Economic Survey 2010-11 is bulkier than last year&rsquo;s survey with over 450 pages. Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu has tried to offer something more. In an interview, Basu says how he tried to do things differently.

Q&A: Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor

Business Standard

Railway minister Mamata Banerjee tells Saubhadra Chatterjee, soon after her Budget presentation, that there is no shortage of funds.

Q&A: Mamata Banerjee

There may be some rationalisation in the slabs, particularly the exemption limit, which may be increased marginally.

Q&A: Govinda Rao

Post the announcement of Air Asia forming an alliance with Tatas to form an airline, Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh discusses at length the possible implications of this deal for the Indian market with Disha Kanwar.

AirAsia canâ€™t afford to go for anti-competitive pricing: Ajit singh

Of the three global rating agencies, Moodyâ€™s is the only one, that has not downgraded outlook on Indiaâ€™s sovereign ratings. All the three agencies â€” Standard & Poor's and Fitch being the other two â€”however, assigned lowest ratings in investment grade. Recently, Moody's came out with a report terming widening India's trade deficit as credit negative. Co-author of the report, Atsi Sheth, vice-president & senior analyst, Sovereign Risk division,  tells Indivjal Dhasmana in an interview that this factor alone would not determine the agencyâ€™s rating action. Edited excerpts:When you say rising trade deficit is credit negative, does it mean that you are going to take action on Indiaâ€™s ratings?Our outlook on Indiaâ€™s Baa3 rating is stable.  As part of our credit analysis, we continually monitor several ongoing trends that can affect a sovereign credit profile: some trends are credit positive and some are credit negative. Indiaâ€™s trade defic

Trade and current account deficits to be higher in FY13: Atsi Sheth

Maharashtraâ€™s Marathwada region is facing a severe drought due to inadequate rainfall for two successive years. The task before the state government â€” to effectively implement relief and rehabilitation measures â€” is huge. In an interview with Sanjay Jog, Higher and Technical Education Minister Rajesh Tope, who is also a member of the state cabinet committee of ministers on implementation of drought relief measures, speaks of the gravity of the situationWhat measures have been taken to tackle the drought situation?Of the eight districts, Jalna, Beed, Osmanabad and Aurangabad have received zero or below 25-50 per cent of the average rainfall. Of the 6,500 villages in the Marathwada region, nearly 3,000 are affected in these four districts alone. The challenge is to provide drinking water on priority, both in urban and rural areas, fodder to animals, to open fodder depots and also to undertake work under the employment guarantee scheme on a war

3,000 drought-hit villages in four districts alone: Rajesh Tope

The power sector has the unique distinction of always being in crisis even as nobody denies that it has a vast investment potential. But Jyotiraditya Scindia, the 42-year old minister, is full of enthusiasm for the sector and seems to be in a mission mode to set things right. In an interview with Jyoti Mukul & Sudheer Pal Singh, he says any solution has to be balanced well. Edited excerpts:With power plants working below capacity, do you think there has been an excessive focus on capacity addition in the past five years, without fuel being properly tied up, which led to unviable investment and huge losses to companies?My focus is on capacity creation and not blind capacity addition without being able to generate. On fuel shortage, the biggest challenge was to get FSAs (fuel supply agreements) signed for 60,000 Mw where Letters of Assurance (LoAs) had been given. Of this, FSAs have already been signed for 21,000 Mw. Of the rest, 14,000 Mw is with National Therma

Nothing stops independent power firms from procuring coal to meet shortfall: Jyotiraditya Scindia

Union Law Minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid has been embroiled in a controversy over his comments on the minority quota. In the midst of hectic campaigning for his wife Louise Khurshid, who is contesting from the Farrukhabad Assembly seat, he tells Kavita Chowdhury why he would continue to talk about the minority quota and the reality of Indian politics.

