Election Financial News

BJP's election in-charge for Jharkhand Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Sunday that the saffron party will form the next government in the state by uprooting the «corrupt» JMM-led coalition from power. Chouhan and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is BJP's election co-incharge for Jharkhand, held a meeting with party leaders, MLAs, MPs, and workers in Ranchi to prepare strategies for the assembly elections in the state due later this year. He said the BJP had an outstanding performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls in Jharkhand where it won eight seats and its ally AJSU Party bagged one. «We had a lead in 52 of the 81 assembly seats in the parliamentary polls. The state played an important role in securing the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I congratulate the party leadership, booth workers and people of Jharkhand for the achievement,» he said.

EVMs, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the country may probably have to go back to ballots. In an interview with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters, the CPI (ML) Liberation leader also raised concerns over alleged "saffronisation" of education and stock market "scam" driven by exit polls. Highlighting his concerns around the conduct of the 2024 general elections and the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Bhattacharya said the opposition had sought 100 per cent VVPAT counting in the elections, but it was turned down by the Supreme Court. The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is an independent vote verification system which permits an elector to see whether his vote was cast correctly.

news channels have gone off air at several places in Andhra Pradesh following the declaration of the results of the Assembly and Parliamentary elections with an opposition YSRCP Parliamentarian alleging coercion by the state government leading to them being blocked. Allegations of channels- TV9, NTV, 10TV and Sakshi TV- being blocked have been levelled against the NDA government, comprising TDP, BJP and Janasena. YSRCP Rajya Sabha member S Niranjan Reddy complained to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) over the alleged blocking of these four vernacular news channels by the government. In a recent letter to TRAI, Reddy claimed the Andhra Pradesh Cable TV Operators Association took these four channels off air due to alleged coercion by the TDP-led government in the state.

Will reforms take a backseat? We now have a BJP/Modi-led coalition Government in place, and several key ministries are in the same hands as they were earlier, including finance. The reality, however, is that this is a coalition Government with the support of JDU and TDP and other allies, and the question is whether, in this context, several critical and long pending reforms will take a back seat.

anti-government protests in several parts of Israel on Saturday night, calling for new elections and the return of hostages held in Gaza, The Times of Israel reported. On Tel Aviv's Kaplan Street, David Grossman, one of Israel's best-known authors, urged the people of Israel to fill the streets with demonstrations and fight for their country in a poem he read to protesters.

Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's right-wing Reform UK party, said the eastward of expansion of the European Union and NATO had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The remarks, made in an interview with the BBC aired late on Friday, drew strong criticism across the British political spectrum ahead of a July 4 election in which Farage's party is predicted to win millions of votes.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) seemed to have shrugged-off their selling trends of the last two months turning net buyers as we reach towards the end of the June series. As on June 21, they had bought Indian equities worth Rs 12,170 crore. From the position of being net sellers till last week they came a long way at the end of this holiday-shortened week. In the first week of June they were net sellers of domestic equities at 14,794 crore but narrowed the sale figures to Rs 3,064 crore at the end of the second week.

Trump. The former president, known for his unpredictable policies, has proposed granting Green Cards to foreign graduates. The announcement has caught the attention of many, especially within the international student community. Currently, many international students face uncertainty about their ability to remain in the US after completing their studies. A guaranteed Green Card would eliminate this worry, providing a clear path to permanent residency and potentially boosting the number of international students applying to US universities. Promises to ease immigration restrictions for students and skilled workers are not new. Over the years, various US administrations have made similar commitments, often with mixed results. For instance, the Obama administration introduced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provided temporary relief to young immigrants. However, it faced numerous legal challenges and its future remains uncertain. During his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to end the H-1B visa program, claiming it was being abused by companies to hire cheap foreign labour at the expense of American workers. This promise was popular among certain voter bases but caused significant concern among tech companies and international students who rely on these visas to work in the US after graduation. Despite his tough stance, the H-1B program remains largely unchanged, highlighting the complexities and political manoeuvring involved in immigration reform.

Lok Sabha, the NDA government and the INDIA bloc sparred on the issue of Pro-tem Speaker with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju accusing the Congress of resorting to lies and the opposition threatening to refuse to join the panel of chairpersons in the House. President Droupadi Murmu had appointed BJP leader and seven-term member Bhartruhari Mahtab as the Pro-tem Speaker of the Lok Sabha, who is tasked with administering the oath and affirmation to the newly-elected members of the lower house and preside over the election of the Speaker. The President had also named five senior members — K Suresh (Congress), T R Baalu (DMK), Radha Mohan Singh and Faggan Singh Kulaste (both BJP) and Sudip Bandyopadhyay (TMC) to assist Mahtab in the process that will take place over the first three days of the Lok Sabha Session commencing on June 24. The Congress had alleged that the government has violated procedures and conventions and ignored the right of eight-term member Suresh to the post of the pro-tem Speaker, a claim dismissed as «misleading» by Rijiju.

Modi government in its third term might harden its posture against the neighbour with which relations have been hostage to heightened border disputes ever since skirmishes between Indian and Chinese forces along the border in 2020. PM Modi is likely to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Kazakhstan in the first week of July where he might run into China’s President Xi Jinping. Shortly before a possible meeting between the two leaders, India seems to be hardening its posture against China. The two meetings between Modi and Xi after the Galwan clashes at the G20 Summit at Bali in 2022 and the BRICS Summit in South Africa a year later failed to yield any positive results. Thousands of troops remain deployed on either side of the Sino-india border .

