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President’s Rule imposed in Delhi
AAP against crony capitalism: Kejriwal
Defence budget up by 10%
Tears, tension, protests: PC braves all to finish 70-min Budget speech
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Govt to push for passage of Telangana Bill today
SC gets full strength as 2 more judges join
Spying: Court puts Navy official on trial
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President’s Rule imposed in Delhi
New Delhi, February 17 Kejriwal’s resignation along with his Council of Ministers was also accepted by the President. In a report to the Centre, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung had recommended for placing the Assembly under suspended animation, while Kejriwal had suggested to dissolve the Assembly and conduct fresh elections. The Aam Aadmi Party had bagged 28 seats in 70-member Delhi Assembly elections held in December last year. Though the BJP is the single largest party in the Assembly, party leader Harsh Vardhan said the party would not form the government since it did not have a clear mandate. “If we wanted to do that (form government), we would have done it last year itself. “AAP on the insistence of some anti-Indian elements abroad is working to spread anarchy and instability. The people of this country should be wary of this party and its leaders,” said Vardhan. He said the BJP would contest the coming Lok Sabha elections on the plank of development, good governance and better administration and will go to people with these issues. “The AAP was propped up by the Congress and based on the script written in the Congress party’s office, Arvind Kejriwal resigned within 49 days of forming the government,” he said.
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AAP against crony capitalism: Kejriwal
"We are not against capitalism, but we are against crony capitalism. We are depressed when spectrum worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore is purchased and sold for Rs 6,000 crore within one week. This is not called business, it is called dacoity," he said while sharing AAP's economic plan at a CII event. Kejriwal as Delhi Chief Minister ordered CAG audit of power discoms and initiated action against Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries and Oil Minister Veerappa Moily alleging complicity in fixing gas prices. “There is a very small section of industrialists in our country who are not industrialists or businessmen, but they are looting the country. We are against them but not against you all. If
businesses are closed, then who will generate employment?" he said. — PTI
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Defence budget up by 10%
Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while presenting the interim budget today, said the defence budget will be Rs 2,24,000 crore for the next fiscal, 10 per cent more than this fiscal’s Rs 2.03,672 crore and will account for 12.70 per cent of the total government spending. The present fiscal ends on March 31, 2014. Lack of money in the coffers gets reflected in the capital allocation. In the ongoing fiscal, the original allocation was Rs 86,740 crore under the capital head. This was cut by Rs 7868 crore mid-year and the money was transferred to meet day-to-day expenses such as fuel and salaries. This year’s increase in capital is only a growth of 3.28 per cent over the original allocation, while the Ministry of Defence has had to raise the day-to-day running costs by 14.95 per cent. In the Rs 89,588 crore capital outlay, the Finance Minister has focused on Naval fleet that has been given Rs 12,856 crore, Army heavy vehicles Rs 2128 crore, IAF aircraft Rs 16,271 crore , another Rs 16,155 crore for ‘other equipment’ of the Army and Rs 15,532 crore for the IAF. This is largely for guns and ammunition and new air defence systems. It also reflects the focus of the forces in the forthcoming year. Part of the hike will be off-set by the change in rupee-dollar exchange rates. With several of the acquisitions being through the import route the Dollar, which now trades at Rs 61 in exchange, will have an effect. Last year, when the budget was announced, the dollar stood at Rs 54.90 - a difference of Rs 6 in one year. Next year’s budget in dollar terms will be US $ 36.4 billion. New Delhi’s surge of 10 per cent still leaves it way behind China’s budget announced in March 2013 at $112.6 billion. China is yet to announce its next year’s budget. Japan announced its 2014 defence budget in December 2013 and pegged it at $45.86 billion. It falls short of the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). It will be 1.74 per cent of the GDP. This year, the share was 1.79 per cent and for the previous fiscal that ended March 31, 2013 the share of defence spending in the GDP was 1.9 per cent. Successive standing parliamentary committees on defence had recommended the allocation to be raised by at least 3-3.5 per cent of the GDP to modernise the forces.
