It was meant as an opportunity to find the middle ground between a worried industry and an activist environment minister, but the interactive function organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) only highlighted the conflicting positions of the two. While FICCI heavy-weight and JK Paper MD Harsh Pati Singhania pointed […]
The Prime Minister of India has denied media reports that the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has allocated a large chunk of prime satellite and ground spectrum to a private company for a few hundred crores of rupees. The ISRO comes under the Department of Space, currently under the Prime Minister […]
In what will be music to netbook owners, the latest release of Debian Linux — most suited for netbooks due to its light requirements — can be copied directly to a USB stick for installation. Owners of netbooks, cheap notebooks that don’t always have a CD-drive, had been at a disadvantage as far Debian was […]
A press conference, intended to address media’s concerns over corruption and scams in the government, backfired after the opposition seized on statements made by the Prime Minister in the interaction. Opposition, including both the left and the BJP, attacked the three defenses put up by the PM when asked about scams. First, the PM Manmohan […]
Lavasa has asked for a six month extension to submit details of its hill city project near Pune. The government had, in an order a week ago, said that the firm should subject all details of its project report so as to come up with a plan to remedy any environmental degradation the company may […]
Sharad Pawar, under attack for failing to prevent price rise, has lost charge of Food and Consumer Affairs ministry. He will however retain charge of the Agricultural ministry as well as get new charge of Food Processing industry. The shift is seen as a repercussion of the allegations of conflict of interest between Pawar’s role […]
Two days after it pulled up state Urban Development officials for giving ‘environment clearance’ to the Adarsh Society without any jurisdiction, the union environment ministry has again lashed out against the state government, this time for issuing a clearance to the Lavasa hill city. In a long-winded order, the ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh pulled […]
Free clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux have been increasingly left behind by the Debian-based Ubuntu, primarily because of the up-to-date nature of the latter. For example, Red Hat’s RHEL 5, on which most of the free clones such as CENTOS are based, was released almost four years ago. In comparison, Ubuntu refreshes itself every […]
The Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) has ordered the embattled Lavasa Corporation to continue to abide by its earlier ‘status quo’ order, according to highly placed sources in the ministry. The ministry was supposed to reach a decision on the matter after conducting a site visit and inform the Bombay High Court as well. […]
New petroleum minister Jaipal Reddy has announced a cash compensation of Rs 25 lakh to family of Yashwant Sonawane, the Additional Collector of Malegaon, (Maharashtra) who was killed while trying to prevent oil pilferage. The oil companies were told to soon reintroduce the marker programme for PDS Kerosene, under which Kerosene is mixed with a […]
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said Indian government agencies have detected nearly Rs 49,000 crore of undeclared income and collected an extra Rs 34,600 crore of extra taxes. About Rs 15,000 cr was discovered in the last 18 months, Mukherjee said in an apparent attempt to mollify angry courts, a day before a crucial Supreme Court […]
Former telecom minister and BJP leader Arun Shourie hit back at telecom minister Kapil Sibal for raising aspersions at his stint as the telecom minister in 2003. Shourie mocked Sibal for trying to defend his jailed predecessor A Raja and said such efforts only served to drag the Prime Minister into the net. “He is […]
The National Alliance of People’s Movements, led by Medha Patkar, has welcomed the environment ministry’s move to impose tough restrictions on the Lavasa Hill Township project near Pune. “The Report and the Final Order is indeed courageous and honest on the part of the MOEF committee,” the NGO said in a statement. Patkar’s NAPM has […]
Shortly lauding the ‘first come first served’ policy for lowering telecom tariffs and spreading telecom to all classes, telecom minister Kapil Sibal on Friday said the policy was the root of all evils in the spectrum controversy. Sibal also defended his predecessor A Raja, in jail on charges of manipulating the ‘first come, first served’ […]
Legal experts pointed out that the two sections under which Raja, Behura and Chandelia have been booked indicated the possibility of further arrests, including those from the private sector and their lobbyists. The CBI has booked the trio under the sections dealing with ‘criminal conspiracy’ and ‘criminal misconduct by a public servant’ of the Indian […]
Standard Chartered Bank of Britain has been granted permission to set up a ‘stock exchange’ trading in currency and interest-rate futures in India. The ministry of finance said that the Bank, through its Mauritius subsidiary has been granted the relevant permission to acquire an Indian company to set up the exchange. Currency and interest rate […]
The government will introduce the new Companies Bill in the Budget session of the Parliament beginning on the 21st and mandate international accounting rules in the new year, officials said. The ministry of Corporate Affairs also said there would be no mandatory provision requiring companies to spend 2% of their profits for social welfare purposes, […]
R.S.Sharma, chairman of India’s largest oil and gas firm ONGC, said he saw no immediate respite from climbing crude oil prices and said his own firm’s profits will be hit due to the spike. “I don’t think there is going to be immediate respite and the outlook is not comforting,” Sharma said while inaugurating the […]
Indian exporters posted yet another better than expected month in January this year, posting a growth of 32.5%, making January only the second month of $20 billion plus of exports ever. The $20 billion mark was breached in December last year when exports of goods were estimated to be around $22 billion. In all, Indian […]
Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry smartphones, has denied that it intends to expose the communication of its corporate clients to the Indian government, but said it will allow legal access to consumer accounts. It also said that rumors about a planned move to give Indian government “full access” are hurting business. The company, […]
