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The unfolding crisis for India’s Adani group has claimed its first political casualty. The Financial Times reports that former UK Conservative minister Joseph (Jo) Edmund Johnson resigned from the board of a London-based investment bank associated with the troubled business empire.

Johnson, the younger brother of former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, was a member of British parliament from 2010 to 2019. He has occupied, among other positions, the office of the minister of state for universities, science, research and innovation, minister for London, and minister of state for transport.

A day after presenting the Union Budget for 2023-24, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said growth was the predominant focus from Day 1 when she and her team sat down to prepare the last full-year Budget ahead of Lok Sabha elections. "The Prime Minister was also on board with it. He said growth ka momentum rakhna chahiye (we need to keep the growth momentum). If anything, we need to speed it up, oil it better and run it better, and that is why this number of Rs 10 lakh crore for capital expenditure came up.," Sitharaman told to an English daily at her North Block office Thursday.

She added that her "single-minded" guiding imperative was that this was a "golden opportunity" for India and this time "we should really not miss the bus."

SC rejects plea seeking to bar candidates from contesting elections from more than one seat

A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud observed that candidates may contest elections from different seats due to a variety of reasons and it is Parliament's will as to whether the course of democracy would be furthered by granting such a choice.

The bench, also comprising justices PS Narasimha and J B Pardiwala, was dealing with a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who had sought to declare section 33(7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which allows a person to contest a general election or a group of bypolls or biennial elections from two constituencies, as invalid and ultra vires to the Constitution.

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has taken a swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and said that he does not listen to him and pays no heed to what he says. When quizzed about Rahul Gandhi’s recently concluded Bharat Jodo Yatra, which recently concluded in Srinagar, the workaholic Maharashtra BJP leader said, “I have not seen the yatra.”

Nitin Gadkari made these remarks while speaking at the Budget Conclave organised by a private TV news channel. The BJP leader also categorically dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s allegations “BJP has opened a shop of hatred” and said that “this is not true.” “We do not believe in any discrimination because a man alone cannot be bigger than caste and religion. Whatever plans the Narendra Modi government has made, it has been made keeping everyone, every section of the society in mind.”

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has allocated a capital outlay of Rs 2.40 lakh crore for the Indian Railways in the Union Budget 2023-24. This highest-ever outlay is about nine times the outlay made in Financial Year 2013-14. Till 2014, Railways’ capital expenditure was barely Rs 45,980 crore annually. Presently, there are a lot of projects going on across the country. In the coming years, the capex will increase further and the railway system will actually emerge as an engine of national growth.
The railways will also witness more private investment in the infrastructure sector. For this, the newly established Infrastructure Finance Secretariat will assist all stakeholders including railways, roads, urban infrastructure, and power, which are predominantly dependent on public resources.