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New Delhi: The Budget Session, 2011 of Parliament (7th Session of the Fifteenth Lok Sabha and the 222nd Session of the Rajya Sabha) is scheduled to commence on Monday, the 21st of February, 2011 and subject to exigencies of Government Business, the Session will conclude on Thursday, the 21st of April , 2011.

New Delhi: Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Smt. Ambika Soni said the Government was committed to put in place a system of self regulation based on the Public Private Partnership model. The model entailed involvement of key stakeholders of the media and the entertainment industry and civil society.

New Delhi: The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has asked the States to enhance the Capacity Building & Training (CB&T) in Panchayats across the rural areas of the country. In a letter the Minisstry has directed that the funds earmarked for this purpose must be fully utilized.

New Delhi: Recognising the concentration of the new rise of power in South and East Asia, India today proposed that ASEAN can be the nodal institution for fostering Asian collective security proposals. Other outside powers having influence in the region should be roped in.

As it goes through a mid-life crisis, UPA-II Government must realize where its economic priorities have gone wrong, let alone failures in political governance, and make the strategic corrections in the forthcoming budget to ensure sustainable growth, lowering inflation to tolerable levels and advance social and infrastructure development.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may be struggling to prepare the annual union government budget for 2011-12 to soar up the spirit of a vast section of the population, who are otherwise demoralized, if not incensed, with the recent exposures of massive financial frauds involving the government, business and bureaucracy and the absence of governance.

Our rulers have found a new vocation or cause—maligning environmentalists and questioning the very idea of regulating industry against pollution. Thus, faced with criticism of the Lavasa city project, in which his family has invested crores, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar lashed out at activist Medha Patkar and other “vested interests” for obstructing this “pioneering” project.

The ULFA is the second rebel outfit after the Mizo National Front which has given up its insurgency. The NSCN (Isak Swu-Muivah) is also observing a cease-fire, but it hasn’t yet formally abandoned its revolutionary goal. Of the others, the Khalistanis have disintegrated while the Kashmiri separatists seem uncertain of their objective despite the occasional cries of azadi, presumably because their front organization, the Hurriyat Conference, is half-in and half-out of mainstream politics.

It must have been a unique experience for the eight top ULFA leaders to enter the Home Ministry office for talks with the centre last week after spending the past three decades in jungles and prisons as hunted terrorists. The real question is whether the talks will lead Assam to peace after 30 years of violence?

Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have noted that Nigeria’s strong external position and low debt helped mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis. However, a pro-cyclical fiscal stance and an accommodative monetary policy have resulted in high inflation and a loss in international reserves.