1. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will get the ball rolling for the BJP. 12-15 MPs from the ruling party and its allies, including JDS boss and former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy; Shrikant Shinde, Sena boss Eknath Shinde’s son; former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Manjhi, and the LJP’s Shambhavi Choudhary will also speak.
2. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have the last word; Mr Modi will respond to the debate, and the opposition’s counter-attacks, Saturday evening. That Rajnath Singh and the Prime Minister will both speak underlines the BJP’s plan – to fire on all guns at its rivals.
3. Sources told NDTV the BJP will look to target the Congress over the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister and party stalwart Indira Gandhi. That gameplan will likely carry echoes from the party’s fierce attack in the June session of Parliament, which was the first after Mr Modi secured a third consecutive term, albeit with a reduced majority.
4. Six months ago, Mr Modi ripped into his rival, accusing it of having “disregarded every democratic principle and made the nation into a jail… just to cling to power”. Those who imposed Emergency have no right to profess their love for our Constitution,” he raged.
5. The BJP, sources said, will also hit back at “fake narratives peddled by the opposition” during the April-June federal election, when the Congress and its allies claimed Mr Modi’s party would look to alter the Constitution – at a fundamental level – if they won.
6. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, who is also the Leader of the Opposition, will lead the opposition’s counter-attack. Mr Gandhi and the Congress have been relentless in targeting the Prime Minister and the BJP on the Adani issue, leading to a near-complete halt in parliamentary affairs. That is likely to remain the focus of its speech in this debate.
7. The Congress’ insistence on focusing on Adani has upset its allies, including the Trinamool and the Samajwadi Party. This week they distanced themselves and accused the Congress and the BJP of squabbling so much that it disrupts governance.
8. Also expected to speak are TR Baalu and A Raja of Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK, and Mahua Moitra and Kalyan Banerjee from the Trinamool. Ms Moitra’s speech will be of particular interest given her controversial expulsion in the final weeks of the last Lok Sabha.
9. Apart from each opposition party’s particular attacks on the BJP – the Adani issue for the Congress and, perhaps, the violence in Sambhal and the farmers’ protest for the Samajwadi Party – the opposition is also expected to mount a ‘save the Constitution’ pitch.
10. Late Thursday the BJP and the Congress issued three-line whips – a written notice of the utmost urgency – to their MPs to be present for the debate, which will be picked up by the Rajya Sabha on Monday and Tuesday, where Amit Shah will lead the BJP’s charge. 

With input from agencies

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This week India crossed a major milestone as a top global investment destination. Latest data reveals that Foreign Direct Investment into India crossed the thousand-billion-dollar mark since the turn of the century, showing how India has been the favoured destination for foreign investors.

The data released by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade or DPIIT showed that the cumulative amount of FDI, including equity, reinvested earnings and other capital, stood at USD 1,033.40 billion (or $1 trillion) between April 2000 and September 2024.

To get a perspective of just how gigantic a trillion dollars really is, let’s take this simple example – If a person was to earn one dollar (Rs. 84) per second (i.e. a trillion dollars in trillion seconds) – then it would take the person 11.5 days to earn a million dollars. But here’s where is gets interesting. Continuing to earn a dollar a second, it would take the person 31.7 years to reach the billion-dollar mark, and a staggering 31,709 years to reach the trillion-dollar figure.

Another thought-provoking way to look at this is that India, which is the fifth largest global economy, has an overall GDP of around $3.89 trillion in 2024. It used to be around $2 trillion in 2014. Now compare that to the FDI inflow of $1 trillion in the last two decades.

SOURCE OF THE FDI

So, where did all this investment come from? Which are the countries from which these investments flowed in? One might assume that the top spot would be either the US, which is the largest economy in the world, or perhaps China, which is the second-largest economy globally. But it’s neither.

The country which has contributed the most in terms of FDI in India during this period is Mauritius – a massive 25 per cent of all FDI inflows came via this route. Mauritius was closely followed by Singapore at 24 per cent. The United States of America came a distant third with 10 per cent.

Other countries which have invested significantly in India include The Netherlands at 7 per cent, Japan at 6 per cent, The UK at 5 per cent, UAE at 3 per cent, and the Cayman Islands, Germany, and Cyprus all accounting for 2 per cent each.

