Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday assumed charge as the Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister for the second consecutive term and is slated to soon present the final Budget for FY '25 that is going to set the tone for the Modi 3.0 government's priorities and direction for Viksit Bharat. Upon her reaching the North Block office, Sitharaman was greeted by Finance Secretary T V Somanathan and other top officials. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary was also present. Chaudhary assumed charge on Tuesday evening.
Taking up the case of Indian IT companies and professionals, Jaitley told Ross about the contribution of highly-skilled Indians in the economic development of the United States and India and stressed that they should continue to do so, which is in the best interest of the two countries, officials said.
In the current fiscal it is estimated to go up to 5.7 per cent.
Ahead of his first visit to India, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has said the United States is looking for new partners and relationships in Asia Pacific region which represents both opportunities and challenges.
"Since 2014, I have never given him any appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise," Finance Minister Jaitley said in a Facebook post.
The corridor is expected to attract around Rs 1,250 billion investment and create 4,00,000 jobs. It will start from Mysore, pass through Bengaluru in Karnataka, to connect with Chennai, Coimbatore, Salem and Tiruchy in Tamil Nadu.
His background as an Indian Institute of Technology graduate and as a chief minister with an excellent track record as an administrator equipped him to initiate defence industry and policy reforms that are only now beginning to bear fruit.
Never before in post-reforms India have Union Budgets seen a steady reduction in fiscal deficit for five consecutive years, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The war of words between Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, refuses to die.
Priority right now, the defence minister said, is to restore normalcy.
Altogether 19 fighter aircraft and 11 helicopters of the armed forces crashed in last three years in which 24 service personnel were killed, Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.
Two Chinese helicopters entered Indian territory in Uttarakhand on two occasions in April and June after which the Army launched protests with the Chinese Army, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
To threaten China and Pakistan, and then to sharply cut back on military funding, bespeaks a remarkable trust in Beijing and Islamabad that is not borne out by anything they say or do, notes Ajai Shukla.
Lutyens' Delhi is agog about the possible shape of a Narendra Modi Cabinet.
Moving ahead with the economic reforms, the Cabinet tonight cleared the long-delayed proposal for raising FDI limit in defence to 49 per cent and fully opened up the railway infrastructure segment, like high-speed trains, for foreign investment.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first and only women till now to have presented the Union Budget.
Randeep Surjewala also accused the government of "doublespeak" and "sacrificing" national interests.
All the accused moved their bail pleas before the court which granted the relief to them. Jaitley was also present in the court room.
A pall of gloom descended on the Harmain area of Shopian as people bid final adieu to Lieutenant Umer Fayaz, the army soldier who found killed on Wednesday. Fayaz was abducted by five to six terrorists from his relative's house in south Kashmir's Shopian on Tuesday night. His bullet riddled body was found on Wednesday morning, a police official said. The officer, who was commissioned in the army in December last year, had come to Kulgam district on leave for attending a wedding in his family.
The govt hiked defence budget by 7.81 per cent over last year's Rs 2.74 lakh crore.
Top Union ministers and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including party chief Amit Shah, on Wednesday reviewed the political and security situation in Jammu and Kashmir besides discussing rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits.
Designed to be a quick reaction missile, it has a strike range of 25 km to 30 km.
Thakur will be part of the 21-member committee headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, according to a bulletin issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
In the first interaction between India and the Russian Federation, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will meet visiting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry O Rogozin on June 18.
Four French Rafale fighter aircraft and a contingent of about 70 French airforce personnel on Saturday landed at Jodhpur airbase to participate in the 10-day long joint air exercise "Garuda-5".
In the last three years, the United States has taken over Russia as the largest supplier of weapon systems to India, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. Answering a written query in the Lower House, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in the last three years, India pent Rs 83,458 crore for procuring equipment from foreign vendors which included Rs 32,615 crore worth of supplies from the US whereas Russia exported hardware worth Rs 25,363.96 crore in this period.
Coming down hard on the government for meagre increase in allocation for armed forces in the last few years, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence said the outlay cannot even fulfill the basic requirements of the armed forces.
Terming the Emergency as the worst post-independence chapter of Indian democracy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said it gave him the best political education of his life as it taught him that some compromises are "just not possible".
Jaitley had filed the complaint alleging that the accused had defamed him in a controversy regarding Delhi and District Cricket Association when he headed it for over a decade.
There are around 120 regional war memorials built by various formations of the Army across the country and the government was considering a proposal to construct a national war memorial in the country's capital.
Pakistan should draw a red line whether it wants to talk to the Government of India or those who want to break India, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday asking it to make a "conscious" choice without which a dialogue is not possible.
IT sector has lots of hope from the Union Budget 2014-15.
The Padma Award ceremonies scheduled for March 26 and April 3 stand postponed, a home ministry official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Friday briefed by Army Chief General Bikram Singh on the prevailing security situation and operational readiness of troops in a meeting which lasted for close to three hours.
BJP sources indicated that swearing-in ceremony could take place on May 30.
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To a question on by when he expects investments to pick up, Jaitley said: "We are quite close to that point because there are a large number of investors who are waiting to come in and they only want to be doubly sure about the credibility of the decision making process and the stability of the policies."
There will be many steps which will be taken outside the budget.
The debate on the Rafale jet fighter deal saw a head-on collision between the government and the Congress in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Military veterans are finally set to get their dues following Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's assertion that the 'One Rank One Pension' scheme is just weeks away from being implemented.
On the final day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, that country on Tuesday extended its Defence Cooperation Agreement with India by another 10 years. The pact, which was to expire in June next year, will now be in force till 2025.
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