PM's assets around Rs 10.73 crore, cabinet colleagues richer

September 9, 2012

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New Delhi, September 9: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assets worth around Rs 10.73 crore, double that of last year, but a number of his cabinet colleagues are much richer than him.

Among the richer cabinet ministers are Praful Patel with assets of approximately Rs 52 crore and Sharad Pawar with property worth around Rs 22 crore, according to the updated list of assets of the ministers posted on the PMO website.

Defence Minister A K Antony has assets worth Rs 55 lakh, the lowest in the list of the cabinet Ministers. Manmohan Singh has shown residential properties, bank deposits and a Maruti 800 car as his assets.

While the total worth of Singh's two flats- in Chandigarh and Delhi- is Rs 7.27 crore, Singh has bank deposits and investments worth Rs 3.46 crore approximately in various State Bank of India (ASBI) accounts.

He has declared total assets of worth Rs 10,73,88,730.81 (Rs 10.73 crore approximately). Last year, the Prime Minister had declared total assets worth Rs 5.11 crore approximately. The flats owned by him in Chandigarh and Vasant Kunj here were then valued at a total of Rs 1.78 crore and he owned 150.80 gm of gold jewelery worth Rs 2.75 lakh.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said though the assets with Singh have remained the same, the valuation has gone up as the assessment has been done by a government- approved valuator.

The depreciated value of his Maruti 800 car has been shown as Rs 21,033. Singh also owns 150.80 grams of gold jewellery but its value has not been shown in his declaration of assets and liabilities.

Singh also owns a bank account in Dispur in Assam where he has a deposit of Rs 6,515.78 only.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and his wife Promila have total assets of Rs 45.33 crore, including 8.11 crore of his wife. Of the Rs 37.22 crore assets owned by Sibal, he has at least 12 properties worth Rs 29.35 crore and cash and bank deposits along with shares and debentures worth Rs 2.82 crore, 3 kilograms of jewellery worth Rs 35.33 lakh and loans and advances of Rs 4.63 crore.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has a house whose present worth is Rs 50 Lakh, two flats worth Rs 1.99 crore and Rs 1.25 crore, agricultural land worth Rs 19.76 Lakh, guest house worth Rs 8.22 Lakh, land worth Rs 1.11 Crore.

Shinde also owns a Mitsubhishi tractor worth Rs 1.90 lakh He owes a loan of Rs 10 Lakh to one Raj Shroff. His wife Ujjwala Shinde owns a flat worth Rs 2.15 crore, two pieces of land worth Rs 15.38 crore and Rs 84 lakh. She also owes a loan of Rs 27 Lakh to one Raj Shroff.

External Affairs minister S M Krishna has assets worth Rs 1.89 crore, including immovable properties of Rs 31.44 lakh. He owns half share in a residential house at Bangalore and agriculture land in Mandya district and Somanahalli, besides owning a farm house at Somanahalli and a site at Viswapriya Greeneries, Begur. He owns a Sonata and a Lancer car.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram's total assets, including bank accounts and current assets, add upto Rs 11.96 crore approximately. Chidambaram also has assets and liabilities as part of Hindu Undivided Family. His total assets as part of HUF are Rs 94.04 lakh and liabilities worth Rs 75.52 Lakh. Hence, his net assets here add upto Rs 18.52 Lakh approximately.

His wife Nalini has immovable assets worth Rs 4.82 crore and the total assets add upto Rs 17.81 crore approx. Her liabilities are Rs 1.22 lakh which makes her net assets worth about Rs 17.80.

Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers M K Azhagiri has assets worth Rs 9.50 crore. Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy owns a house in Hyderabad and has 43 acres of agricultural land in Andhra Pradesh. His wife S Laxmi owns property in the form of office space in Secunderabad. She also owns jewellery worth Rs 7.5 lakhs and cash savings of over Rs 9 lakh. She also has a Toyota Qualis registered in her name.

Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs Vyalar Ravi has a two-bedroom flat in Ernakulam, Kerala, worth Rs 20 lakh. He declared inherited land worth Rs 90 lakh in Ernakulam district. Ravi also declared a Ford car and 900 grams of gold jewellery.

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh owns six agricultural lands in Durg (Chhattisgarh) and West Uttar Pradesh having a total worth of nearly Rs 13 crore. His land in Chhattisgarh is worth Rs 5.64 crore. Rest of the pieces of land are in Aligarh, Ghaziabad and other nearby areas. He also owns three flats - two in Delhi and one in Gurgaon--worth Rs 3.75 crore.

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has assets worth over Rs 56 lakhs. More than a half of its share are jointly owned by Ramesh and his mother. Last year, his wife K R Jayashree had assets worth Rs 14,79148 which included bank balance, fixed deposits, jewellery, silverware and shares.

In the year 2011-12, Ramesh's asset rose to over Rs 4.16 crore after his mother declared him a nominee of her bank deposits worth over Rs 3 crore due to the sale of the house of his parents in Bangalore in September 2011.