SECTORS WHICH SAW BIG INVESTMENT

The sector which saw the highest investment was the services and allied sector. There was significant investment in computer software and hardware, telecommunications, trading, construction, infrastructure development, automobile, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.

FDI INFLOWS ON THE RISE

Of the 1,033 billion dollars, USD 667.4 billion came in the last ten years between 2014 and 2024 showing a 119 per cent uptick in investment when compared to the previous decade. The data also revealed that FDI inflows have come for nearly 60 sectors across 31 states and union territories in India.

To attract more investment over time, India has also made its investment policies liberal and lucrative. Reforms have resulted in most sectors, barring ones of strategic importance, see 100 per cent FDI under the automatic route.

Giving impetus to the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the manufacturing sector has seen a 69 per cent rise in FDI in the last ten years as compared to the prior ten.

WHICH SECTORS ARE OPEN AND WHAT IS THE PROCEDURE

FDI is allowed through the automatic route in most of the sectors, while in areas like telecom, media, pharmaceuticals and insurance, government approval is required for foreign investors.

Under the government approval route, a foreign investor has to get a prior nod from the ministry or department concerned, whereas, under the automatic route, an overseas investor is only required to inform the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after the investment is made.

At present, FDI is prohibited in some sectors. They are lottery, gambling and betting, chit funds, Nidhi company, real estate business, and manufacturing of cigars, cheroots, cigarillos and cigarettes using tobacco.

(Inputs from PTI)
 

The father of Bengaluru techie Atul Subhash who died by suicide, said his son had been “broken from inside” after multiple cases were filed against him and his family by his wife.

Atul Subhash, the 34-year-old deputy general manager of a private firm, died by suicide on Monday in his Bengaluru apartment, leaving behind a 24-page suicide note, accusing his wife and her relatives of harassment. In his suicide note, he also alleged that a judge had demanded Rs 5 lakh to “settle” the case.

“My son used to say that there is a lot of corruption but he will fight as he is on the path of truth…He was broken from inside, though he didn’t tell anyone anything,” Subhash’s father Pawan Kumar told ANI.

Mr Kumar, who currently stays in Bihar’s Samastipur, said Subhash’s wife started filing cases against them in January 2021.

“She started filing cases since January 2021…My son had thought that she had left (their home) after Corona and that their 1-year-old son would grow up a little at his maternal uncle’s home… she also started filing cases against our entire family,” the father said.

Earlier, a four-member team of Bengaluru Police, including one woman police personnel reached Kotwali in Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh. Jaunpur is the residence of Subhash’s in-laws.

The father has alleged that the judge overseeing the case also asked for Rs 5 lakhs to “settle the case”.

“When they went ahead for mediation, it began from Rs 20,000 and then escalated to Rs 40,000; then the judge said that if he (the deceased) wants a settlement, he should give Rs 5 Lakh,” the father said.

Meanwhile, the brother of the deceased, Vikas, said his family had “no idea” that the Bengaluru techie would take such a drastic step.

“We talked to him normally. We had no idea he had decided to take such a step. We had never felt he was going to take such a step. I am in touch with a few of his friends and even they didn’t have any idea of his thoughts,” the brother said.

The brother also alleged that there had been “false cases” filed on him and his family too, saying that his brother had been mentally tortured.

“False cases have been filed on me, and my parents, just like they were filed on my brother. Action should be taken against all those who mentally tortured my brother and filed false cases against him,” the brother said.

He further claimed that Atul Subhash also wrote to various leaders and institutes, including the President and the Supreme Court, explaining his situation in detail.

“If those emails have reached them, we hope action is taken and some laws, forums, or committees are made where men can go to seek justice… Laws and provisions made to empower women are today being misused,” the brother added.

Earlier on December 11, the SC also expressed concern over the growing tendency to misuse Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which penalises cruelty by husbands and their relatives against married women.

While quashing a Section 498A IPC case against a husband and his parents in a different case, a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh said that the Section became a tool for unleashing personal vendetta against the husband and his family by a wife.

Atul Subhash died by suicide in the early hours of December 9 after alleging harassment from his wife and her family.

Subhash wrote “Justice is due” on every page of a 24-page note. He also alleged in his suicide note that his wife had filed nine cases against him under various sections, including murder, sexual misconduct, harassment for money, domestic violence, and dowry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)