The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
Several BJP-backed state governments have unveiled schemes targeting the poor, women, farmers and students, following the party's setback in the Lok Sabha polls.
There was an 8% decline in the BJP's vote share across six regions in UP, and that some OBC castes moved away from the BJP.
A Congress source termed the process of drafting and presenting of the Bill before the state cabinet on Monday as a "unilateral" effort by the chief minister's office and ministers that are close to him.
Sources within the Congress, including those who have been members of the teams that drafted its 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha poll manifestos, said the Karnataka government decision lacked any empirical basis.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
'The dakiyas will be our partners, receiving credit proposals from micro-enterprises at the grassroots level.'
According to an Andhra government statement, Naidu 'reposed confidence' in the PM's leadership.
'Arithmetic could decide the Haryana election given the presence of multi-cornered contests.'
India SME Forum, an organisation for small and medium businesses, has called for creating a dedicated fund of Rs 5000 crore for the export capacity development, promotion, and marketing of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in its Budget recommendation. The forum for MSMEs with over 98,000 members said that to enhance India's global competitiveness and increase its market share in global exports, it was "crucial to increase the number of active exporters and enable at least 3-4 lakh first-time micro, small, and medium exporters while supporting them in promoting Indian products globally."
Lawyers have pointed out that the new laws increase police powers by extending the maximum limit of police custody from 15 days to 60 days or 90 days.
An increase in the farmer income support scheme PM Kisan Nidhi, the introduction of a 'robot tax' to fund reskilling of people who lose their jobs to artificial intelligence (AI), and a reduced income-tax (I-T) to bring relief to the middle classes - these are some of the items in the Budget wish list submitted by Sangh Parivar affiliates to Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman. Representatives of the affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), such as the farmer organisation Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS); trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS); Laghu Udyog Bharati, which works for micro and small industries; and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), which works on economic and policy issues, met the FM and other officials over the last couple of weeks as part of the pre-Budget consultations.
The Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-India), the national agency responsible for analysing suspicious financial transactions, has received requests from four more offshore crypto exchanges to operate in India again, said a senior government official familiar with the matter. In the beginning of 2024, India had banned nine crypto exchanges - Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, Bittrex, and Bitfenix - for non-compliance with anti-laundering law in the country.
'The Budget needs to focus more on social welfare schemes.'
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) has received "positive" feedback from industry regarding the 45-day payments cycle for MSMEs, according to a senior official familiar with the matter. The comment assumes significance amid concerns raised by some MSMEs that big companies may stop buying from small and medium suppliers and instead choose to make purchases from unregistered enterprises.
'The demand for housing is always increasing, and so is housing shortage.'
Fresh plans of privatisation or divestment in central public sector enterprises and public sector banks might take a back seat this financial year because these may require a large consensus among coalition partners.
The preferred format would be for the top BJP leadership in the government to reach out to the alliance leaders on a case-to-case basis.
The increased numbers of the Opposition bloc would mean that their MPs are likely to head several more panels than the four that they did by the end of the term of the 17th Lok Sabha.
10 vacancies in the Upper House after Rajya Sabha members were elected to the Lok Sabha.
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