Modi: Gujarat isn’t India’s top investment destination

New Delhi: Maharashtra has emerged as the number one investment destination in the country replacing Gujarat, according to an Assocham report.

Maharashtra attracted cumulative investment proposals of Rs 14,73,466 crore as on December 2013, while Gujarat drew proposals worth Rs 13,98,347 crore, an analysis by the industry group showed.

The primary reason behind Maharashtra overtaking Gujarat is the state's focus on development of industrial centers in tier-II and tier-III cities, making it the preferred choice of investments, especially for the Indian and global service sector industries, it said.

Representational Image. Reuters

Maharashtra has become the hub for the service and electricity industries which together attracted investment over Rs 67,000 crore in 2013. However, in comparison Gujarat attracted nearly Rs 62,000 crore in the same year, the study observed.

Gujarat had attracted Rs 16,28,126 crore of investment proposals as on December 2011, when Maharashtra came in second
with Rs 14,13,728 crore of proposed investments. The study said the value of investment proposals in three of the top five destinations - Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha - registered a decline.

"While the overall composition of lead investment destination states remains largely unchanged, in the last two years there have been noteworthy changes in the individual positions of India's preferred investment destinations," Assocham President Rana Kapoor said.

"The combined share of the country's five top investment destinations has reduced from 53.6 per cent to 48.2 per cent during the two years to December 2013," Kapoor added.

The other three states that attracted the most investment proposals are Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka and the top five states together accounted for 48.2 per cent of the total of Rs 1,30,50,467 crore as on December 2013, according to the study.

The remaining investment proposals worth a combined Rs 61,50,105 crore went to 15 other states. Of the investment proposals, the highest amount was in electricity (36.5 per cent), services (23.6 per cent), manufacturing (23 per cent), construction & real estate (11.1 per cent), irrigation (3 per cent) and mining (2.8 per cent).

Maharashtra attracted 38.2 per cent in services, 28.3 per cent in electricity, 19.3 per cent in construction & real estate, 10.5 per cent in manufacturing, 2.5 per cent in irrigation and 1.2 per cent in the mining sector.

Gujarat attracted 39.4 per cent in electricity, 22.2 per cent in services, 20.8 per cent in manufacturing, 13.6 per cent in construction & real estate, 2.5 per cent in irrigation and 1.6 per cent in the mining sector.

KEJRIWAL AAP’s office in Mumbai attacked

Party suspects NCP hand

Twenty-three Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) members were arrested by the Mumbai police for allegedly vandalising the office of the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday.

According to the police, NCP workers started sloganeering outside the AAP’s head office at Chakala in Andheri, a western suburb of Mumbai. The party workers broke window panes, burnt effigies and smeared ink on the door.

“The workers were arrested on charges of rioting and vandalising private property. The exact motive behind the attack is to be ascertained,” Additional Commissioner of Police Milind Bharambe told The Hindu.

Separately, NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said Mumbai north-west district president, P. Maske, who allegedly led the attack on the AAP office, had been was expelled from the party.

The attack comes just days after the party launched its election campaign in Maharashtra. On Wednesday, top AAP leaders had attacked NCP leaders alleging that they were corrupt.

The AAP leaders also alleged on Thursday that due to corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency in the state power department Maharashtra had incurred losses to the tune of Rs. 22,000 crore.

In a related development, AAP leader Mayank Gandhi and a few party workers were detained by the police while they were en route to protest outside the NCP office in western suburban Mumbai.

BJP to announce first list of candidates on Feb 27

NEW DELHI, FEB 22:  

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will announce its first list of candidates on February 27. The list is expected to declare the candidature of all its top leaders including Narendra Modi, L. K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Murli Manohar Joshi.

While she confirmed that the list will be out on February 27, leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj refused to divulge any further details. Although she is almost certain to be projected again from Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, from where she had won in 2009, Swaraj said she will follow the party’s diktat on the matter.

“I am a loyal soldier of the party. I’ve gone everywhere, from Delhi (where she contested the Assembly elections) to Bellary. If the party now tells me to fight from Telangana, I will go there,” she said.

The reference to Telangana was significant as Swaraj had played a crucial part in the passage of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill in the Lok Sabha on February 18. From the floor of the House, she had reminded the people of Telangana: “Don’t forget your Chinnamma (little mother) and not just Sonia Amma.”

Sitting across the table from party President Rajnath Singh, who had contested from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, Swaraj said she is not fixated on any seat. “If Rajnathji wants to contest from Vidisha, I will invite him there. Mera kya hai, mein to Telangana chali jaoongi (my candidature doesn’t matter so much. I could even go to Telangana.),” she said.

It is not certain where Modi and Arun Jaitley, a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat, will contest from. They could both contest from Gujarat or in Jaitley’s case, New Delhi and Amritsar too are frequently mentioned constituencies. The biggest surprise would be Modi about whom there is discussion in the party about the possibility of a contest from Uttar Pradesh. Two seats from the Hindi heartland and politically critical States are discussed in Modi’s context — Varanasi, from where Murli Manohar Joshi is the sitting MP, and Allahabad.