Tata Steel Ltd may shut down its blast furnaces in the UK earlier than what it had initially planned amid a certain section of its workers planning an indefinite strike to protest against 2,800 job losses. Tata Steel, which has the capacity to produce 3 million tonne of steel each year in UK, plans to shut down one blast furnace at the end of the month, while the second one is scheduled to be closed at the end of September. “Our existing steelmaking assets are near the end of their life, are operationally unstable and causing unsustainable losses of £1 million a day,” Tata Steel said in a statement.

pro tem Speaker are considering not accepting the positions, a source said on Saturday. The development comes amid opposition parties objecting to the appointment of Bhartruhari Mahtab as the pro tem Speaker. Mahtab, a BJP member from Cuttack, Odisha was appointed as pro tem Speaker by President Droupadi Murmu under Article 95(1) of the Constitution to perform the duties of the Lok Sabha presiding officer till the election of the Speaker on June 26. A panel of chairpersons was also announced to assist the pro tem Speaker during the special session of Parliament for members of the new Lok Sabha to take oath.

exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters. Opposition parties and several civil society groups have been asking for thorough investigations, including by capital markets regulator SEBI and a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), after the stock markets witnessed a massive rally when exit polls gave a huge majority to the BJP but fell sharply after the actual results showed the ruling party falling short of a clear majority on its own. In an interaction with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters here, Gupta said he has been demanding formulation of norms and regulations for pollsters since five years.

Ayyannapatrudu was elected unanimously as the Speaker of the 16th Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Saturday. Addressing the Assembly, Pro-tem Speaker and TDP's Rajahmundry Rural MLA G Butchaiah Chowdary said that Janasena chief Pawan Kalyan, TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh and BJP's Staya Kumar Yadava made three proposals on behalf of Ayyannapatrudu for the Speaker's post. «As Ayyannapatrudu was the only person who filed the nomination, I declare that he has been elected as the Speaker unanimously. I extend my wholehearted congratulations to Ayyannapatrudu and request him to ascend the Speaker's chair,» said the Pro-tem Speaker. Ayyannapatrudu's election was a mere formality as no other MLA filed a nomination to challenge him.

BJP) held a marathon meeting here to discuss strategy for the upcoming state assembly elections, sources said on Saturday. During the meeting held on Friday night, discussions were held for five hours on how to plan the election campaign and finalise the strategy, they said. Elections to the 288-member state assembly are likely to be held in October. In the recently-held Lok Sabha elections, the BJP's seat tally in Maharashtra dropped from 23 to nine. The ruling Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP, bagged only 17 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats, whereas the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), a three-party alliance of Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) won 30 seats.

Recently, leaders from India's corporate sector advocated for reducing the income tax burden on individuals, increasing capital expenditure, and implementing measures to control food inflation during their nearly two-hour meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ahead of the Union Budget. In their pre-Budget discussions with Sitharaman, industry representatives emphasized the need for heightened focus on infrastructure development to sustain economic growth. They also highlighted the importance of bolstering the MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) sector, which is crucial for the Indian economy and a key source of employment.

Nifty and Sensex are consistently moving upwards and the bull run is expected to continue as the Lok Sabha election results were well absorbed by the market participants. Considering the past week, Nifty seems to have taken a support near the 23,400 mark while Sensex seems to be resisting the 77,850 level for the last 3 trading sessions as the BSE benchmark Sensex declined 269 points or 0.35% to settle at 77,209 on Friday while Nifty dropped 66 points or 0.28% to end at 23,501.

dollar edged higher against other major currencies on Friday, hitting a fresh eight-week high against the yen as data showed a strong U.S. economy and as the Federal Reserve's patient approach to interest-rate cuts stood in contrast to more dovish peers. U.S. business activity hit a 26-month high in June amid a rebound in employment while price pressures subsided considerably, suggesting that a recent slowdown in inflation was likely to be sustained.

GST) Council is likely to consider a number of measures at its meeting on Saturday that are expected to set the tone for broader tax reforms in the first full budget of the newly elected government. The council may discuss the use of GST cess amount collected from sin goods such as pan masala, cigarettes, etc. which may amount to Rs 70,000 crore. Other discussions may include the conditional waiver of interest or penalty on tax notices issued between 2017 and 2020, barring cases of wilful default and review of the decision to levy 28 per cent GST on the full value of bets for online gaming companies The GST Council may also deliberate on streamlining timelines for issuing notices, establishing monetary thresholds for pursuing disputes in the GST Appellate Tribunal, and setting a deadline for anti-profiteering cases. These reforms aim to minimize tax litigation and enhance the ease of doing business.

Nancy Pelosi's husband was convicted Friday of aggravated kidnapping, a conviction that mandates life behind bars without the possibility of parole. A San Francisco jury found David DePape also guilty of first-degree burglary, false imprisonment of an elder, threatening a family member of a public official and dissuading a witness.

Leader of the Opposition? Why wasn't there any Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha since 2014? Why is the Congress likely to get the post? The lies in numbers.The Leader of the Opposition is the Leader of the largest opposition party. The post was not recognised till 1969 when Ram Subhag Singh became the first recognised LoP of the Lok Sabha.The post received statutory recognition through the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977.The Act defines the term ' Leader of the Opposition' as that member of the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha who, for the time being, is the Leader of that House of the party in Opposition to the government having the greatest numerical strength and recognised, as such, by the chairman of the Rajya Sabha or the speaker of the Lok Sabha.Although several political parties may exist in the Opposition, the post of Leader of the Opposition is said to be taken up by the party that secures one-tenth of the total strength of the Lok Sabha.