BJP vs AAP: Battle for Delhi goes down to the wire as campaigning nears end

With just hours left before campaigning ends in Delhi, political parties have gone all out to convince voters in their favour, Thursday. As suggested by various opinion polls, the fight appears to be largely between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with the Congress relegated to the third place.

The battle for Delhi has reached a crescendo with parties conducting road shows and rallies across the city.

For the BJP, the polls have turned into a matter of prestige as the party is keen to maintain its winning streak.

Speaking to reporters today, party’s CM candidate Kiran Bedi said that she was in the race to win it and promised good governance in the city if voted to power.

 

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Rajnath Singh briefs PM Modi over Matang arrest row

Singh apprised the Prime Minister on the issue after talking to Goswami and CBI Director Anil Sinha to get a factual picture about allegations that Goswami, a 1977 batch IAS officer from Jammu and Kashmir cadre, had interfered in CBI's work and made attempts to prevent arrest of Sinh on Saturday, official sources said.

The final decision will be taken by the Prime Minister who is now seized of the matter, they said.

Singh called the Home Secretary to his room in the morning and both of them remained closeted for nearly an hour.     

After the meeting, Goswami refused to take any questions from the media.

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India among top 3 nations generating most billionaires: Report

The India list gives details of the richest people in the country with a cut off wealth of Rs 6,000 crore. Mukesh Ambani with a a wealth of Rs 1.2 lakh crore tops the list among billionaires in the country, followed by Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma with an estimated wealth of Rs 1.02 lakh crore.

    

Pallonji Mistry and family of Tata Sons with Rs 96,000 crore assets are in the third place.

    

"It has been a busy year for the energy tycoon whose flagship company Reliance last year sought approval of Rs 78,000 crore expansion to their existing refinery business. Ambani also bought out one of the largest media houses, Network 18, for Rs 4200 crore," the report said.

    

This is the first time India is among the top three countries with the maximum number of billionaires. While US tops the list, China is in second place followed by India, as per the list prepared by Hurun Global Rich list report which was prepared by its India head office at Kochi.

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Taiwan plane cartwheels into river after take-off, killing at least 19 people

Miraculously, 15 people survived the crash after the plane lurched between buildings, clipped an overpass with its port-side wing and crashed upside down in the shallow water.

               

Dramatic pictures taken by a motorist and posted on Twitter showed the plane cartwheeling over the motorway soon after the turboprop ATR 72-600 aircraft took off in apparently clear weather on a domestic flight for the island of Kinmen.

               

"I've never seen anything like this," a volunteer rescuer surnamed Chen said of the most recent in a series of disasters to hit Asian carriers in the past 12 months.

               

Television footage showed survivors wearing life jackets wading and swimming clear of wreckage. Others, including a young child, were taken to shore in inflatable boats.

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Speculation rife on Manjhi ouster; Sharad arrives for meeting

There is no confirmation whether Manjhi, who had unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha poll from Gaya (SC) seat, would attend the meeting at the residence of former Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

    

Asked about removal of Manjhi, Sharad Yadav who arrived here told reporters at Patna airport "you fellows are saying this" and the meeting was a routine one.

    

Asked about the possibility of Nitish Kumar being made the Chief Minister again, JD(U) General Secretary K C Tyagi said "Nitish Kumar is 'sarvamanya' (all accepted) leader of the party and does not need anybody's 'sifarish' (recommendation)."

    

On the chances of Manjhi's ouster, Tyagi said "the legislature party will decide about the CM." Manjhi said "you all know from where such reports have come from. I am a CM and discharging my duty."

    

Meanwhile, BJP leader Sushil Modi suggested Manjhi to dissolve Vidhan Sabha before he was forced to quit the chair. In the 243-member Bihar House, ruling JD(U) has 115 members. It enjoys support of 24 members of RJD, 5 of Congress, 1 of CPI and two Independents which goes much ahead of magic figure of 122. BJP has 88 members and it enjoys support of 3 independents. Five seats are vacant in the House.

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Arvind Kejriwal trying to create blackmoney into white: BJP

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Kejriwal to answer to the queries posed to him for accepting funds from "dummy" companies which "have fictitious addresses, have common directors and no business to show and are making no profits."

