Election Financial News

government is looking at ways to give a big push to its Bharat staples brand, under which it sells atta, rice and pulses in the retail market at subsidised rates, ahead of the general elections in April-May. «The plan is to carpet bomb Bharat brand products in every assembly constituency before the elections,» said a senior official aware of the government's plan, adding that the mandate is to take it to as many consumers as possible. The three agencies — Kendriya Bhandar, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) — through which the Bharat products are sold have been asked to sell 300,000-400,000 metric tonnes of rice and atta every month, said the people cited above. Equal emphasis has to be given to pulses also, they added.

artificial intelligence -powered chatbots for basic information, including about how their voting process works. Trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini are ready with AI-generated answers, but prone to suggesting voters head to polling places that don’t exist or inventing illogical responses based on rehashed, dated information, the report found.

By Nandita Bose and Tim Reid

Follow Rajya Sabha Election Results 2024 LIVE Updates The BJP's victory in Himachal Pradesh makes it apparent that there was cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha elections for this seat. The Congress candidate, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, secured 34 votes even as the party had support of 43 MLAs — 40 Congress and three Independent MLAs — in the 68-member state assembly. Had all the 43 MLAs votes in favour of Congress, Singhvi had won the polls.

By Andrea Shalal, Nandita Bose and Kat Stafford

With the S&P 500 recently hitting another all-time high, the investor sentiment is predominantly bullish, resulting in a consensus view on the «goldilocks outcome» among market participants.

BERLIN—Russian expansionism and fears about American disengagement from Europe are causing such alarm here that Germany is beginning to ponder a question once considered unthinkable: Does it need to have its own nuclear weapons? In recent weeks, German officials have called on France and the U.K.—Europe’s two nuclear powers—to work with Berlin to develop a fallback plan for nuclear deterrence for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, should the U.S. no longer be willing to fulfill that role.

With the S&P 500 recently hitting another all-time high, the investor sentiment is predominantly bullish, resulting in a consensus view on the «goldilocks outcome» among market participants.

Jairam Thakur said he can see the government has lost the majority in the state. When asked if his party will seek a trust vote, Thakur said, “Budget will be presented tomorrow.

Tribune report, Moosewala’s parents used In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant. Moosewala was murdered on May 29, 2022. Satwinder Singh alias Satinderjit Singh alias Goldy Brar had claimed responsibility for the murder of popular singer Moosewala in Punjab on May 29, 2022.

small cap scheme from March 4 onwards. The latest restrictions mean investors will not be allowed to invest more than ₹2 lakh into the small cap fund in one month via lumpsum and ₹25,000 via SIP. Kotak Small Cap fund has total AUM (assets under management) of ₹14,290 crore, shows the latest AMFI data.

FIR has been registered against the JD(S) leader contesting the Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka, D Kupendra Reddy, and his aides at the Vidhana Soudha police station in Bengaluru, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy said on Tuesday. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah too confirmed that an FIR has been registered for «threatening» the Congress MLAs in connection with the Rajya Sabha elections. «The Congress leaders not only spoke about allurement and threat to their MLAs time and again but also registered an FIR against Kupendra Reddy and his aides,» the JD(S) second-in-command told reporters here. Kumaraswamy said the complainant MLA did not say that he was lured, but that some other MLAs were «approached». «Melukote MLA Darshan Puttannaiah of Karnataka Sarvodaya Paksha too had said that it's true that his vote was sought but no one had lured him,» the JD(S) state chief claimed. Kumaraswamy also said the BJP and JD(S) had decided that the votes of its 19 JD(S) MLAs and the additional BJP votes after its first preferential votes would go to Kupendra Reddy. Siddaramaiah slammed the Janata Dal (Secular) for allegedly trying to lure Congress legislators to get its candidate Kupendra Reddy elected.

indicted jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his third wife Bushra Bibi on Tuesday on charges that they allegedly received land as a bribe by misusing his office during his premiership, his party said. The latest charges follow a string of convictions against Khan in the months leading up to the Feb. 8 national election, where his supporters won the most seats overall.

MLAs in Karnataka exercised their franchise for the four Rajya Sabha seats on Tuesday till 1 pm, Election Commission officials said. The Congress has 133 MLAs, excluding the Speaker, while the BJP and JD(S) have 66 and 19 legislators respectively, in the 223-member House. Others account for four. However, one Congress MLA died on Sunday. On Tuesday, voting began at 9 am and will go on till 4 pm. The counting will start from 5 pm. The MLAs will exercise their voting rights using an open ballot system. They have to display their voting preference to the nominated polling agents. The Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant following the retirement of four members — Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar (BJP) and Congress's G C Chandrashekhar, Syed Naseer Hussain and L Hanumanthaiah.

PM Modi urged all to join the campaign and encourage young voters to exercise their democratic right to vote. With the general elections expected in April-May, he said there is a possibility that the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) will be enforced in March like it was done in 2019, a reference to the expected announcement of the election schedule sometime next month.

Samajwadi Party MLAs met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath after casting their vote for the Rajya Sabha election, there was speculation of them having cross-voted in favour of the BJP. In response to this development, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav said that disciplinary action would be taken against the MLAs if they had cross voted. Samajwadi Party MLAs: Abhay Singh, Rakesh Singh, Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, and Manoj Pandey met CM Yogi Adityanath in the Assembly Secretariat today. «Not everybody has the guts to stand against the government. Pressure is put on everybody, is there anyone who doesn't know that BJP would go to any extent to win. BJP was dishonest during the Chandigarh elections also… When it comes to UP, BJP did everything to get votes and those who left, might not have had the guts to stand against the govt. Action will be taken because our party leaders want such people to be kept away from the party...» said Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Gujarat ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, its Rajya Sabha member and former Union minister Naran Rathwa joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with his son and a large number of supporters here on Tuesday. The tribal leader from Chhota Udepur in Gujarat, Rathwa's tenure as the Rajya Sabha member will end in April this year. He was elected to the Lok Sabha five times — first in 1989, then in 1991, 1996, 1998 and 2004.

Nirmala Sitharaman and Jaishankar) will contest the Lok Sabha elections. It has not been decided yet from where they will fight, whether it is in Karnataka or some other state," Joshi told reporters on Monday. When questioned if the Union Ministers will contest from Bengaluru, Joshi, who holds the Coal and Mines portfolio, said he cannot answer it since nothing has been finalised yet.

Following the government's capex-push led surge in infrastructure shares such as L&T, the stock market is likely to shift its focus to the consumption story, particularly in rural India. This shift aligns with the release of the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO) delayed monthly household expenditure survey for 2022-23, which appears to support the Bharatiya Janata Party's narrative ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The political narrative is expected to resonate within stock market trends as well, especially since the findings of the last survey for the year 2017-18 were discarded after results leaked to the press, showing a drop in consumption levels.

Tejashwi Yadav is touring the state as part of "Jan Vishwas Yatra". The yatra commenced on February 20 from Muzaffarpur and would continue for 11 days, during which he will travel all 38 districts of the state.

tobacco sales for future generations, the government said, even while researchers and campaigners warned of the risk that people could die as a result. Set to take effect from July, the toughest anti-tobacco rules in the world would have banned sales to those born after Jan.