support about 600 new and existing community radio stations,” he said.

Actress Kristen Steweart was seen in a much shorter hairstyle at Chanel’s Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014-2015 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.

She was seen sporting the hairstyle with eye-catching trousers with a knitted white crop top. She accessorised it with chunky silver necklaces, cool round sunglasses and a pair of white heels, reports dailymail.co.uk.

The star wishes to grow her roots out after dyeing her hair orange for the movie “American Ultra”.

There is no official word on the reason word behind the haircut.IANS

A recent study has claimed that the belief of many young adults that they can replace cigarette with hookah as its not harmful to their health is wrong.

Monsoon in Mumbai is likely to get stronger and the city may experience heavy rainfall over the next 48 hours, a senior MeT official said here Thursday.

“Typhoon Neoguri that was active in the Pacific region over the last few days crossed Japan yesterday. The typhoon was pulling away moisture which decreased the intensity of rainfall here. The outshore trough now developed here has activated monsoon in Maharashtra and parts of Konkan region,” said V K Rajeev, Director General, Regional Meteorological Centre, Mumbai.

A 6 year old boy died from snake bite. The incident occurred at Pedda Shahpur, Shamsabad where D Shiva, S/O Gopal, R/O Pedda Shahpur died yesterday night. Shiva was bitten by snake on July 7 while he was playing outside. Shamsabad police has registered a case and investigations are underway.

Siasat news

The Indian stock markets key indices recovered smartly and were trading in the green after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced tax sops to revive the manufacturing and housing sectors.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which had slipped nearly 300 points in early trade, jumped by more than one percent after the announcement of tax relief.

The Sensex touched a low of 25,117 points and a high of 25,782.61 points in intra-day trading.