"All his claims to be the sole custodian of propriety, of probity, of morality, of standards of polity in India stand completely exposed because of his conspicuous silence to squarely face these searching questions.

"The political conduct has been completely contradictory to the standards Kejriwal set for himself," Prasad said.

He asked the AAP leader as to why he was running away from the truth and accused him of turning blackmoney into white. "I strongly condemn this," Prasad said.

"Mr Kejriwal please answer. You took money from such a company which does not have any business, any profit, whose directors are in many dummy companies with fictitious addresses. We want answers to these questions.

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PMO seeks 'legal framework' to check delay in framing of rules

The move comes against the backdrop of parliamentary committees repeatedly slamming various ministries for delays in the notification of rules.
  
The Law Ministry has swung into action in this regard by asking the various ministries to come out with details of Acts which are still awaiting framing of rules.
  
The PMO wants that rules should be framed within six months of an Act coming into force. In a communication to the Law Ministry, the PMO asked it to devise a mechanism, including a "legal framework", to ensure that rules are framed within the stipulated time.
  
Failure to frame rules makes its virtually impossible for a ministry to enforce an Act. The Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation (2011-12), in its 21st report presented on December 16, 2011, had highlighted at least two examples of such delays.
  
"For example, in some cases, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare took 21 months for finally publishing rules and the Ministry of Agriculture took 22 months for the same action," the report had said.

According to the website of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, the Cabinet Secretariat had, way back in August of 1971, set a time limit for the framing of rules.

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Additional spectrum case: Court to hear matter on 6th February

Special CBI Judge O P Saini fixed the case for Friday after the defence counsel told the court that they needed some documents from CBI which were filed along with charge sheet.

The court asked the CBI to provide the documents as sought by the counsel for the accused. The agency has already supplied the copies of charge sheet and documents filed along with it to the accused.

The court was earlier informed that the Supreme Court has quashed the order summoning Bharti Cellular Ltd CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the case.

Hearing in the case was virtually stalled since April 26, 2013 interim order of the apex court which had said that proceedings against Mittal and Ruia, who had challenged trial court's summoning order, will remain "postponed" until further orders.

The apex court had cleared the decks for Mittal and Ruia by setting aside the order summoning them, observing that the principle of 'alter ego' has wrongly been applied by the trial judge in seeking presence of both the top corporate honchos as accused.

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Will trace 'extraneous influence' during Jayanthi's tenure as Environment Minister: Javadekar

Alleging that the prime minister under the UPA government was powerless, the Environment Minister also accused Congress President Sonia Gandhi of interfering in important decisions during her party's rule at the Centre.

"She (Natarajan) has mentioned certain files and she has not mentioned certain files but she indicated what was happening. But one thing is clear, that the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) was in office, but not in power.

"The power was concentrated in 10, Janpath (residence of Sonia Gandhi). So, we will definitely look into the cases mentioned and hinted at, where some extraneous influence has happened. We will see if there is any trace of such extraneous influence," the minister told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

Natarajan had written to Sonia Gandhi alleging that she had received specific requests from her son and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on environmental clearances and, consequently, had rejected big ticket projects.

Javadekar had earlier termed it a "serious issue" and said he would review the files regarding which allegations of extraneous influence have been made.

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Monetary policy review: RBI keeps rate unchanged; disappoints markets, industry

RBI kept the benchmark repurchase rate at 7.75 percent, but cut the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) - the amount of funds that lenders must set aside - by 50 basis points to 21.5 percent of deposits from February 7, a move that will help banks to increase lending.

Rajan also hoped that more banks will pass on the rate cut announced last month to the borrowers. Only a few banks had lowered their rates after the cut.

Announcing the sixth bi-monthly monetary policy review, Rajan said, "Given that there have been no substantial new developments on the disinflationary process or on the fiscal outlook since January 15, it is appropriate for the Reserve Bank of India to await them and maintain the current interest rate stance."

Stock markets fell sharply soon after the policy was announced, with banking stocks hit the worst.

RBI announced a slew of initiatives to develop markets, including allowing foreign institutional investors to re-invest government bond coupons even when their investment limits are exhausted.

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