On the revenue front, the finance ministry was expecting higher proceeds from non-tax revenue.
Agriculture implements that are currently taxed up to 18 per cent may come under the 12 per cent or the 5 per cent bracket.
The World Bank's latest review of its purchasing power parity (PPP) baseline will reignite the poverty debate.
During the month, inflation in vegetables shot up to 35.99 per cent, as against 26.10 per cent in October. Likewise, the prices of cereals and eggs grew at a faster pace of 3.71 per cent.
India's annual industrial output grew at a slower-than-expected pace of 3.6 percent in September.
'When the average growth in the last three years was just 2.5%, how does that make us the fastest growing country?' 'They only tell you what has happened in the last 2 years; they are not taking into account what happened in FY21 on account of their mistakes.'
Declining vegetable prices brought down the retail inflation to a 15-month low of 4.59 per cent in December and within the comfort zone of the Reserve Bank, government data showed on Tuesday. It is for the first time during the current fiscal that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation print is below 6 per cent or in the RBI's target range of 2 to 6 per cent. The central bank factors in the CPI-based inflation while arriving at its monetary policy. The inflation in December 2020 came down from 6.93 per cent in November, mainly on account of 10.41 per cent decline in vegetable prices over the year-ago period.
"The Right to Life as guaranteed by Article 21...gives the right to every human being to live a life of dignity with access to at-least bare necessities of life. To provide food security to impoverished persons is the bounden duty of all States and Governments," the top court observed while issuing a slew of directions on a plea of three activists.
The Seventh Pay Commission had decided to choose the CPI-IW as the index for adjusting inflation for central government employees.
The Reserve Bank on Friday retained the GDP forecast for the current financial year at 9.5 per cent and flagged global semiconductor shortages, elevated commodity prices and potential global financial market volatility as downside risks to economic growth. In his address after the three-day meeting of the rate-setting panel, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said recovery in aggregate demand gathered pace in August-September, and it is reflected in high-frequency indicators, like railway freight traffic; port cargo; cement production; electricity demand; e-way bills; GST and toll collections. "The ebbing of infections, together with improving consumer confidence, has been supporting private consumption," he said, and added the pent-up demand and the festival season should give further fillip to urban demand in the second half of the financial year.
Believe it or not, the regulator is even stretching its arm to identify stressed borrowers and gauge the 'distance to default' as a measure of a particular bank's fragility, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Industrial production expanded a provisional 3.4 per cent year-on-year in June.
The BSE Sensex spurted 130.00 points to end at 35,980.93, while the broader NSE Nifty advanced 30.35 points to 10,802.15.
India's GDP had recorded 7.5 per cent growth in the April-June quarter of last fiscal.
The observation was made by a bench headed by Justice UU Lalit which was hearing a plea seeking adequate infrastructure across the country for providing effective legal aid to women abused in matrimonial homes and creating shelter homes for them.
Retail inflation inches up to 3.77%; IIP growth dips to 3-month low
N R Bhanumurthy, professor of economics at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, and the author of the series, presented in a report to the National Statistical Commission, explains to Abhishek Waghmare various aspects of the methodology.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew by 1.4 per cent in November as most components like manufacturing, electricity, mining, primary goods, and consumer durables witnessed a slowdown, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday. This is on the base of a decline of 1.7 per cent in November 2020 and before the new Covid variant started impacting economic activity. IIP growth was lower than the 4 per cent expansion recorded in the previous month but was better than a 1.6 per cent contraction seen in November 2020. Separately, rising prices of kitchen staples pushed retail inflation, or rate of price increase, to 5.59 per cent in December 2021, bringing it close to the upper band of Reserve Bank's comfort zone.
The manufacturing sector, which accounts for over 75 per cent of the index, declined by 2.4 per cent against a growth of 4.1 per cent in December 2014.
While India's GDP growth slowed to five-year low of 5.8% in Q4, China grew at 6.4%.
India's industrial production grew by 1 per cent in December, official data showed on Friday. According to the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data, the manufacturing sector output grew by 1.6 per cent in December 2020.
Rajan also said the outlook for agriculture is subdued, in view of both rabi and kharif prospects being hit by monsoon vagaries.
India's growth slowed in three months through December from a revised 7.4% expansion in the previous quarter, but it was much stronger than expected.
GST rate cut for real-estate, income transfer scheme, farm loan waivers execution and recapitalisation of PSU banks have the potential to boost India's growth in a few months, says Neelkanth Mishra.
India on track to be third largest consumer economy by 2025.
Only power generation grew faster in 2014 than in earlier years.
Experts say it will now be tough for the Modi government to catch up with the UPA's economic record owing to the shock induced by the currency demonetisation.
The Economic Survey was tabled in the Parliament on Friday.
Data released earlier by CAG shows capital expenditure by the Centre had contracted 9.2 per cent in Q2
The combined share of customs and excise duties, service tax, and value-added tax in India's gross domestic product reached an all-time high of 10.5%.
The mining sector grew by 4.3 per cent in June as against a dip of 4.6 per a year ago.
The slowdown is especially pronounced in rural areas, which have suffered two consecutive dry years.
Markets extended losses to end 1.5% down on Tuesday, amid weak global cues, after investors turned cautious ahead of key economic data and booked profits in rate sensitive shares while the further fall in the rupee continued to weigh on investor sent.
The new numbers show India's economic growth rate averaged 6.7 per cent during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime as compared to 7.3 per cent under the present government. Previous numbers had put the average growth rate during the 10-year UPA rule at 7.75 per cent.
Concerned by GDP slowdown and unrealistic tax targets, the economists urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to implement long-term structural steps like land and labour reforms. Warning against any off-Budget financing the economists said the government should prepare a statement of intent for its social, rural and welfare sector expenditure.
Lakhs of students appear for it every year. How are you preparing for it?
'Given that the economy is going through a slowdown, further downward revisions of the 2019-2020 growth estimates cannot be ruled out,' notes A K Bhattacharya.
Softening inflation, Das said would make available more policy space to the central bank to address risks to the growth going forward.
India's GDP estimates for 2020-21 show that the economy is expected to perform much better than earlier projections by different agencies, indicating a sustained V-shape post-lockdown recovery, experts said. The first Advance Estimates (AE) by the National Statistics Office (NSO) has projected a contraction of 7.7 per cent in the real GDP during 2020-21. This was better than the projections by certain international agencies like the IMF and World Bank.
Here are the key decisions announced by the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday.