This finance minister has come of age. That's not condescension. It is a praise, says Omkar Goswami.
From educating people about the internet, connecting far-flung areas with a high-speed net, promoting entrepreneurship, building start-up incubators, women empowerment, to even running a voter registration campaign, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism, Facebook and Google have done it all for the government.
'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
Reliance Industries Ltd is expected to invest Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion), of the total Rs 70,000 crore (Rs 700 billion) announced, in its telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm over the next two years, credit rating firm Moody's said on Monday. The investment in the telecom business is a credit negative for RIL because RJio will not generate any EBITDA (an indicator of cash flows) for at least next 12 months, it said. Moody's added however that RJio will be a formidable competitor in the sector making it a credit negative for top telecom operators already in the field. "Based on RIL's March 2014 annual report, we estimate that it has already invested about Rs 400 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) in Reliance Jio, and we expect RIL to invest the next Rs 300 billion in Reliance Jio over the next two years," Moody's Investors Service said in a statement. RIL recently announced that it will launch commercial 4G telecom service of RJio in 2015 entailing investment of Rs 70,000 crore. RIL has said that RJio will initially cover about 5,000 towns and cities accounting for over 90 per cent of urban India, as well as over 215,000 villages in India and the target is to expand this to over 600,000 villages. Moody's said RJio will be a "formidable competitor in India's telecom sector" as it will enter the business with financial muscle. RJio's entry into highly competitive telecom sector is also credit negative for incumbent mobile operators and market leaders Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India because "it will undoubtedly result in intensified competition that will lead to declines in average revenue per user and margins". But, it also said that strong spectrum holding of incumbents; existing large subscriber-bases and well- established brand equity; offering 2G and 3G services (apart from 4G services being launched) as well as marketing and distribution architecture mitigate much of the near-term competitive threat from Reliance Jio for them. "Furthermore, given issues of language and literacy, large parts of rural India remain a substantially voice-based market where near-term demand for 4G services may be muted," Moody's said.
India has 53 achievers on the list, second only to China which has 76 honorees.
Rahul Gandhi took a dig at PM Modi, saying his 'Digital India' scheme cannot become a "euphemism" for an Internet controlled by large remote corporations.
Welcoming the launch of the Bharatiya Mahila Bank, India Inc on Wednesday said the initiative will propel women's financial inclusion, encourage female entrepreneurs and empower women in the country.
'This government wants to keep control of everything in its hands.' 'If they have their stooges sitting on the National Medical Commission, they will do only the government's bidding.' 'Imagine a scary situation where people who have no knowledge about medicine sit on a commission that will take decisions on matters related to medical education, doctors and medical ethics.'
Yeh Hai Bakrapur starts off on a promising note but loses steam soon after, says Paloma Sharma.
MNREGS labourers are usually engaged in irrigation projects.
'My sense is that we should be braced for a correction.' 'It has already begun in the mid-caps for the past month, and will now spread to larger stocks as well.' 'Use the correction to upgrade the quality of your portfolio,' advises Akash Prakash.
The US Senate has confirmed Indian-American woman administrator Nisha Desai Biswal as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, making her the first person from the community to hold the top diplomatic position.
'By 2020 around 34% of India's population will be in the 15-34 age group.' 'More than 70% of them live in rural areas.' 'Their energy and enthusiasm need to be tapped in order to meet their aspirations and transform agriculture and the rural economy,' says P K Joshi.
As far as Saffola is concerned, oil and oats have been successful segments.
Santosh Kaveri, a young inventor from Karnataka, is a sterling example of the 'Made In India' initiative. Find out why his dreams of being an innovator-enterpreneur shattered.
As the Modi government enters the fourth year of its tenure, it is looking more confident, shedding its earlier inhibitions about offering sops or new opportunities to big business, says A K Bhattacharya.
The 91-year-old went beyond her role as a writer to help tribals in organising themselves in groups so that they could take up development activities in their own areas.
Experts claim impact of breather limited as most hybrid vegetable seeds are sold by private companies.
GST, a much needed reform that widens the tax net, promises to strangle many legitimate businesses while they wait for the tax administration and systems to catch up, says Rahul Jacob.
If doing business in India is a problem for even the richest, most educated scion of a business house, it is unlikely to be a breeze for the average rural Indian woman.
Orders for the festive season abroad begin from next month.
Analysts worry about possible loan waiver.
'If we follow the advice of the AYUSH ministry 100 per cent, then the next generation will be stunted.'
Violence is just too stark, too TRP friendly and so it gets a lot of attention in the media. But the crime of discrimination is much worse because it is much greater, it attracts no attention and it has no recourse, says Mahesh Vyas.
'It is important that the prime minister and our officials here, we dedicate ourselves to that important goal, the concept of freedom of religion for all to worship their faith,' US Congressman Ed Royce tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com
Priti Rajagopalan, 23, received a 5,000-pound grant towards her work at a ceremony held at the Commonwealth Secretariat headquarters in London, the Commonwealth said on Saturday.
Jaitley said a 10 per cent tax long on capital gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh made from the sale of shares has been introduced but those made till Janaury 31 would be grandfathered. A 10 per cent tax on distributed income by equity oriented mutual funds has also been proposed in the budget.
'Agriculture has been given the wrong kind of attention.' 'More innovations are needed for the sector to be successful,' says Devi Murthy of Kamal Kisan.
Total area impacted across India pegged at 18.9 mn hectares.
Modi has set a target of generating 100 Gw of solar power by 2022.
'Parents are like customers and the customer is king.' 'As a result, disciplining by teachers is also frowned upon.' 'One of my teachers gave a student a C in some subject and the father says to me: "I didn't send my son to an expensive school like this for him to get a C!"'
As per the initial version of the Unified Licence on August 2, DoT had exempted Internet services revenue from adjusted gross revenue -- part of telecom company's earnings on which annual licence fee is levied.
Major focus will be on adequately funding existing schemes to ensure their timely completion before the next General Elections.
While India is catching China in motorbike sales, it lags far behind in cars, which use more petrol per journey.
Three policymakers aware of the central bank's deliberations on the Budget said they are combing through the numbers to test how Jaitley struck a balance, and question some of the assumptions.
Core sector companies have seen volumes drop to single digit in the first nine months of FY16.
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