A top source told Business Line that Modi could even contest from two seats simultaneously — one from Gujarat and another from Uttar Pradesh.

If there was any doubt about the veteran L. K. Advani contesting again, he dispelled it himself. Arriving unexpectedly at the party headquarters at 11 Ashoka Road this afternoon, Advani said while responding to a question about his election campaign: “Where is the question about starting a campaign? It is already under way.” Advani is the sitting MP from Gandhinagar.

He said the BJP is in a very good position to emerge as the single largest party in the 16th Lok Sabha. “The Congress’ corruption and mis-governance has ensured that they are at their weakest and the BJP is the strongest it ever was,” Advani said.

NARENDRA MODI- The Gamechanger BJP

NARENDRA MODI- The Gamechanger Book Description

See JESUS Price at infibeam.com

About the Book

For the first time, Modi has been quoted in any book talking about the hitherto untouched aspects of his life. The book is based on extensive interviews of the Gujarat Chief Minister and his close relatives about the influences that shaped his thoughts and actions.The 400-plus pages talk about the inspiring stories that made Modi what he is today-how he evolved as a man of development and empowered people with his decisions, and how he faced the poison-laced barbs of his critics who were ready to tear him to pieces for a crime he never committed.Modi's journey from a tea seller to prime ministerial candidacy has been one of struggle, dedication, determination, hard work and perseverance. Since his childhood, Modi gets up at 4 am and does not go to bed until he has finished his work. An average Indian finds his own reflection in the struggle of Modi. Like Modi, he can dream big. Yes, he can!When he was a young boy of 13, he received a near-fatal injury due to attack by a crocodile in the lake he swam daily. He was bed-ridden for more than a week. "It hit like a sword on my ankle," he said and showed to the author the scar he got due to the nine stitches.Modi was a victim of child marriage, a usual practice in the backward Ghanchi caste, but his desire to serve larger causes persuaded him to skip the final stage of the three-stage Gujarati marriage. When leaving home as a wanderer in search of truth, he took a formal leave of everyone.The Modi family had ancestral links with Rajasthan. How Modis became a backward oil pressing community in Gujarat is baffling? Some say that the original backward Modis migrated from Bihar, where there are still people with the Modi surname in oil pressing trade. The veracity of the claim, however, could not be established.Coming from a poor family, he tried to design solutions to poverty after he became the chief minister. He empowered farmers by making agriculture lucrative. He made industries attractive by linking them with profitability, employment and development.This book reflects the changing opinions of his critics after his recent exoneration by an Ahmedabad court. Despite the court verdict, he continues to be vilified for the 2002 riots. This book is an attempt to bust the cultivated myths being spread against him.Muslims and Modi are drawing close to each other. The community voted overwhelmingly for the BJP in the 2012 Assembly elections and the municipal elections. Even his bitterest critics such as Zafar Sareshwala and Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi have turned his admirers.The book presents Narendra Modi as a gamechanger who knows how to impress people with his work and turn the tables on his adversaries. It remains to be seen whether or not he will succeed in converting the massive support for him into votes for the BJP.

About the Author

Sudesh K Verma is a senior journalist currently working as News Editor, NewsX . In a career spanning more than two decades, he worked for, among others, The Statesman, Deccan Chronicle, The Business Standard and India News Television Channel.His stint as Senior Political Analyst in the British High commission for over three years taught him lessons in bureaucracy but he realized his existence there was in stark contrast to the world outside and one fine morning he decided to quit and do something more meaningful. Influenced by the ideal of becoming a factor for change, he became a social-political activist and led Youth 4 Democracy movement. He supported the Aam Aadmi Party and became one of its founding members.Verma, who has an M.Phil Degree in International Studies from the Jawaharlal University, he has contributed chapters to various books including The Other Side: Redefining Bharat, Edited by Fr Dominic Emmanuel, Frances Gonsalves and John Dayal and Prime Ministers of India, Edited by Shivnath and Neena Jha. He has been writing regularly on socio-political issues.After a careful research on Narendar Modi vis a vis other political leader, the author concludes that Modi is the country's best bet for deliverance. Having known him ever since he was a Delhi-based Secretary of the BJP, the author attempts to present the real Modi.The book is a product of intense research of one year by a dedicated team that sifted through more than 50,000 hyperlinks, a dozen book on Modi including the ones in Gujarati language and various research papers. The author and his team interviewed more than 100 people, mostly those impacted by the initiatives undertaken by the chief minister.

Book Details

Title:	NARENDRA MODI- The Gamechanger
Publisher:	Vitasta Publishing
Author:	Sudesh Verma
Edition:	Paperback
Language:	English
ISBN:	938271118X
EAN:	9789382711186
No. of Pages:	400