Sri Lankans queued up to apply for fresh passports outside the department of immigration and emigration office in Colombo.
In the first phase, most of the outdated regulations in the state and central Acts will be removed. Further, compliances with regard to annual inspections, licence renewal, and storage of multiple data will be eased.
The central government has appointed India Invest Economic Foundation, a private agency, as consultant for operationalisation of new pension scheme by this month.
The finance ministry on Monday said the ability of the Reserve Bank to intervene in the forex market to arrest the fall in rupee is limited, even as the Indian currency declined to a 32-month low of Rs 51.50 per US dollar in the early trade.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in the Budget, announced facilitating the establishment of dedicated infra debt funds through special purpose vehicles for attracting foreign investment in the infrastructure sector.
The Reserve Bank will announce draft guidelines for giving new banking licences in the next few days, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.
This is not her first stint in North Block or in leading a major economic ministry. She started Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first term as minister of state for finance, was made the commerce minister, and then became the defence minister.
The posts of finance secretary and secretary, economic affairs department generate ambiguities over ownership of the finance ministry's most important annual exercise.
"RBI has been following a good policy. These are the ways of correcting international imbalances," Department of Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan said on the sidelines of a seminar organised by ICRIER in New Delhi.
The government on Friday said it has started implementing liberal FDI rules under which proposals up to Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) foreign equity would be cleared by the Finance Minister without seeking approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.
A decision to this effect has been taken after Arun Ramanathan retired as finance secretary on Thursday. Currently, Chawla is the senior-most official in the finance ministry. In addition, G C Chaturvedi, currently serving as additional secretary in the ministry of health and family welfare, has been appointed as additional secretary in-charge of the financial services department.
Another roadblock to be removed from FDI path; Load on insurance chest.
Volatility in investments concern for RBI.
At present, a project with investment of more than Rs 600 crore in sectors routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board has to be referred to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.
Former Department of Economic Affairs Secretary E A S Sarma on Friday claimed that the regulatory agencies, including SEBI, had ignored his warnings about the financial irregularities committed by Satyam.
From defending the shock announcement of demonetisation to spearheading the remonetisation drive that included the cumbersome process of printing and supplying new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, his calm composure brought a sense of serenity to an otherwise chaotic situation.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
Earlier in the day, President Ram Nath Kovind accepted Murmu's resignation as the Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan is not going anywhere. That being the case, why is the hesitation to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Taliban? asks Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
"We are not looking at increasing FII (investment) limit in government securities," Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters. Earlier in June, the government raised the FII investment limit in government securities to $5 billion from $3.2 billion.
The relaxation will apply to those sectors that have composite caps (foreign direct investment or FDI plus FII). "The move will not impact sectors like banking and insurance which are governed by Acts of Parliament. However, sectors with composite caps which see administrative control like telecommunication services, broadcast services like direct-to-home and FM radio will benefit," a Delhi based FDI policy expert told Business Standard.
As part of the exercise, each family will get complete ownership of the businesses it manages while scrapping the holding company.
For the second time since Press Note 2 and 4 were issued in February 2009, the Department of Economic Affairs in the finance ministry has raised questions on their implementation, this time over an application before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
US nominee for World Bank president, Ajay Banga, has tested positive for COVID-19 following which the meetings scheduled during his two-day visit to India have been cancelled. According to a Finance Ministry statement, Banga's meeting with Nirmala Sitharaman would not happen as he is in quarantine. "During routine testing, Ajay Banga tested positive for COVID-19 but remains asymptomatic.
7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
The agency had received Rs 946.51 crore to manage its affairs in the Budget Estimates for 2023-24, which was later increased to Rs 968.86 crore in the Revised Estimates.
The government is likely to file draft papers for the mega initial public offering of LIC with market regulator Sebi by next week, while a portion of the issue would be reserved for anchor investors, a top official said on Wednesday.
The department of economic affairs in the Union finance ministry has suggested aggressive sterilisation of foreign capital inflows, tightening of government expenditure and intervention in key farm produce markets like wheat.
Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Garg is the finance ministry's primary liaison with the RBI.
Eases regulatory hurdles for Bharti-MTN deal.
The Union Cabinet has approved amendments to the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, paving the way for privatisation of government-owned insurers. The amendments, approved by Cabinet, will remove the clause for the Centre to hold at least 51 per cent in public sector insurance companies at any given time. It will also have an enabling provision for the transfer of management control from the government to the potential buyer of the public sector insurance company. The finance ministry will move amendments to the insurance Act in the ongoing Parliament session.
The government does not expect the stock markets to fall below the levels witnessed on Monday, which saw benchmark Sensex plunging by nearly 700 points during the intra-day trade.
The move is part of a larger initiative by the government to speed up work in the highway sector.
In this interview, Rakesh Mohan spoke on a range of issues about the challenges he faced during his stint at the central bank and the journey from handling the real economy sectors to monetary economics
As the United States focuses on the Indo-Pacific, in particular the Quad, the Biden administration needs to address India's ties with Russia and its 'downward trend of democratic values and institutions', said a report by the Democratic Party of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
