'This week we once again heard the prime minister and finance minister speak, at a recent media house event in the capital, about how well the economy is doing. The truth is nothing can improve our economic fundamentals till public investment is sharply increased. Manipulating statistics may help manage global headlines for a while, but cannot strengthen our economic fundamentals.
'Referring to the “ethnic tensions” in the wake of controversies over beef and other issues, Moody’s Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must keep BJP members in check or risk losing “losing domestic and global credibility”, reported Press Trust of India. Stating that BJP does not have a majority in Rajya Sabha to pass crucial reforms and the Opposition was being ‘obstructionist’, Moody’s Analytics said in a report that the government has also not helped itself in recent times with controversial comments from various BJP members.
"A shocking new report on the automotive sector questions whether manufacturing in India can ever deliver on its promises without offering a safe environment for workers... With the Indian auto industry – which produced 23.37 million vehicles in 2014-15 and attracted FDI of $12.2 billion between 2000 and 2015 – all set to play a central role in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to “Make in India’’, an alarming new report on shop floor injuries in the automotive sector has questioned whether “Make in India” can be successful without first ensuring that manufacturing is ‘safe in India’.
'Lawyers fighting to have Queensland’s land court stop the construction of Australia’s largest coal mine say they have made the touted economic benefits look “ridiculous” beside the risk of environmental damage. In a closing statement against the Carmichael mine proposed by Indian coal giant Adani, barrister Saul Holt told the court there had been “dramatic changes in the picture of this mine” as a result of legal proceedings brought by conservationists.
New Delhi, 2 March 2015: The Union Budget of 2015-16, the BJP government’s first full budget, has a sense of triumphalism that it ‘can fly’ because it believes that , the ‘opportunity for this exist because we (the BJP government) have created it’ over the last nine-and-a-half months. This government is taking credit for conditions and circumstances that it has nothing to do with or did not, in the remotest way, have the ability or opportunity to contribute to.
'More than 12 bills which are not financial in nature but have political significance are likely to be tabled in the state assembly's budget session scheduled to begin from February 23. In addition to these, there will be several financial bills introduced for approval of budget proposals. Several of these bills have already been submitted to the assembly office for tabling during the budget session. On such bill is the Labour Laws (Gujarat Amendment) Bill. The state government has proposed several amendments in various labour laws through this one bill.
'When the Indian Express tweeted on Sunday that it was going to break “the biggest news of the year,” lots of people sat up and took notice. The last time the paper did this, it published an article claiming that the government-army relationship was so bad that the word “coup” wasn’t far away. That story dominated headlines for days and provoked heated debates for much longer. So when the Express finally came out on Monday morning, revealing a list of Indian Swiss bank account holders as part of a global investigation into tax dodgers, it didn’t quite seem to live up to the billing.
'In what would showcase the business-friendly image of the BJP, over 100 corporate honchos joined the party yesterday in probably the first-of-its-kind en masse recruitment of private executives in a political party. They joined the party in the presence of BJP chief Amit Shah and Anurag Thakur, president, Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha, who was instrumental in getting them on board. Shah said the corporate leaders who joined yesterday weren't joining the party but a family.
'If the idea was to prevent Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai from telling British Parliamentarians about her organisation’s work with the local community in Mahan, then the Narendra Modi government has been denied that satisfaction. Offloaded from a London bound flight on Sunday, Pillai addressed British Parliament through Skype three days later. In her 90-minute address Pillai talked about the resistance put up by Mahan’s forest community to stall a proposed coal mining project by the London-based Essar company, that threatens to uproot the local people.
'Baba Ramdev's brand is at its highest point ever, if sales of Patanjali Ayurveda are any indication. Along with his growing profile and popularity of his brand of televised yoga, his business empire, selling ayurvedic products and medicines for a range of ailments, has also mushroomed. The company is owned by Patanjali Yogapeeth, a trust founded and headed by Ramdev. Sales are on track to reach Rs. 2,000 crore this fiscal, up from Rs. 450 crore in 2012. The company was started in 2007. And all this has been achieved with almost zero spend on advertising.