Minority quota talk is not an election sop: Salman Khurshid

We'll put Mayawati's parks to better use for the Dalits: Akhilesh Yadav

Robert Kuhn, advisor to Ernst and Young Global and someone who has been advising Chinaâ€™s leadership for over two decades on economic and industrial policy, tells Nayanima Basu in an interview how the new leadership in China is going to create an environment that will be pro-business. Kuhn, who advised the US visit of China Vice-President Xi Jinping, who will become President this year, said the India-China relationship could become one of the worldâ€™s most defining. Edited excerpts:The Indian and Chinese economies are driving Asian growth even as the European Union (EU) struggles to come out of recession and the US crawls back to recovery. Do you see the two economies as engines of global growth as well or is it the other way round that as advanced economies grow, we will falter?What is absolutely clear is that both India and China will have a larger percentage of growth. The world is dramatically changing from the past. India and China are bec

Indian companies could have the best time in China now with the change in leadership: Robert Kuhn

Varad Pande, officer on special duty, ministry of rural development, says the Aadhaar identification project aims to cover at least half of countryâ€™s population by next year. He talks about where it has reached, in an interview with Samie Modak & Abhineet Kumar. Edited excerpts:What is the Aadhaar projectâ€™s status?The project started about two years earlier and now has a little more than 270 million enrolled, roughly a fifth of the population. We have set a target of getting 600 million enrolments by 2014 and are on track to achieve that. We have enrolment capacity of a million a day and that is being used across 18 states.We also have started this Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme, in 43 districts. About 30 government schemes have already been moved to this platform. We are really pushing in these districts. We will show results and then we will cover more districts and schemes.For DBT, the focus is on

Aadhaar is getting support across party lines: Varad Pande

Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to India Tonight and a special interview with the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, on growth, inflation, fiscal deficit and prospects. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, let's start with the figures that the government released today. There is no doubt that the good news is the economy during the year ending March 2001 grew at 8.5%.

Q&A with Montek Singh Ahluwalia

The good news is the economy during the year ending March grew at 8.5 per cent, but growth in the final quarter came down to 7.8 per cent.

Q&A: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Planning Commission

Harsh Mander, member, National Advisory Council, tells Akshat Kaushal what the NAC is doing.

Q&A: Harsh Mander, member, NAC

India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, had an estimated shortage of 2.35 million houses as of April 2007, which has grown since. The state&rsquo;s housing commissioner, M VS Rami Reddy, talked to Virendra Singh Rawat about the UP Housing Board's activities.

Q&A: M VS Rami Reddy, UP Housing Commissioner

Edited excerpts of an interview with Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor to the Union government, on CNBC TV18&rsquo;s India Tonight programme.

Q&A: Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor, Union govt

Christine Lagarde, finance minister of France, is questioned by Karan Thapar on why she wants the job of managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Q&A: Christine Lagarde, Finance Minister, France

Agustin Carstens, governor of Mexico&rsquo;s central bank, is one of the two prime contenders for the International Monetary Fund&rsquo;s top post, the other being French finance minister Christine Lagarde. He speaks to Karan Thapar on CNBC-TV18 regarding the candidature.

Q&A: Agustin Carstens, Governor, Bank of Mexico

With 22 companies, including two Indian consortia, bidding for an integrated project to develop the 2 billion-tonne Hajigak iron ore deposit in Bamiyan Province in Central Afghanistan. Wahidullah Shahrani, Afghanistan&rsquo;s minister of mines, spoke to Ajai Shukla about the giant project in Kabul.

Q&A: Wahidullah Shahrani, Minister for Mines, Afghanistan

Undoubtedly. Barring two terms, the Congress party has been ruling the state, since its inception in 1960. The party is committed to its ideology and principles and has made regular efforts to bring all sections of the people, class and creed into the party fold. The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are in power since 1999 and the decision on alliance was taken in line with the party&rsquo;s stand of taking like-minded parties together to keep communal forces such as the Shiv Sena-BJP combine at bay. The party focused on strengthening the organisation from the block to the state level, and its efforts have paid off.

Q&A: Manikrao Thakre

With 22 companies, including two Indian consortia, bidding for an integrated project to develop the two-billion tonnes Hajigak iron ore deposit in Bamiyan province of central Afghanistan, Wahidullah Shahrani, the country&rsquo;s minister of mines, spoke about the giant project to Ajai Shukla in Kabul.

Page 71 - InterviewsS