New Delhi: Newly sworn-in Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will be in Delhi on Wednesday and he is scheduled to meet UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Siddaramaiah is expected to hold discussions for the expansion of the state Cabinet. Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara will also accompany the state Chief Minister. A decision on Cabinet ministers is expected in the next two days. It's no secret that intense lobbying is on in...
09:59 AM, May 15, 2013
Islamabad: Nawaz Sharif's PML-N has emerged the single largest party in Pakistan's landmark general elections by bagging 122 of the 272 parliamentary seats that went to the polls on May 11, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday. The PML-N's two closest rivals the Pakistan People's Party and Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf lagged far behind with 31 and 26 seats, respectively. Earlier, trends emerging from the counting of votes had shown...
12:36 PM, May 14, 2013
New Delhi: Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth, who was due to complete his two-year term in June, got one-year extension. Seth, a 1974 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, has assumed the charge of Cabinet Secretary on June 14, 2011. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved the extension of tenure of Seth, the country's top bureaucrat, by one year beyond June 13, 2013, a press...
09:12 AM, May 14, 2013
New Delhi: Days after two Union Ministers were sacked, there were reports of a feud between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. But the Congress on Sunday downplayed that and said that there is no rift. The party has rubbished all reports that the Prime Minister has been isolated. Senior Congress leader Janardhan Dwivedi on Sunday reiterated that the resignations of Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar...
02:31 PM, May 12, 2013
New Delhi: Attorney General GE Vahanvati, who was under scanner for trying to influence CBI's coal scam status report, will continue in his position. Government sources on Saturday confirm there will be no action against the top law officer. Meanwhile, sacked Law Minister Ashwani Kumar on Saturday came out in his defence saying he resigned only to avoid any unnecessary controversy claiming that his conscience still remains clear. He also...
06:47 PM, May 11, 2013
Bangalore: With Karnataka Chief Minister-designate Siddaramaiah all set to install his Cabinet next week, lobbying for ministerial berths has intensified. Siddaramaiah is slated to be sworn in alone by Governor HR Bhardwaj at 11.50 am on Monday at a ceremony at Sri Kanteerava Stadium. Unlike previous occasions when such functions were held in Glass House of Raj Bhavan which restricted participation due to security and space constraints, the venue this...
06:10 PM, May 11, 2013
New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was forced to sack Ashwani Kumar as Law Minister and Pawan Kumar Bansal as Railway Minister, the Congress party has given full credit to party President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi for taking action against the tainted ministers. "Congress President and Rahul Gandhi never tolerate corruption and that is why they took the resignation of the two ministers," Congress...
12:06 PM, May 11, 2013
New Delhi: After days of sustained pressure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was finally forced to act against his ministers charged with corruption and interference. Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal were both forced to quit on Friday. Both of them called on the Prime Minister on Friday evening and submitted their resignations. While Ashwani Kumar was sacked for interfering in CBI's coalgate probe report, Pawan Bansal...
07:55 AM, May 11, 2013
New Delhi: The Cabinet on Thursday approved amendments in a law for disqualifying MPs for holding an office of profit to exempt the chairpersons of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from its purview, said official sources. The government will introduce a bill in Parliament to bring about the changes, said the sources. According to sources, Section 3 of the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959, as...
03:46 AM, May 10, 2013
New Delhi: Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal skipped a Cabinet meet at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence on Thursday even as Law Minister Ashwani Kumar attended it. Both Bansal and Ashwani are under fire over the Railway Board bribery case and the coal scam probe respectively. Sources had earlier said that the Congress wanted the PM to decide on Ashwani's fate. Sources said the PM was seriously considering the possibility...
06:12 PM, May 09, 2013
New Delhi: More delay expected in the law to give women an equal share in property after divorce as Union Cabinet failed to clear amendments to the Marriage Act following differences between the Law Ministry and Ministry of Women and Child Development. A Group of Ministers will take up the proposed amendments now. At the Cabinet meet on Wednesday, there were sharp differences between the ministries over the question of...
03:24 PM, May 01, 2013
New Delhi: A consortium of global telecom majors, including Reliance Jio Infocomm and Vodafone, today signed an agreement for constructing the Bay of Bengal Gateway submarine cable system that will link Malaysia and Singapore to the Middle East with connections in India and Sri Lanka. The cable system is likely to carry commercial traffic by the end of 2014. "...consortium members - Telekom Malaysia Berhad (Malaysia), Vodafone Group (UK), Omantel...
03:30 PM, Apr 30, 2013
Kolkata: Sachin Tendulkar may want muted celebrations for his 40th birthday on Wednesday but the city of joy is all set to throw a huge party for the veteran Indian batsman. Tendulkar, who will be in the city for his Mumbai Indians' clash against Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday, will begin the day with a customary cake-cutting ceremony at the team hotel. "We have arranged a special programme way ahead...
01:35 PM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: Reliance Industries' telecommunications arm will use Bharti Airtel's submarine cable network to provide data connectivity across Asia Pacific, the two Indian companies said on Tuesday. The i2i cable network connects India to Singapore and is wholly owned by Bharti, India's top mobile phone carrier. Bharti and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, unit of Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries, will continue to build on this "strategic framework" and consider other mutual...
11:47 AM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Thursday did not take up for consideration the much-anticipated proposal to establish a new mechanism giving a say to the government in appointment of judges to the higher judiciary. The Cabinet was expected to take up the proposal that envisages replacing the present collegium system, under which judges alone decide the appointments to the higher judiciary, in its meeting on Thursday but decided to...
10:43 PM, Apr 18, 2013
Caracas: Hugo Chavez's hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, has officially won Venezuela's presidential election by a stunningly narrow margin that highlights rising discontent over problems ranging from crime to power blackouts. His rival demanded a recount, portending more headaches for a country shaken by the death of its dominating leader. One key Chavista leader expressed dismay over the outcome of Sunday's election, which was supposed to cement the self-styled "Bolivarian Revolution"...
08:20 PM, Apr 15, 2013
New Delhi: The process of full digitisation of cable TV systems in the country is expected to be over well before the end of the current fiscal given a sharp surge in the installation of set-top boxes by large distributors, a report has said. The large cable TV distributors, known as MSOs (Multi Service Operators), gained higher market share than Direct-to- Home (DTH) players in the second phase of digitisation...
04:10 PM, Apr 14, 2013
New Delhi: The Maulana Azad Medical College finds a rare mention in a US diplomatic cable during Henry Kissinger era which says that the hospital caters to around 3,000 out patients daily. In a cable to Washington, the then US Ambassador Daniel Moynihan said Dr Hari Vaishnava, professor of medicine, gave them the information that there were at least 1,700 people admitted to Maulana Azad Medical College, associated with Irwin...
12:32 PM, Apr 14, 2013
Augusta: The longest, strangest day at the Masters for Tiger Woods began with a text message from his agent Saturday morning to meet with Augusta National officials nearly six hours before his tee time. It ended some 10 hours later with a relieved fist pump for a key par that kept him in the mix for another green jacket. It was far different for the two guys atop the leaderboard....
08:59 AM, Apr 14, 2013
New Delhi: The US Embassy cables accessed by WikiLeaks have claimed that there were three assassination attempts on late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's second son Sanjay Gandhi. A 1976 dispatch says Sanjay was the target of an unknown assailant in a "well planned assassination attempt" during the Emergency. It quotes Indian intelligence sources as saying that he was shot at three times on August 30 or 31, but escaped...
08:51 AM, Apr 11, 2013
