High right-of-way charges levied by local bodies for allowing Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to lay underground cables are largely responsible for the telecom company’s inability to provide land phones on demand, the government said. As of January, BSNL has 12,052 landline applications kept pending and most of this is because of poor commercial feasibility issues […]
After missing its targets by wide margins in the previous two five-year plans, India is all set to comfortably meet or exceed all its power sector targets for the 12th five-year plan that ends this month. Five-year plans, borrowed from the Soviet Union, are a legacy of Nehruvian policy of setting development targets every five […]
Airports Authority of India said it has identified eight airports where it intends to carry out commercial real estate development once the government relaxes the relevant rule. The airports are Lucknow, Kolkata, Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneshwar, Jaipur, Raipur and Tirupati, it said in a statement. Separately, the Airports Authority — which owns and operates most of […]
Maharashtra, home state of Nitin Gadkari, accounted for 50% of the new highway development projects sanctioned in the ongoing financial year, data from the ministry of road transport and highways showed. A total of 520 new projects — including expansions — worth Rs 53,264 cr was sanctioned by Gadkari’s ministry in the ongoing financial year. […]
Production of electricity from solar power is all set to rise 75% this year, while that from wind is on track to rise 51%, according to the latest numbers available with the ministry of new and renewable resources, government of India. Despite this, the two will only account for less than 5% of the total […]
The average occupancy of reserved berths in trains in India rose to 102% in the ongoing financial year, the railways said, quoting data from April to December 2016. The number indicates the extreme inadequacy of railway service in India. Occupancy level was 101% in the preceding year. An occupancy level of 100% implies that all […]
Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said the government of India had no plans to force judiciary in the state of Jammu & Kashmir to take their oath of office on the Indian constitution instead of the state constitution. Prasad was responding to a question on why judges of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court take […]
Facebook has made a strategic change in the way it facilitates brands, organizations and celebrities interact with their followers on the social network. It has started de-emphasizing ‘likes’ and instead promoting ‘follows’. Unlike competing platforms like Google Plus and Twitter, Facebook has, for years, allowed users to follow a brand or celebrity or organization’s updates only […]
States ruled by the National Democratic Alliance have taken the lead in implementing digital ration shops with the introduction of electronic point of sale machines, while non-NDA states have lagged behind in introducing this crucial anti-pilferage measure, data obtained from the food and consumer affairs ministry showed. Out of the seven states that have introduced the system, five […]
The ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution is still waiting to hear from the hotel and restaurant industry associations on how they intend to resolve the issue of levying service charges ‘unfairly’. The matter had come to a head in early January when the ministry sent a directive to all state governments asking […]
The Indian government has no immediate plans or proposals to institute a scheme of ‘unversal basic income’ in place of the myriad social welfare scheme run by the country at present, the finance ministry said in response to a query. The clarification that there is ‘no proposal for a universal basic income scheme’ comes in […]
State Bank of India and HDFC Bank were the most successful in attracting and retaining deposits in the wake of demonetization of currency, according to an analysis of their deposits growth so far this financial year. The highest growth was reported by State Bank of India, which added a massive Rs 3.15 lakh cr of […]
The number of people who have given their responses under the government’s ‘Operation Clean Money’ has reached 8.38 lakh as of Mar 9, slightly less than half the 17.92 lakh people to whom questions have been sent. The questions were sent in late January and early February, and were supposed to have been replied to last […]
Incidents of fraud and theft involving credit and debit cards have fallen sharply in the current financial year, according to data for the first nine months provided by the Reserve Bank of India. While the exact reasons for the sharp decrease is not known, banks in India have been putting in more and more precautions after […]
The number of cancer cases in India jumped by 4.5% in 2016 to 14.51 lakh, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research or ICMR. The number implies that 1 in 930 people in India have cancer as of 2016. In 2015, the total number of cancer patients in India was estimated at 13.88 lakh […]
The demonetization of high-value currency notes saw a rise in the number of bank robberies towards the end of 2016, but all of the increase came from just three states — Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Haryana. Overall, cases of theft, robbery and loot of on bank properties increased by 11% in the last three months […]
Nitin Gadkari, who is slowly building up a reputation as a pragmatic and capable minister, is likely to face major disappointment in the ongoing financial year as his ministry is unlikely to meet the steep road construction target it set for itself. Unlike the term of the previous government, when an average of 5,000 km […]
Water levels of dams in central and south India are abnormally low this year, going by data of hydro-electricity production across India. According to data of electricity produced by dams in India from April 2016 to February 2017, both the south and central India are facing extreme shortage of water. The average production of hydro-electricity […]
Half of India’s rural population have been classified as poor by the Socio-Economic Caste Census of India 2011, the government said today. The findings of Socio-Economic Caste Census of India, which was conducted after vociferous demands by some political parties, has never been released to the public in full. However, according to data obtained from […]
The average Uttar Pradesh MLA saw their wealth increase by 82% in the five years during their tenure in the state assembly from 2012 to 2017, an analysis of their wealth submissions by Association for Democratic Reforms found. The analysis was based on the filings made by 311 of the 404 existing members of the […]
