The Big Picture: Supreme Court judgement on Lokpal- What are the hurdles? The idea of an anti corruption body and an ombudsman to look into corruption allegations against administrators including legislators has been floating around for over five decades now. It finally got shaped with the passage of Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill …
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The Big Picture: India’s World- US – Russia Face-off in Afghanistan Moscow and Washington seem to be heading for a face-off in Afghanistan. Last December, Moscow initiated a regional dialogue on Afghanistan. It has held three meetings of the group which contains Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, India and a few Central Asian …
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The Big Picture – Niti Aayog’s vision for New India: Will it transform the economy? The third meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog was held in the National Capital recently. With an aim to transform India, the NITI Aayog has envisioned an ambitious agenda for the country to be achieved …
Lok Sabha TV- Public Forum: Ban on Beacon In a major decision recently, the Government has done away with the beacon lights for VIPs. From May 1st, 2017. The decision was taken in the cabinet meeting and is in sync with the Government’s view of abolishing the VIP culture of beacon lights …
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The Big Picture: India’s World- Shadow of a death sentence on Indo-Pak ties A Pakistani military court has sentenced a former Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to death for espionage and sabotage in Pakistan. India has denied that Jadhav was a spy and has dismissed the Pakistan court’s proceedings as farcical. India has …
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The Big Picture: Takeaways from Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina’s India Visit Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina held bilateral talks recently ending 22 pacts in various key sectors including a civil-nuclear agreement and 2 MoUs on defence cooperation. India has extended a credit line of USD 4.5 …
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The Big Picture: UK begins Brexit process: Implications for India Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain’s divorce from European Union recently declaring that there was no turning back. In one of the most significant steps by British leader since World War II, May notified EU Council President in a hand delivered letter …
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The Big Picture: India’s World- US shadow over India-Iran relations Anticipating increasing tensions between Iran and the US, the Government has apparently advised Indian firms to go slow in investments in proposed projects of Iran’s Chabahar’s free trade zone. According to a news report, there is an apprehension that India’s financial transaction …
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The Big Picture: Farm Loan Waivers Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel has sounded the alarm on state governments waiving farm loans and has called for a consensus to do away with them to avoid damaging the national balance sheet. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently announced a 36,000 crore …
The Big Picture : Delhi LG’s order on government ads In a setback to the Arvind Kejriwal dispensation in Delhi, the Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal has directed that 97 crore rupees should be recovered from Aam Aadmi Party that was allegedly splurged by the city Government on advertisements in violation of the Supreme …
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The Big Picture: Sweeping powers to taxmen in finance bill- Are they necessary? The Finance Bill 2017 passed in the Lok Sabha gives the income tax authorities unprecedented powers with regard to raids, search and seizure of property. Of the many amendments made to multiple acts through this money bill, which was recently …
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The Big Picture: Changes in rules for political funding One of the less discussed developments in Finance Bill 2017 is the way Narendra Modi Government has effectively made corporate funding of political parties more opaque contrary to its promise of bringing in more transparency. The Finance bill has made two important changes in …
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The Big Picture: Re-organization of tribunals- need and impact In a large scale reform of tribunals, the Government recently sought to reduce the number of these quasi judicial bodies and bring parity in the service conditions of their officials. Among the better known tribunals; The Competition Appellate Tribunal will now be merged with …
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The Big Picture: Fertilizer Subsidy Reforms: Scope, Problems & Challenges With the landslide win in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Narendra Modi Government has decided to fast track the implementation of the Direct Benefit Transfer system for payment of fertilizer subsidy to farmers. From the coming kharif season beginning from June, the …
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The Big Picture: State Laws in GST: What is the final shape? With the GST Council approving the remaining two draft bills; the UTGST and SGST all the five enabling draft bills stand approved to enable a likely rollout of the new indirect tax regime from July 1st this year. The other three …
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Lok Sabha TV: Insight-Inter- State Water Disputes India is a diverse country where many rivers run connecting two or more states and most of them are swamped with inter-state disputes. Nearly most of the major rivers of the country are inter-state rivers and their waters are pooled by two or more than two …
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Lok Sabha TV- Insight: Banking Reforms And Challenges With the potential to become 5th largest banking industry in the world by 2020 and 3rd largest perhaps by 2025 according to some reports, India’s banking and financial sector is expanding rapidly. The Indian banking industry is currently worth of more than 1 trillion dollar …
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The Big Picture – Rising Chinese Presence in Indian Ocean China plans to increase the size of its marine core from about 20,000 to 1 lakh personnel to protect nation’s maritime lifeline and its growing interests overseas. Some of them would be stationed at ports China operates at Djibouti in the …
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India’s World – Nepal’s Madhesi on the boil again Nepal’s terai region is on the boil again. This time, the residents around the Tarai region known as Madhesis are protesting the plan to hold local body elections. They have been demanding an amendment to the constitution on 11 issues, including reorganization of state …
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The Big Picture: Is Aadhar data prone to misuse? In the last few weeks several disturbing incidents centred on the Aadhar database have established the scope for widespread data leakage. Responding to these reports in social media, the UIDAI denied that there has been a breach of Aadhar data …
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