New And Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah has over Rs 98 lakh deposited in bank accounts and has shares in ancestral properties in Jammu and Kashmir. The value of some of the properties within the share and in possession of Abdullah is over Rs 2.25 crore. Abdullah also earned over Rs 26 lakhs from the sale of family land in Srinagar.

Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahay and his wife Rekha Sahay have declared assets worth Rs 70.74 lakh and Rs 1.24 crore, respectively. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has total assets worth Rs 6.65 crore, including Rs 95.15 lakh of his wife Madhu.

While Bansal has cash and bank deposits worth Rs 62.4 lakh, he owns a share in agricultural land in Mehrauli, Delhi worth Rs five lakh and half-share in a two kanal house in Chandigarh valued at Rs five crore. He also owns a Maruti Esteem car and jewellery worth Rs two lakh.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni has declared a flat in Delhi valued at nearly Rs 3.5 crore in addition to jewellery worth Rs 16 lakh and silver utensils worth over Rs 11 lakh in addition to an Optra car. She has also mentioned a farmhouse owned by her husband in Gurgaon.

Railway Minister Mukul Roy has shown Rs 6 lakh as total income in the Income Tax return and Rs 5.08 lakh in his wife Krishna's name. He has declared Rs 20.07 lakh in his name and Rs 14.97 lakh in his wife's name as total movable assets for the last fiscal.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has total assets of Rs 68.59 lakh, including land in Maharashtra worth Rs 5.5 lakh and the remaining in cash and bank balances. His wife Shameed Azad owns a house and land in Srinagar worth Rs 55 lakh besides a residential flat in Delhi. She has bank deposits and jewellery worth Rs 2.62 crore.

The net worth of Azad and his family as on July 2012 is Rs 3.42 crore along with a flat in Delhi which is not valued. He has a total net worth of Rs 2.22 crore in cash and deposits alongwith a flat in Delhi.

Power Minister M Veerappa Moily has total assets of Rs 30.47 lakh and liabilities of Rs 12.85 lakh, netting total assets of Rs 17.61 lakh, including two cars (Toyota Etios and Opel Astra). His net assets were Rs 13.34 lakh last year.

His wife Malathi, who is stated to have independent source of income from agriculture, has total assets of Rs 3.71 crore and liabilities of Rs 60 lakh, netting total assets of Rs 3.11 crore. This includes 26 acres of agriculture land, a building in Bangalore and 50 tolas of jewellery and a Honda Accord car. She had total assets of Rs 3 crore last year.

Law and Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has an agricultural land in the name of his family in Gautam Buddha Nagar of Uttar Pradesh worth over Rs 1.30 crore.

While Khurshid himself has cash worth Rs 74.48 lakh, the combined cash holdings of his family - including bank deposits - stand at over Rs 1.22 crore. He has a flat in Jamia Nagar, Delhi worth Rs 5 lakh, his wife Louie owns two flats in Goa gifted by her father.

The Law Minister also owns an agricultural land worth Rs 32 lakh in Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh and a barren, non-agricultural land worth over Rs 10 lakh in the same place.

Besides a Mahindra jeep and a Toyota Innova, Khurshid owns a "very old" imported car. The total worth of immovable property owned by Minister of Urban Poverty Alleviation and Housing Kumari Selja is Rs 12.25 crore approximately.

She owns agricultural and non-agricultural land as well as a residential house owned in partnership with others. The Minister, who hails from Haryana, also has movable assets worth Rs 9,91,101. She owns a Maruti Esteem car, jewellery (worth Rs 8.61 lakh approximately) and bonds, shares and fixed deposits. Selja's total net worth is Rs 12.34 crore and the total tax and interest paid by her for 2011-12 is Rs 12,04,661.

The net assets of Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath has been declared at Rs 8.85 crore as on March 31 this year while his wife Alka Nath owns assets worth Rs 4.48 crore approximately.

The figure though formidable may seem paltry in comparison to the over Rs 200 crore declaration made by Nath an year earlier. As per the previous year's declarations, Nath was the richest of all Cabinet Ministers.

Nath has also explained the reduction of figures in his declaration. "In the previous year's declaration, the assets of Shri Nakul Nath, Shri Bakul Nath & Smt Simran Nath were shown. Since they are not dependent family members, it is not required to include their assets. They have therefore, been excluded this year," Nath's declaration said.

The declaration also said the assets of a private trust for the benefit of Nakul Nath and Bakul Nath, who are non-dependent family members, had also been excluded this year.

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News Network
June 27,2020

New Delhi, Jun 27: India on Saturday crossed 5 lakh-mark with record highest spike of 18,552 cases of coronavirus reported in the country in the past 24 hours.

India has added more than 3.18 lakh COVID-19 cases since June 1.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, this was the highest single-day spike of COVID-19 positive cases. Also, with 384 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the total deaths inched closer to the 16000 mark.

With this, the total number of active cases are 1,97,387 while a total of 2,95,880 people have been cured or discharged from hospitals. The death toll stands at 15685 with one person migrated outside India, according to the health ministry update at 8 am today.

