Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
One thing has remained constant through the Indian economy in the last seven decades: the dominance of family-owned businesses. Krishna Kant reports.
From croissants to Galouti kebabs and Medu vada, Indian carriers, both low-cost and full-service, are revising their in-flight menus to offer passengers a differentiated fare as competition is heating up amid the boom in air travel with the waning of Covid-19. On Monday, Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group on January 27, unveiled its new domestic in-flight menu comprising gourmet meals, new appetizers, desserts, and local dishes. Air India's economy class passengers would now be served dishes such as Mushroom cheese omelette, Dry jeera aloo wedges, and Garlic tossed spinach and corn for breakfast, and Vegetable biryani, Malabar chicken curry, and mixed vegetable poriyal for lunch.
Had Finance Minister Sitharaman thought a little more about the middle class, disadvantaged sections, and the poor who are struggling, it would have been an inclusive Budget that would have made history, notes Ramesh Menon.
'The middle class you can hurt anytime. For revenues, politics, pleasure, anything,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Is India headed there again? questions Ajit Balakrishnan
Vistara starts flying in India.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
Minimum one-way air fares between Delhi and London are priced upwards of Rs one lakh in August due to limited number of seats, data collected by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows. The United Kingdom has included India in the amber list and the change came into effect from Sunday. With this, passengers from India needn't undergo institutional quarantine and can self-isolate at home for 10 days.
British Airways covers over 150 destinations in 75 countries while in India the carrier operates 49 flights a week from London's Heathrow airport to Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
'The consensus was that the debate was between looking backward and looking forward.' 'Trump, with his great enamourment of his own 'achievements,' was obviously looking backward, while Harris, nearly 20 years his junior, was focussing on the future, with hope,' notes Shreekant Sambrani.
No major relief for airlines from the Budget.
The revised check-in baggage limit is effective from Saturday
Australia's basketball governing body will review its travel policy after being criticised for flying their men's team to the London Olympics in business class but putting their women's team in economy class.
Low cost scheduled airline Paramount Airways will take to the skies in August and operate to all the secondary cities across the country, its M Thiagarajan managing director said.
'We are worried for the workers because in the private sector, jobs are not secure, there is no decent work condition and there is no social security.' 'That's why we are opposing the economic policies of this government.'
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries and Tata Group have made it to the prestigious TIME's list of 100 World's Most Influential Companies of 2024. TIME called Reliance 'India's Juggernaut'. This is the second time that Reliance has found its way into the TIME list. Jio Platforms, the firm that holds digital properties of the conglomerate, was included in the inaugural TIME 100 Most Influential Companies List of 2021. Serum Institute is the other Indian company on the list.
'Modi has not lacked courage in the political sphere. It is time he showed it in the economic sphere as well.' 'To do this, he needs to shed the simple-minded nostrums about economic growth and swadeshi that he learnt in the Sangh Parivar,' suggests Virendra Kapoor.
'The BJP claims they have eight lakh cadres in the Kashmir Valley so why can't they contest elections from Kashmir?'
'If you look at where inflation (headline and core) is today in India and where the rates are, there's clearly room to cut rates.'
Under attack over charging her hosts business class for economy class travel, Team Anna member Kiran Bedi on Monday offered to return the excess money collected but it did not cut much ice with her detractors.
Dreamliner is a 256 seater plane with 18 business class seats and 238 economy class seats.
The special fares are valid for economy class and business class return tickets to all of the airline's destinations within India, the airline said.
'It was like a doctor giving some simple pain killers to a patient in dire requirement of chemotherapy.' 'There was no sense of urgency or desperation in this particular Budget.'
Private carrier Air Sahara on Wednesday announced the launch of its Delhi-London flight from January 6 with a lucrative promotional package of a free return ticket on its domestic network or a to and fro trip to Singapore.
'The long-term impact of elections is minimal.'
'The government will have to provide something for migrant workers or 'Farmers will still survive because they will eat what they produce.' 'What will the rest of the people do? What will happen to them?'omething else like that or else you will see some huge uprising or unrest.'
The year 2014 has been a milestone for the US economy with the average growth of 4.2 per cent in the last two quarters and addition of 2.65 million jobs till November, the White House has said.
For India to view the new Sri Lankan leadership only through the prism of the past or through their narrow view on China, is fraught with possibilities that should be avoided, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee spelt out the details of the United Progressive Alliance's austerity measures on Friday, saying he has advised ministers to travel in the Economy Class domestically and in the Business Class during international travel. The Finance Ministry has asked the various ministries to ensure a 10 per cent cut in non- planned expenditure, except in expenses related to security.
GST impact: Higher lease payouts may hit airlines, cab aggregators.
Austrian Airlines is all set to begin services from Vienna to Mumbai from September 1 with five flights a week.
The 2010-11 Finance Bill, tabled in Parliament, proposed to expand the scope of air transport services 'to include domestic journeys and international journeys in any class' for a 10 per cent service tax.
The multi-crore Dharavi slum redevelopment project involves no land transfer to the Adani group but to the Maharashtra government's departments, and the Ahmedabad-based conglomerate, as a project developer, will build houses that will be handed over to the same departments for allotment to residents of Asia's biggest slums, sources said. Denying allegations of land grab made by MP Varsha Gaikwad, sources close to the project said land parcels are to be transferred only to Dharavi Redevelopment Project/Slum Rehabilitation Authority (DRP/SRA) of the state government's housing department.
Sanjive Narain, owner of Assam's oldest news channel, and Sanjay Aditya Singh, promoter of a cabin crew training academy, are coming together to launch a regional airline providing business and premium economy services in the Northeast. Jettwings Airways will be based in Guwahati and will connect places with twin-class Embraer E175 aircraft. The airline has secured an initial no-objection clearance from the civil aviation ministry and plans to launch services in October.
Both sports and digital will drag down the healthy operating margins that entertainment television continues to make.
Ashok Vaswani, a banker with more than three-and-half decades experience in building and scaling up businesses across consumer and corporate banking and payments, will be the next managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had given its approval to Vaswani's appointment. Vaswani is currently President of Pagaya Technologies, a US-Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) fintech firm, which he joined in June 2022.
In the letter to the Bihar CM, the Bharatiya Janata Party MP and rural development minister said, 'Things which have no connection with Islam are being Islamised. Some institutions have become self-proclaimed in giving halal certificate and are giving halal certificate to companies manufacturing goods by paying huge sums of money.'
