New Delhi: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will on Friday hold a meet to discuss the key economic measures introduced by the Centre to rein in its fiscal deficit. These include the diesel price hike and a cap on the maximum number of subsidised LPG cylinders a family can buy in a year. NCP leaders had on Thursday asked the Centre to rethink the "blanket hike" in diesel prices and...
09:31 AM, Sep 21, 2012
New Delhi: India has moved further away from a widespread drought with a third straight week of heavy rains and the weather office is now suggesting the crucial monsoon could even slow its retreat, helping winter planting in the major food producer. The rains, vital for the 55 per cent of Indian farmland without irrigation, are still 8 per cent short of average so far in the June to September...
02:03 AM, Sep 14, 2012
New Delhi: The central government on Wednesday said it will allocate over Rs 800 crore for drinking water, extend the limit of the rural job plan by an additional 50 days and relax crop loans for farmers to mitigate the impact of drought in affected areas. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar noted that overall rain deficiency in the country was 8 per cent and said: "We can expect reduction in production...
01:49 AM, Sep 13, 2012
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday announced various relief measures for drought-hit areas of the country that includes increasing the number of guaranteed work days under MGNREGA to 150 days from 100 days and reducing interest rates on rescheduled crop loans to 7 per cent for this fiscal. Announcing these measures, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said the government expects fall in production of coarse cereals and pulses in Kharif (summer)...
07:36 PM, Sep 12, 2012
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet has declared its assets. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's total assets have doubled over the past one year from Rs 5.11 crore to Rs 10.73 crore. Government sources claim this is largely due to the increase in the value of homes in Delhi and in Chandigarh. Defence Minister AK Antony is the Cabinet Minister with the lowest assets only worth Rs 55 lakh. Praful Patel is...
10:12 AM, Sep 10, 2012
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assets worth around Rs 10.73 crore, double that of last year, but a number of his Cabinet colleagues are much richer than him. Among the richer Cabinet ministers are Praful Patel with assets of approximately Rs 52 crore and Sharad Pawar with property worth around Rs 22 crore, according to the updated list of assets of the ministers posted on the PMO website....
10:39 AM, Sep 09, 2012
Mumbai: Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil is in the line of fire with pressure mounting on the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to remove him from the portfolio. The NCP leadership is of the view that Patil is not in control of the important ministry. NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had publicly rebuked Patil following the Pune serial blasts on August 2. Patil is also facing criticism for...
06:27 PM, Aug 24, 2012
Mumbai: Vilasrao Deshmukh's rise from a humble background in home town Latur to the Centre was driven by his fierce ambition and sharp political instincts. The two-time chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao aligned himself with the anti-Pawar lobby in the state. The strength of Vilasrao is borne out by the fact that despite Shinde leading the party to victory as Chief Minister in 2003, it was Vilasrao who was made...
09:59 PM, Aug 14, 2012
Mumbai: The violence that rocked the city on the weekend as demonstrators protesting against Assam riots went on a rampage, left the city police red-faced. Reports now suggest that the Mumbai Police erred in anticipating the threat of violence even in the presence of available Intelligence. Additional CP Special Branch had reportedly sent an Intelligence report warning of a difficult law and order situation, also warning that crowds upward of...
09:20 AM, Aug 14, 2012
Chandigarh: The Centre has decided to reschedule loans of farmers of Punjab and Haryana besides providing them financial assistance to deal with losses due to deficient rain. "I have already instructed NABARD to prepare a rescheduling programme on crop loan for those farmers who have taken money in states that were affected because of insufficient rain and that include Punjab and Haryana", Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told reporters. He noted...
08:31 PM, Aug 10, 2012
Chandigarh: With Haryana facing 70 per cent deficit rainfall during the current monsoon, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Friday demanded an assistance of Rs 4,050 crore from the Centre to bail out the state from the "drought-like situation." A demand to this effect was made by Hooda to Union Ministers Sharad Pawar and Jairam Ramesh during their review meeting with the state government top brass on the drought-like...
06:05 PM, Aug 10, 2012
New Delhi: With drought-like conditions staring Haryana, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar will be visiting the foodgrain producing state on Friday to take stock of the situation. Haryana and Punjab have so far experienced deficient monsoon. Pawar will hold a meeting with Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the state government is expected to ask the Centre for compensation. Haryana had last week sought a special package from the...
08:48 AM, Aug 10, 2012
New Delhi: The UPA on Monday announced the constitution of a coordination committee under the chairpersonship of Sonia Gandhi to ensure cohesive functioning of the alliance, a demand that was placed by ally NCP during its recent stand-off with the Congress. Leaders of all the constituent parties are part of the mechanism, though key allies, the DMK, the TMC and the NCP, are yet to name their representatives. According to...
07:19 PM, Aug 06, 2012
Solapur: Dismissing reports that Union Minister Sharad Pawar had opposed him becoming Leader of the Lok Sabha, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said on Sunday that Pawar was his "political guru" and had always helped him in his political career. "Pawar is not a person with a small heart. How can he crush a plant that he has nurtured? He has not opposed my name for the post of...
06:20 PM, Aug 05, 2012
Mumbai: Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday called upon the Maharashtra government to improve its intelligence set-up to prevent a repeat of the serial blasts in Pune earlier in the week. "This is the second time in two years that blasts have taken place in Pune, this time it is fortunate that there were no casualties. Repeated blasts like this are not good for the state," Pawar told reporters here....
02:37 AM, Aug 05, 2012
Mumbai: Noting that blasts reflect poorly on the state administration, Union Minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday asked party leader and Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil to focus on improving the performance of the police and intelligence departments. Addressing a press conference, Pawar said when incidents such as blasts happen, not only innocent people lose lives, but the attitude of the society to a particular community changes....
07:16 PM, Aug 04, 2012
Bangalore: The Centre on Thursday asked the state government to send a fresh proposal for assistance to tackle drought. The proposal would be discussed during Group of Ministers (GoM)meeting in New Delhi on August 7 or 8. The memorandum submitted by the government had less to do with measures required to tackle drought and more about structural problems that Karnataka is facing. We have asked them to send a fresh...
12:07 PM, Aug 03, 2012
New Delhi: Even as the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan remain drought-affected, the southwest monsoon lashed the Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, West Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Chhattisgarh in the past 24 hours. In some relief for the parched north India, Delhi too got rains for the second consecutive day on Wednesday. The city received 15.6 mm of rains till 8:30...
11:36 AM, Aug 01, 2012
New Delhi: Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar will on Wednesday begin his 3-day tour of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan - the country's four worst drought-affected states. Pawar will lead a team to drought-affected areas in the four states, during August 1-3 to assess the rain deficit and water scarcity situation. The Agriculture Minister will first visit Maharashtra on Wednesday and later Karnataka on Thursday. He will also hold meetings in...
06:43 AM, Aug 01, 2012
New Delhi: Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday noted that 400 out of the 627 districts in India had received deficient rainfall but said it was for the states to declare a drought. "The centre does not do that...it is for the states to declare drought in their districts," Pawar told reporters after he headed a meeting of an empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on drought in New Delhi....
01:01 AM, Aug 01, 2012