Maharashtra continues to top the countrywide list with a total number of COVID-19 positive cases at 1,52,765.

Delhi has so far reported 77,240 confirmed cases while Tamil Nadu has reported 74622 cases till now, as per the MoHFW. Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai are the worst-hit cities in the country

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the total number of samples tested up to June 26 is 79,96,707; the number of samples tested on June 26, Friday stands at 2,20,479.

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Agencies
July 23,2020

Expressing concern over the ban imposed on TikTok by the government of India, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly called the development in the south Asian country “worrisome”.

TikTok was amongst the 59 Chinese apps that were banned in India but why it hogs the maximum limelight because TikTok had the second-largest user base in India with over 200 million users.

As per The Verge writer Casey Newton, Zuckerberg was worried about TikTok’s India ban. Although it soon cashed into the opportunity and released a TikTok clone “Reels”, the government’s reason behind banning the app in India wasn’t received well by Mark Zuckerberg. 

He had said that if India can ban a platform with over 200 million users in India without citing concrete reasons, it can also ban Facebook if something goes amiss on the security and privacy front.

Why Mark finds it particularly worrisome because Facebook is already involved in a lot tussle with the governments across the world involving national security concerns. 

“Facebook already faces fights around the world from governments on both the left and the right related to issues that fit under the broad umbrella of national security: election interference, influence campaigns, hate speech, and even just plain-old democratic speech. Zuckerberg knows that the leap from banning TikTok on national security grounds to banning Facebook on national security grounds is more of a short hop,” the report by Casey read.

Facebook till now has not faced any kind of issue in India but considering the debacle with the other governments, it is not entirely wrong to worry about its future in India if any national security issue arises. Back in 2016, Facebook’s Free Basics service, which means a free but restricted internet service, was banned in India by the telecom regulators. 

The TRAI had said that the Free Basic services were banned in India because it violated the principles of net neutrality. With Free Basics services, Facebook had planned to bring more unconnected users online. But since 2016, there has been no major tussle between the Indian government and Zuckerberg due to national security issues.

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News Network
January 9,2020

Mumbai, Jan 9: India's weddings are famously lavish -- lasting days and with hundreds if not thousands of guests -- but this season many families are cutting costs even if it risks their social standing.

It is symptomatic of a sharp slowdown in the world's fifth-largest economy, with Indians spending less on everything from daily essentials to once-in-a-lifetime celebrations.

Growth has hit a six-year low and unemployment a four-decade high under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Prices are rising too, squeezing spending on everything from shampoo to mobile data.

Chartered accountant Palak Panchamiya, for example, has already slashed the budget on her upcoming Mumbai nuptials by a third, trimming spending on clothing and the guest list.

"Initially I chose a dress that cost 73,000 rupees ($1,000)," Panchamiya told news agency as she picked through outfits at a recent marriage trade fair.

"But my partner felt it was too expensive, and so now I am here reworking my options and looking for something cheaper."

India's massive wedding industry is worth an estimated $40-50 billion a year, according to research firm KPMG.

The celebrations can last a week and involve several functions, a dazzling variety of cuisines, music and dance performances, and lots of gifts.

Foreigners can even buy tickets to some events.

But these days, except for the super-rich -- a recent Ambani family wedding reportedly cost $100 million -- extravagance is out and frugality is in as families prioritise saving.

"Earlier Indian weddings were like huge concerts, but now things have changed," said Maninder Sethi, founder of Wedding Asia, which organises marriage fairs around the country.

Cracks emerged in 2016 when the Indian wedding season, which runs from September to mid-January, was hit by the government's shock withdrawal of vast amounts of banknotes from circulation in a bid to crack down on undeclared earnings.

Mumbai-based trousseau maker Sapna Designs Studio shut for months as the economy was turned on its head by Modi's move.

"No exhibitions were happening and there were no avenues for us to sell either," said Vishal Hariyani, owner of the clothing studio.

Hopes for a recovery proved short-lived when the cash ban was followed by a botched rollout of a nationwide goods and services tax (GST) in 2017 that saw many small-scale businesses close.

Since then, keeping his studio afloat has been a challenge, with consumers increasingly reluctant to spend too much, says Hariyani.

"We customise our clothes as per their budgets, and now week-long weddings have been converted to just a 36-hour ceremony," he told news agency.

"We have to pay GST, pay workers and even offer discounts to customers," he added.

"The whole economy has slowed down and reduced spending on weddings is a by-product of that. Everyone except the super-rich are affected," Pradip Shah from IndAsia Fund Advisors told news agency.

"It is reflective of how sombre the mood is," he said.

In a country where families traditionally spend heavily on weddings -- including taking on debt in some cases -- the downturn is also a source of sadness and shame, with elaborate celebrations often seen as a measure of social status.

"We haven't even invited our neighbours. It is embarrassing but the current situation doesn't offer us much respite," 52-year-old Tara Shetty said ahead of her son's wedding.

"In my era, we always spent a lot and had thousands of people attending the weddings," she explained.

"My wedding was supremely grand, and now my son's is the polar opposite."

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