The generation of quality jobs and skill development should be the focal point, cutting across ministries and departments, asserts Nivedita Mookerji.
The government is planning to introduce legislative changes to the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema) regulations, with a focus on easing the pathway for inflows from a foreign portfolio investor to transition seamlessly into foreign direct investments (FDI) once the FPI surpasses the 10 per cent ownership threshold in a company. This move stems from multiple requests by foreign investors seeking to streamline the reporting requirements that arise when their stakes in Indian firms cross the 10 per cent mark.
With the prediction of an above normal monsoon in 2024, the government is expecting food prices to come down, the finance ministry's monthly economic report for March has said. The report, released on Thursday, said robust foreign inflows and comfortable trade deficits were expected to keep the rupee within a comfortable range. "Further easing of food prices is on the anvil as IMD (India Meteorological Department) has predicted above-normal rainfall during the monsoon season, which is likely to lead to higher production, assuming good spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall," the monthly report, released by the Department of Economic Affairs, said.
The way the present government has dealt with appointments of civil servants remains to be a cause for concern.
The finance ministry is in favour of extending the August deadline for public sector banks (PSBs) as well as insurance companies to increase their minimum public shareholding (MPS) to the mandated 25 per cent, said a senior government official. "The election results will determine the course of action. "Most likely, those who did not receive an extension to meet the minimum shareholding norm will be granted one," the senior government official said.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, along with her team of bureaucrats, delved into the fine print of the 2024-25 Budget documents in a press conference, detailing the government's road map on bringing down the debt-to-GDP ratio and bold tax measures.
Income Tax department has sought prosecution powers in the proposed Direct Taxes Code for taking effective action against tax evaders.
This meeting has led to the deferment of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting by a day.
Sharing details about the decision, tourism minister Jaivir Singh said the tourism department would provide the company land for the international-level museum on a 90-year lease for a token amount of Re 1.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman on Monday held a performance review meeting with heads of public sector banks and asked them to make concerted efforts to garner deposits. Deposits have been growing 300-400 basis points lower than the credit growth in the last few months, creating an asset-liability mismatch for banks. During deliberations on the deposit mobilisation, she said that while the credit growth has picked up, mobilisation of deposits could further be improved to fund the credit growth sustainably, and asked banks to make concerted efforts to garner deposits by conducting special drives.
Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad Yadav's two of the most trusted senior IAS officers have been moved into departments held by the party patron's sons in the Bihar cabinet.
Any government support or incentive to help exporters deal with high freight and insurance costs is unlikely.
The L-G will take decisions on police, officers of all-India services such as the IAS and the IPS, and giving sanction for prosecution in various cases.
'When it is unpaid, sometimes, they don't take you seriously.' 'Work is not reviewed, and there is no effort in making interns learn.'
C M Bachhawat, who has served as finance secretary in the Trinamool government earlier, will take over as the industry secretary from Alapan Bandopadhyay. Bachhawat will also be given additional responsibility as executive director of WBIDC.
West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Thursday said that he was apprehending a threat to his security because of the presence of the current contingent of Kolkata Police posted at Raj Bhavan in Kolkata.
When the landslide hit, Sruthi's house was washed away, along with its inhabitants. She lost her entire family and some relatives. All she had left for a close confidante was her fiance Jenson. Days after the landslide and the loss of her family, Jenson died in a road accident that also left Sruthi with serious injuries. News of the accident and Sruthi's backdrop as the lone surviving member of a family wiped out in the July landslide, was picked up by the media, and people rushed to help.
He said the department was filing appeals in a routine manner, without careful thought and examination, leading to the department earning the dubious distinction of being the biggest litigant in the government.
The identity of the informant shall be kept a secret, it said.
India has moved 100 metric tonnes of its gold stored in the UK to domestic vaults in FY24, sources said on Friday. This is one of the biggest movements of gold undertaken by the country since 1991, when pledging a substantial part of the gold holding to tide over a foreign exchange crisis resulted in its movement out of vaults. The country's overall gold holding increased 27.46 metric tonnes in FY24 and it stands at 822 metric tonnes, as per official data.
The transferred officers included 22 IAS, 79 IPS, 45 Bihar Administrative Service officers
As per the charges, these proscribed outfits were operating under the guise of charities and were involved in funnelling funds to terror suspects.
Vimla Patil always stressed the importance of proving wrong the perception that women were women's worst enemies. And it iss a lesson I carried forward with me all through my career, learning empathy, understanding and ways to help as I went along. Sathya Saran, who succeeded Mrs Patil as Femina's editor, pays homage to the well-known journalist who passed into the ages on September 29, 2024.
In a bold initiative, the Centre has allowed the department of posts to invest about Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) from its life insurance schemes in the stock markets for better returns.
WazirX lost about 45 per cent of its crypto assets to the security breach. People privy to the discussions say North Korea has been mentioned.
Rupani announced in Gandhinagar that the finance portfolio had been given to Patel and that the issue was over now.
The supplementary demands for grants include a gross additional spending of over Rs 2 lakh crore, which would be matched by savings of over Rs 1.21 lakh crore.
The Aam Aadmi Party led by its chief minister designate Atishi staked claim to form a new government in Delhi on Tuesday shortly after Arvind Kejriwal resigned from the post, an effort seen as a bold gambit to seize the initiative ahead of assembly elections due in five months.
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman finance minister, had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget briefcase for the traditional 'bahi-khata' to carry Union Budget papers.
Owing to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman being new to her role, a number of crucial announcements in the Budget bore Garg's imprint, especially the decision to borrow in overseas markets, reduce the fiscal deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product, and resort to off-Budget borrowing to meet that target, says Arup Roychoudury.
The revised budget for 2024-25 shows a sharp rise in the allocations, particularly for major irrigation projects and the Namami Gange Mission-II.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
Portfolios were distributed 2 weeks after the MVA govt was sworn-in. Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde will be home minister while NCP's Jayant Patil will be finance minister.
The government also announced that healthcare cover under the Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme will be extended to all ASHA and anganwadi workers and helpers.
'It would be reasonable to assume that Modi 3.0 would be more focused on projects and schemes which do not require any legislative change or which have the support of its coalition partners,' asserts A K Bhattacharya.
Three key babus will make room for a new set of officers to carry the baton of Budget programmes.
Five Parliamentarians from Karnataka including Janata Dal-Secular leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet, on Sunday took oath in the new National Democratic Alliance Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She said I treated her like a bachchi. At another moment, she said I had gone to various people and 'bitched' about her. She also threatened to bring the entire matter to the PM's notice. A revealing excerpt from Subhash Chandra Garg's We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions.
United Nations proscribed terrorist Lakhvi, 61, who was on bail since 2015 in the Mumbai attack case, was arrested by the Counter-Terrorism Department of Punjab province on Saturday.
Several BJP-backed state governments have unveiled schemes targeting the poor, women, farmers and students, following the party's setback in the Lok Sabha polls.