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Tears, tension, protests: PC braves all to finish 70-min Budget speech
New Delhi, February 17 Given the high-decibel,
anti-Telangana protests in the House, it was no mean job for the FM to stand his ground and defend the government’s economic record in this last Budget ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. But unlike his colleague Mallikarjun
Kharge, whose Rail Budget wound up in 14 minutes due to ruckus, Chidambaram braved tears and turbulence and managed to finish his 70-minute speech. He even invoked his mother and alma mater Harvard University to point out how these mentors had “taught him the value of hard work that helped sustain India’s good economic growth through 10 years of
UPA”. The comment was targeted at Narendra Modi who recently mocked Chidambaram’s Harvard credentials to say that going to top varsities alone didn’t guarantee economic solutions. That apart, Chidambaram’s speech was constantly challenged by the hysterical sloganeering of his ministerial and Congress colleagues from Seemandhra who kept seeking a united Andhra. For the first time in Lok Sabha history, the government’s
anti-Telangana ministers (KS Rao, D Purandeshwari, Sarva Satyanarayana Reddy, Chiranjeevi and Pallam
Raju) stood in the well and the aisle and on their seats to protest against the formation of Telangana even as the Budget was being presented. They defied the presence of PM Manmohan Singh and UPA chief Sonia Gandhi who didn’t make efforts to placate the whining protestors. If that was less, Congress MP from Seemandhra Harsha Kumar broke into tears in the middle of sloganeering frustrated at the government’s cold shoulder to the issue. Such was the chaos that even the PM, instead of making his routine statement after the Budget presentation, chose to voice his opinion through a PMO tweet that said, “I congratulate the FM for presenting a well-balanced vote-on-account portraying a realistic picture of the economic situation in the country.”
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Govt to push for passage of Telangana Bill today
New Delhi, February 17 The Congress has already made preparations for passage of the Bill. It issued a whip to its MPs to be present in the House all week. Besides, the Speaker has suspended 16 rebel Seemandhra MPs for creating disruption of proceedings in the House. Earlier, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has expelled rebel Congress MPs from Seemandhra from membership of the party. Government’s decision to push the Telangana Bill even in the din came today despite ministers from Seemandhra meeting BJP veteran LK Advani to demand justice for the region which will lose out on water, power and revenue when Hyderabad becomes a full capital of Telangana after ten years. Although the Government reached out to Advani whom Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh met this evening to discuss the Bill’s passage, signals from the Congress are clear — push the Bill which is politically important for Congress whose eyes are set on 17 LS seats in Telangana. YSR Congress Chief Jagan Mohan Reddy also continued his protest against the formation of Telangana in the capital where he said, “Sonia Gandhi is diving Andhra to make her son Rahul the PM”.
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SC gets full strength as 2 more judges join
New Delhi, February 17 CJI P Sathasivam administered of the oath of office to them. Earlier, Justice Agarwal (60) was the Acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, while Justice Ramana (56) was the Chief Justice of the Delhi HC. Going by seniority, Justice Ramana has the chance of becoming the CJI. Prior to his appointment as a judge of the Allahabad HC on February 5, 1999, Justice Agarwal has been a senior standing counsel for the central government. Justice Ramana had become an advocate in February 1983 and begun his judicial career on June 27, 2000 as judge of the AP HC. He has been advocate general of AP. From the present full strength, the number of SC judges is set for a drastic fall this year as ten judges are due for retirement. Timely replacements will be needed to maintain the strength. Justice HL Gokhale will be the first to retire on March 9, followed by CJI Sathasivam (April 26) and Justices Gyan Sudha Misra (April 27), KS Radhakrishnan (May 14), AK Patnaik (June 2), SS Nijjar (June 6), BS Chauhan (July 1), CK Prasad (July 14), RM Lodha (September 27) and Ranjana Prakash Desai (October 29).
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Spying: Court puts Navy official on trial
New Delhi, February 17 The provisions of the OSA for which Prasad, who was arrested from New Delhi Railway Station in 2010, has been put on trial entails a maximum of 14-year jail . The court said perusal of the chargesheet showed that the charge of spying was made out against him. The court rejected the contention of Prasad that he was the sole accused in the case, so he cannot be charged with criminal conspiracy. — PTI
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New Delhi, February 17
New Delhi, February 17