Mar. 9 - The Confederation of Indian Industries has ranked New Delhi as having the best quality of life for its residents among all cities in the India based on their latest “Liveability Index.”
After New Delhi, the next best cities to live in are Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. The survey looked at 37 Indian cities in over a decade to compute for a quality of life index. It also used hard data collected from reliable sources to eliminate the possibility of personal bias or a sampling error obscuring the reality. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan. 21 - The Maharashtra government will begin charging an entertainment tax worth up to 25 percent of all ticket sales for T20 matches organized by the Indian Premier League (IPL).
IPL matches played within municipal limits will be charged a 25 percent tax and matches held outside municipal limits will be levied a 20 percent entertainment tax. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan. 12 - The Delhi High Court will uphold its bench order that includes the office of the Chief Justice of India within the scope of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and requires judges to declare their assets.
The bench made up of Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justices S. Muralidhar and Vikramjeet Sen told Zee News: “RTI has over-reaching impact. Citizens who require such information should not misuse the information, thus saving the independence of (the) judiciary.” Read the rest of this entry »
Dec. 15 - The leading Telangana political party Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) said that it was willing to wait until 2014 for the promised Telangana state to become a reality.
A TRS leader was quoted in the Times of India as saying: ‘‘We would be very happy if it happens before that. But we know it’s not that simple and thus willing to wait until 2014, when the next general elections are due.’’ He said since the Congress had already agreed to the new state, there was no need to pressure it. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec. 14 - The Andhra Pradesh assembly in Hyderabad was adjourned indefinitely or sine die following pandemonium after it began for the day’s proceedings this morning amidst chaos and slogan shouting by local MP’s favoring a unified Andhra Pradesh.
Congress MP for Vijayawada, L. Rajagopal was arrested at the Hyderabad airport after he landed to launch a fast to protest the division of Andhra Pradesh. His arrest sparked protests in the Andhra region at his arrest reports The Times of India. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec. 14 - Tensions remained high in the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh and in the capital city of Hyderabad, as the government’s announcement on initiating the process for division of the state was met with violence and uncertainty.
The Hindu reports that students of Sri Krishnadevaraya University went on the rampage in Anantapur town, setting ablaze a BSNL optic fiber cable warehouse next to the campus and attacking a Reliance mobile phone tower. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec. 14 - The Indian government’s decision to form a new state of Telangana is causing confusion in Andhra Pradesh as the proclamation is seen as an agreement to divide a new area from the state.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram issued a statement last week confirming that the mechanism for forming the new state was being put in place by the government. This followed several days of strikes in Hyderabad, the state capital, and the threat of the death of a local politician, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who underwent a much publicized hunger strike to call for the creation of the new state. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec. 10 - India has successfully decoded the human genome locally making it part of the only six countries in the world to do so.
Other countries who have been able to accomplish the feat are the United States, United Kingdom, China, Canada and South Korea. India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says the breakthrough will allow pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs more attuned with Indian physiology. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec. 3 - The World Bank has agreed to loan US$1 billion to India for the clean up of the Ganga river, one of the most polluted in the world.
The Ganga or Ganges river is the one of the country’s major rivers; considered holy by Hindus. The US$1billion loan is part of the total US$4 billion forecast budget to rehabilitate the river from sewage and industrial waste by 2020. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov. 27 - The government is in final stages to establish a ‘Return and Resettlement Fund’ initially for returning overseas Indian workers from Gulf countries who have been laid off because of the global crisis.
“My ministry is working towards establishing a fund that will provide financial security to those workers who have lost their jobs and returned home,” Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi was quoted by PTI during a two-day annual conference of the Heads of Missions. Read the rest of this entry »
