Plan & Policy
India may have found a fix to its sugar problem but the answer will not make its cane farmers happy.
After a bumper crop, sugar stockpiles in the country, the world’s second-largest producer of the sweetener, have more than doubled since last year. With another record crop expected in the current growing season, India is subsidising sugar exports, threatening to glut the market even as prices fell to the lowest in 10 years on Sept. 27.
Amid violent protests, the doors of Sabarimala temple in Kerala opened on Wednesday for the first time since the Supreme Court lifted the centuries-old ban on entry of women of menstrual age but by available indications none from this age group made it to the famed hill top shrine.
Women journalists were heckled, their vehicles smashed and young female Ayyappa devotees turned back as hordes of activists of Hindu fringe groups besieged the road leading to the temple, abode to Lord Ayyappa, its eternally celibate deity, officials said.
Roman Catholic bishop Franco Mulakkal, who faces allegations of raping a nun, received a rousing welcome from his supporters when he reached Jalandhar after being released on bail by a Kerala court.
Businesses opting for composition scheme under GST need not file purchase details while filing their quarterly returns.
In a clarification, the finance ministry has said there have been doubts regarding the manner of filing the quarterly return by composition dealers in Form GSTR-4 in the absence of auto-population of the details of inward supplies received from registered suppliers.
Under severe pressure after being accused of sexual harassment by several women, minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar resigned on Wednesday evening, a day ahead of the first hearing of the defamation case filed by him in a Delhi court. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ramnath Kovind accepted his resignation from the council of ministers.
Crisis in Air India seems to be deepening by the day with headwinds getting stronger and a government bailout remains elusive.
Airline chief Pradeep Singh Kharola has hinted at impending trouble. He noted that there is need to generate revenues in every possible manner to “stay afloat.”
“Our path towards turnaround has become more difficult with the market throwing fresh challenges by way of rising fuel costs, a volatile currency and overall increase in operational expenditure, besides, of course, a fierce competition,” Kharola has told A-I employees.
Stock market operators taking trade reversal route in equity derivatives to evade tax have come under the scanner of tax authorities.
Two Congress MLAs from Goa, including a former state party chief, joined the BJP on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the opposition party in a state where the saffron party-led alliance government enjoys a thin majority.
Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte, both of whom have resigned from the assembly, met BJP president Amit Shah at his residence in Delhi and were later inducted into the party at a press conference addressed by Union minister Piyush Goyal.
The son of a former BSP MP Rakesh Pandey was booked for allegedly brandishing a gun at guests and threatening them in the foyer of a five-star hotel here, a video of which went viral on social media.
The accused, Ashish Pandey, hails from Lucknow and is the brother, of Ritesh Pandey, a sitting MLA in Uttar Pradesh.
The incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday. In the video, Ashish Pandey can purportedly be seen brandishing a gun in the foyer of the hotel.
Self-styled preacher Daati Maharaj, accused in a sexual assault case, has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court’s order transferring the matter to the CBI.
The high court had on October 3 pulled up the Delhi Police for not arresting Daati Maharaj in the case and had transferred the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). His plea is scheduled to come up for hearing in the SC on October 22.
