Forest Minister Filipe Neri Rodrigues assured the State Legislative assembly that all the proposals to divert the forest land for mining purpose would be put on hold and the officers would be instructed not to process any such proposals Cornered by Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar and Aldona MLA Dayanand Narvekar over diversion of forest land for mining, Rodrigues said that the officers would be strictly told not to send any...

Recent actions of some senior BJP leaders hint at an understanding between the Congress and the main opposition at the leadership level. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) credentials and commitment as the principal opposition party of the country have been repeatedly questioned in the past seven years, the period in which the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has held the reins of power at the Centre. Recent developments in Parliament...

There is a fundamental inequality in the governance arrangement in New Delhi that continues to plague the United Progressive Alliance. Members of Congress party president Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council feel they have the right to criticise the government and its functionaries all the time, while no one in government is willing to return the compliment. In an interview to this newspaper, (March 13) the self-proclaimed father of India’s green...

“Budget is more than a document of income and expenditure. People expect it to tackle the twin problems of poverty and social injustice while ensuring better income and standard of living.” Country’s first woman Finance Minister of any state government, Upinderjit Kaur, said this while presenting her first budget and last of the present Akali-BJP government on Monday. With the state slated to go to polls early next year, the Rs...

On a day the Bokaro district administration went on an overdrive to tighten the noose around unscrupulous MGNREGS contractors, the state government claimed in the Assembly that the death of worker Subal Mahto wasn’t remotely connected to rampant corruption in the Centre’s flagship rural job scheme. Reprimanded by Union rural development secretary B.K. Sinha over the recent killings of the Bokaro labourer and MGNREGS crusader Niyamat Ansari, the government today made...