The focus is likely to be on consolidation and improvement of existing rural-centric programmes to ensure their completion ahead of the next general elections in 2019, rather than announcement of new schemes. Sanjeeb Mukherjee and Arup Roychoudhury report.
From farmers to cement, steel, logistics, transportation and automobiles, the back-end is struggling to get going due to the liquidity crisis.
'The policy is to consolidate farming into the hands of a few and to take away the food security of the country.' 'Once food is in the hands of 15 chosen corporate houses, you will get food, but at a price that they determine.'
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
If India wants to become a globally competitive manufacturing hub, it will have to rethink the notion that the traditional SMEs will form the manufacturing backbone, argues Prosenjit Datta.
Google is building voice and text search for over 100 Indian languages and will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country, said its CEO Sundar Pichai at the start of his visit to India - a nation that he saw as a big export economy. India, he said, will be a big export economy and it needs to create a balance between safeguarding citizens and enabling companies to innovate with its framework. Pichai first met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at a Google for India 2022 event before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to make this decade a "techade" for India and the push for 5G, semiconductors and transformation through digital services is going to boost the technology sector in the country, industry players said on Monday. Modi, in his speech on the 76th Independence Day, touched upon all-round development of technology in the country, from 5G to push for electronic chips, laying of optical fibre cable (OFC) network across villages and enablement of digital entrepreneurship in villages through Common Services Centres, making the present decade as "techade" for India. Homegrown mobile devices maker Lava International's Chairman and Managing Director Hari Om Rai said electronics and technology sectors create about $4 trillion of revenue.
Rajan retained the short-term lending rate at 6.5 and the cash reserve requirement of banks at 4 per cent.
A model being considered is to have a combined cold chain approach - where the agricultural cold chain would be combined with vaccine cold chains.
The government is doing things in agriculture that count for little, says Shreekant Sambrani.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the signing of a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement, a kind of a free trade pact, between India and Mauritius which is aimed at liberalising norms to boost two-way commerce
The government has the upper hand in the ongoing negotiations, and it is unclear if a real debate will happen, observes Tulika Narayan.
'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
States need to create alternative marketing structures for farm produce since middlemen also provide vital services that are otherwise unavailable to the farmer.
ICT products make up a minuscule $ 407 million, out of the $ 35.54 billion of total inbound shipments from the US, as of now.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
'Electronic media splash sensational headlines of the bulb prices about to cross the three-figure mark and focus on customers looking longingly at baskets full of onions, bemoaning their misery without this essential staple of their diet,' notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which is aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and exports, is expected to increase the country's production by $520 billion in the next five years. Addressing a webinar on PLI scheme, organised by Department of Industry and International Trade (DPIIT) and NITI Aayog, through video conference, Modi said the government is continuously carrying out reforms to boost domestic manufacturing. In this year's Budget, about Rs 2 lakh crore was earmarked for the PLI scheme for the next five years and "there is an expectation that the scheme would result in increasing the production by about $520 billion in the next five years", he said. He added that there is also an expectation that the current workforce in the sectors, which will avail the benefits of the PLI scheme, will be doubled and job creation will also increase.
Blind spots of the company were two-fold - managing cash flow and investments to upgrade technology and continue research and development.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
India's economy could prove to be the "most resilient" in the subregion of South and South-West Asia over the long term, according to a report by the UN, which says a positive but lower economic growth post COVID-19 pandemic and the country's large market will continue to attract investments. The report titled 'Foreign Direct Investment Trends And Outlook In Asia And The Pacific 2020/2021', and compiled by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), stated that inward FDI flows to South and South-West Asia slightly decreased by 2 per cent in 2019, from $67 billion in 2018 to $66 billion in 2019. The growth, however, was mainly driven by India, which accounted for 77 per cent of the total inflows to the subregion and received $51 billion in 2019, up 20 per cent from the previous year.
Deep down, Katragadda is still that boy who makes as well as sells soap
The PM said that the Union Budget will accelerate the economic growth, financially empower every citizen and strengthen the foundation of the economy in the new decade.
WhatsApp has drawn massive criticism from users globally, including India over concerns that data was being shared with its parent company, Facebook. WhatsApp, on its part, has maintained that messages on the platform are end-to-end encrypted and that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see the private messages on WhatsApp's platform.
'We need to further catalyse economic growth and the government needs to increase revenue,' says G K Agarwal, BJP's national spokesperson on economic affairs.
The policy proposes a single-window platform for facilitation of the Indian software product industry, to help fast-track legal and regulatory issues over import and export, as well as setting up and winding up enterprises.
Agriculture, social services, education, defence and so on will be brought into the digital fold and every gram panchayat will be connected to the internet.
Kejriwal's centralised way of governance might work in Delhi, but Punjab will call for delegation, observes Sanjeev Nayyar.
These unmanned aerial vehicles can fly at high speeds, detect intruders, do aerobatic maneuvers like loops, rolls, spins, and hammerheads effortlessly and communicate with each other intelligently.
Foreign Trade Policy: More incentives for exports, focus on ease of trading
In spite of Budget's rural focus, the government has consistently stumbled in agriculture, says Shreekant Sambrani.
Here's the full text of President's Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament on the first of Budget Session 2022.
'India missed the software products revolution (and now is in danger of missing the platform revolution), complacent that we are the software experts of the world based on IT services prowess,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
The Chinese smartphone maker's focus on offline retail has helped it overtake Samsung in top 50 cities in India.
The MHA on Friday, while extending the lockdown for two more weeks till May 17, lifted many restrictions in green and orange zones. There are no restrictions on sale of non-essential items by e-commerce platforms in green and orange zones, a home ministry spokesperson said, adding barber shops and salons are also allowed to open in these areas.
'There is a law that prevents the government from diluting its equity in the PSBs below 50 per cent.' 'That law has to be amended and given the parliamentary arithmetic of the political parties, it is not as simple to do that.'
SBI had a tough journey in the last 40 years.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
Boost to dairy sector will generate jobs
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