'The answer is not for me to give. The answer either way has to be heard from the industry itself. Tell us why not if you are not doing it; tell us if you are doing it -- why should this question remain unanswered?'
Women on an average gave 10 minutes more to "employment-related activities" and spent 7 minutes less on "unpaid domestic services for household members" per day in 2024 against what they did five years ago in 2019.
Using the debt-to-GDP ratio as a fiscal anchor aligns with efforts to promote fiscal transparency through proper disclosure of off-budget borrowings.
Unemployment rate in urban areas during the third quarter (October-December) of FY25 remained unchanged at 6.4 per cent compared to the preceding quarter, according to the latest quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data released by the Ministry of Statistics on Tuesday. While the unemployment rate for men worsened marginally to 5.8 per cent in Q3 from 5.7 per cent in Q2, for women, it improved to 8.1 per cent from 8.4 per cent.
'Spend, but create assets, spend but make sure that people benefit from it.' 'This has been a beautiful guiding principle. And I think as a finance minister I owe so much to the prime minister for keeping this path clear before us.'
'Our attempt to honour the taxpayer has been since 2014 and more actively since 2019-2020 onwards.'
'We are not incentivising the old tax scheme. These taxpayers will also shift to the new regime after comparison.'
'Going forward, the encouragement would be to move to the new tax regime.'
The government may save over Rs 70,000 crore (Rs 700 billion) on capital and revenue expenditure allocated towards new schemes in the FY25 Budget that are yet to be implemented.
The upcoming Union Budget to be presented on February 1 is likely to assume a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 10 and 10.5 per cent for FY26, a Business Standard poll of 10 economists showed. The first advance estimates released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) had estimated a nominal GDP growth of 9.7 per cent for FY25. Nominal GDP, calculated at current market prices, factors in the effect of inflation. It is used as the base to calculate crucial macroeconomic indicators, such as fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, and debt-to-GDP ratio.
State Bank of India (SBI), in a report on Friday, claimed a significant decline in the headline poverty ratio in rural areas on account of enhanced physical infrastructure, higher consumption growth in the bottom fractile and direct benefit transfers (DBTs).
'Inflation is not good for industry. Nor for the economy as a whole.'
'We have to retain some fiscal headroom without compromising on the promised fiscal consolidation roadmap.'
'It has also outlived its initial purpose of reducing physical gold imports.'
As RBI governor, Sanjay Malhotra will have to give the highest priority to the interest of the economy while deciding on the growth-inflation trade off at Mint Street.
It will be the second Budget of the Modi 3.0 government and eighth straight Budget for Nirmala Sitharaman, rare in Indian polity.
'Not paying workers enough will end up being self-destructive or harmful for the corporate sector itself.'
The number of monthly fresh formal hirings saw a slowdown in August, signalling a downturn in the formal labour market. In August, the number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) decreased by nearly 11 per cent to 930,000. This is a four-month low from 1.05 million in July, according to the latest monthly payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Sunday.
'This agreement will help the Indian workforce to move to non-traditional sectors of employment like teaching, nursing, and manufacturing.'