Mumbai: Luxury carmakers in India are moving downmarket and shifting production of smaller and cheaper cars to local plants to cut costs, broadening their target market to include young, female and middle-class drivers to boost lacklustre performance. In an effort to raise stuttering sales that far lag emerging Asian rival China, the German big three of Mercedes-Benz, Audi AG and BMW AG want to win buyers outside the ultra-rich with...
07:00 AM, Apr 23, 2013
As Budget Session resumed on Monday, the UPA government once again came under attack by the Opposition. While former telecom minister A Raja accused the PMO of being in the know of 2G decisions, the growing instances of rape in the capital also pushed the Centre on the backfoot. The coal revelations could not have also come at a worse time for the government. ...
11:56 PM, Apr 22, 2013
Parliament reconvened on Monday for the second half of the Budget Session. The Opposition did all it could to corner the government on a host of issues. The UPA will hope to maneuver with allies to get its way. ...
11:30 PM, Apr 22, 2013
New Delhi: Government is likely to convene an all-party meeting soon on the ambitious Food Security Bill before it is taken up in Parliament. "We are planning to convene an all-party meeting before taking up for further proceedings. It is likely to be held in a day or two," a Minister, who did not want to be identified, told reporters. The National Food Security Bill gives the right to food...
03:10 PM, Apr 22, 2013
New Delhi: 3.53 pm: Sitaram Yechury says, "What is happening is that 3 out of 4 registered rape cases go without being punished. It is not about policing and law and order only. It is some thing in the society that needs to be looked at also." "We are just not able to protect our women and children. What is this beastly act against a 5-year-old child? what is the...
11:00 AM, Apr 22, 2013
New Delhi: Parliament reconvenes on Monday for the second half of the Budget Session. The Opposition looks set to corner the government on a host of issues and the UPA will be manouvering with allies to get its way. The opposition is expected to blockade proceedings on the rape of the 5-year-old in Delhi, the JPC report on 2G that gave a clean chit to the PM and the government's...
09:59 AM, Apr 22, 2013
The Budget Session of Parliament resumes on Monday. Despite the fact that Vice President Hamid Ansari on Sunday sent out a strong message against MPs disrupting Parliament, the scene is unlikely to be any different. ...
09:45 AM, Apr 22, 2013
New Delhi: The Budget Session of Parliament resumes on Monday. Despite the fact that Vice President Hamid Ansari on Sunday sent out a strong message against MPs disrupting Parliament, the scene is unlikely to be any different. The Opposition has several issues against the government even as the Congress faces the threat of a pullout by the Samajwadi Party (SP). The BJP, too, had on Saturday made it clear that...
08:00 AM, Apr 22, 2013
Delhi: The Parliament is all set to resume the second part of the Budget session on Monday after a four-week long recess. The Budget session, which began on February 22, will conclude on May 10. The stage seems set for a stormy session, with Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari on Sunday suggesting punishing MPs who indulge in hooliganism. His proposals for restoration of the dignity of Parliament were,...
06:40 PM, Apr 21, 2013
New Delhi: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani has called for the rejection of the JPC draft report on 2G spectrum allocation scam. He also said the BJP will bring up the issue in the second phase of the Budget Session, which is beginning on Monday. The Opposition alliance - NDA - which is miffed at the contents of the leaked JPC report, also questioned how the panel...
01:09 PM, Apr 21, 2013
New Delhi: BJP-led NDA on Saturday said it failed to understand how the JPC draft report on 2G spectrum allocation issue had exonerated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram without examining them and appealed to all members of the committee to reject the document in toto. The NDA top brass held a meeting at the residence of its working president LK Advani to discuss the strategy for...
08:09 PM, Apr 20, 2013
At the NDA meeting on Saturday, senior leaders slammed the JPC report on the 2G scam, asking why A Raja was not permitted to depose. The JPC report will be raised by the BJP in Parliament next week. ...
07:53 PM, Apr 20, 2013
New Delhi: BJP is set to corner the Government in Parliament over the leakage of JPC report on 2G Spectrum allocation, coal scam and the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi as the second phase of the Budget Session begins on April 22. The executive committee of the BJP Parliamentary Party on Saturday held a meeting at the residence of LK Advani to evolve its strategy in Parliament....
06:00 PM, Apr 20, 2013
New Delhi: Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh during the all party meeting on Thursday said there was an agreement that the Land Bill should be brought for discussion and passing in the second half of the Budget Session. The minister is hopeful of finally replacing the colonial, 119-year-old Land Acquisition Act with a fairer law but added that Parliament must function. Between April 9-18, Ramesh reached out to leaders cutting...
09:45 PM, Apr 18, 2013
New Delhi: An all-party meeting has been called on Thursday to discuss the Land Acquisition Bill, which seeks to strengthen landowners' rights during acquisition for development. This will be the third all-party meeting on the Land Acquisition Bill. The parties, which failed to arrive on a consensus on the bill in the last two meetings, were asked to give their suggestions by April 15 and six parties are reported to...
08:19 AM, Apr 18, 2013
New Delhi: Gionee has announced the launch of its new smartphone - Gionee P1 - which features a 3.5-inch display. The P1 is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A9 processor and comes with a 2 megapixel camera. It also has a front VGA camera. This dual SIM phone has a 1500 mAh battery. The P1 comes has an internal storage space of 512MB; its memory can be expanded up to...
11:33 AM, Apr 17, 2013
Washington: President Barack Obama on Wednesday revived a list of his favorite tax ideas, hoping to raise $580 billion in new revenues from the wealthy over a decade in a potential opening gambit to forge a deal with Congress to overhaul the tax code. While certain not to move forward en masse, his 2014 budget blueprint has elements likely to spur discussion, including a proposal to tax derivatives more stringently,...
05:07 AM, Apr 11, 2013
Washington: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday proposed a 40 per cent increase in American aid to Pakistan, amounting to $ 1.4 billion, as part of his $ 3.77 trillion budget that focuses on new job creation and economic growth. Obama among other things proposed to increase the US aid to Pakistan under overseas contingency operations to $ 1.4 billion for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2013, an increase...
02:49 AM, Apr 11, 2013
New Delhi: Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country will grow by a little over 6 per cent in the fiscal year 2013-14 and the revenue targets would be met. He also noted that the revenue growth of the FY 2012-13, which stands at 16.7 per cent, was "commendable". The Union Minister said the tax target for the last fiscal was at...
04:09 PM, Apr 06, 2013
New Delhi: The government will enact the proposed right to food bill, covering 67 per cent of the population, in the second half of the budget session from April 22-May 10, 2013, Food Minister KV Thomas said in New Delhi on Wednesday. "We will pass the bill in the second half of the budget session," Thomas told a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) meet on "India's food security and the...
05:33 AM, Apr 04, 2013
