India has been relatively insulated from the severe headwinds in the West. However, with a third of the global economy expected to slip into recession in calendar year 2023, the impact will strongly be felt on India's exports and trade economy, leading economists said in a panel discussion at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit in Mumbai on Wednesday. The panel comprised former Reserve Bank of India executive director and former Monetary Policy Committee member Mridul Saggar, State Bank of India Chief Economic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Citibank India Chief Economist Samiran Chakraborty, ICRA Chief Economist Aditi Nayar, and IndusInd Bank Chief Economist Gaurav Kapoor. The topic of the panel discussion was No recession in sight: Is India decoupled from developed economies?
India's services sector activity moderated further in January as new business rose at a noticeably slower rate amid the escalation of the pandemic, reintroduction of restrictions and inflationary pressures, a monthly survey said on Thursday. The seasonally adjusted India Services Business Activity Index fell to 51.5 in January, down from 55.5 in December, pointing to the slowest rate of expansion in the current six-month sequence of growth. For the sixth straight month, the services sector witnessed an expansion in output.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will take a final call on whether to break the tradition of presenting a separate Rail Budget, by merging it with the General Budget.
The fiscal deficit in current fiscal has been estimated at 3.9%.
Nirmala Sitharaman's messaging was clear when she presented a well-balanced Budget with an eye on state elections in nine states followed by a general election next year, observes Ramesh Menon.
This will violate the time-honoured convention that a government elected for a five-year tenure presents only five full Budgets, but the NDA government will no doubt present it as yet another initiative of Mr Modi.
'The government must provide more funds to enable the armed forces to fight and win tomorrow's wars,' states Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
From the enactment of the capital control Act to the recognition of the BSE as a stock exchange and the infamous Harshad Mehta scam, here are the 18 biggest events for stock markets from 1947 to 1993.
It is time for the three finance ministers of the 1990s to reveal the real hero, says T C A Srinavasa-Raghavan.
The Covid pandemic has left a question mark on how the central government manages its staff.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) booked massive gains on its foreign currency sales and needed to provide much lesser for its reserves in 2020-21 (FY21), helping it to carve out a significant Rs 99,122-crore dividend for the government, revealed the RBI's annual report for FY21. By doing so, the central bank's risk buffers have reduced to the bare minimum, which may restrict some of RBI's scale of operations, and would likely hamper dividend payout for financial year 2021-22, said analysts. The annual accounts are for nine months ended March 31, 2021 since the RBI changed its accounting year from July-June to April-March from FY21.
Jaitley was replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on Supplementary Demands for Grants for an additional expenditure of over Rs 12,500 crore (Rs 125 billion).
The central bank can directly print money and finance the government, but it should avoid doing so unless there is absolutely no alternative, former RBI governor D Subbarao on Wednesday said while pointing out that India is 'nowhere' near such a scenario. In an interview with PTI, Subbarao suggested that to deal with the second wave of COVID-19 induced slowdown in the economy, the government can consider Covid bonds as an option to raise borrowing, not in addition to budgeted borrowing, but as a part of that.
In order to provide greater leeway to central government departments and ministries to finalise centrally-funded projects, the Department of Expenditure under the finance ministry has increased the financial limits of projects requiring approval from various cost-approving bodies.
The announcement of a deferral is expected to be part of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's Budget speech on February 29.
"How many more lies will be peddled to sustain a sinking dynast? India, certainly deserves better," Jaitley said.
Stepped up public expenditure must be accompanied by focused policies, advises Vinayak Chatterjee.
There are 1.9 million employees and 650,000 pensioners in Maharashtra.
After the initial release of funds, the central government follows certain rules and guidelines before awarding the final aid to any state for a natural calamity.
India's economy will do well once vaccination reaches a critical mass as pent up demand, global recovery and easy financial conditions will boost activities, RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Ashima Goyal said on Tuesday.
The infrastructure spending target for 2020-25 was revised because of additional and amended data provided by central ministries, state governments since the release of the summary NIP Report in December 2019 when it was pegged at Rs 100 trillion.
Following the Supreme Court verdict which clipped the powers of the LG, the bone of contention between the Delhi government and his office continues to be control over the services department.
Likely to be merged with Union Budget from FY18
The technical report of the NSSO has generated controversy following its observation that as much as 36 per cent units forming part of MCA-21 database, used in computing GDP, could not be either identifiable or traceable in the field.
The CoS, headed by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, has also decided to set up a committee overseen by additional secretary, expenditure, Vilasini Ramachandran, and key finance ministry officials who have been asked to work out a financial package.
Shankar Prajapati, a 57-year-old potter in Dharavi, has given up hope of getting a bigger house for his family. He lives cheek by jowl in a hutment measuring 200 square (sq.) feet (ft) in the nondescript shanty town. "We have surrendered to our fate. We cannot wait forever for better accommodation. "Perhaps we are not meant to dream big," despairs Prajapati. Raju Korde, president, Dharavi Redevelopment Committee, and a local resident, agrees with Prajapati.
The government is trying to promote infrastructure development through PPP projects and has suggested the state should pick projects under this mode in a big way.
The strategy to achieve the target would be to maximise revenue collections and control expenditure, Chidambaram said, while seeking support of the political parties to deal with economic and financial problems facing the country.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Monday reported multiple irregularities in the accounts of units under the IT and telecom ministries, including purchases of hardware and software worth Rs 890 crore by NICSI in contravention of rules. In its audit report for financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has flagged anomalies in the decision taken by state-run telecom firm BSNL, C-DoT, the Department of Posts, ITI Limited and CDAC that had adverse financial implications. "NICSI procured hardware and software costing Rs 890.34 crore through the 'Strategic Alliance' route in contravention of General Financial Rules, 2005 and departmental instructions and thus failed to ensure transparency and competitiveness in the procurement process," according to the CAG report tabled in Lok Sabha on Monday.
Bailout packages for fiscally stressed states are in the works, as the government seeks to garner political backing for the key policy reforms it plans to fast-track after the five state elections. A senior finance ministry official involved in the process said a high-level committee under expenditure secretary Sumit Bose had held consultations to identify measures to help West Bengal, Punjab and Kerala.
Government looking at cushioning slowdown due to demonetisation with sops and higher outlay for micro, small and medium enterprises, agriculture, and affordable housing.
The entire Budget-making exercise will be advanced by 3-4 weeks so as to complete the legislative part of financial business before April 1, the start of a financial year
The panel will also recommend a fiscal consolidation road map for the central and state governments, study the impact of GST on the divisible pool, and propose performance-based incentives for states.
India's per capita expenditure on defence is less than $10, while the average expenditure of the top ten spenders in Asia is $800 approximately.
Phase-I clinical trials have revealed "excellent safety" of the two candidate vaccines indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Cadila Healthcare Ltd and their immunogenicity testing is now in progress, minister of state for health Ashwini Choubey informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The Tejas Mark 1A outperforms the Sino-Pakistan JF-17 Thunder in avionics and weaponry, but the finance ministry's tax burden makes the Indian LCA costlier and hurts it in the export market.
Let there be a rule that if the Budget is not passed and funds cannot be drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India, there will be a government shutdown as it happens in the United States, says A K Bhattacharya.
At $37 per dose, the Pfizer vaccine is much more expensive compared to $3 per dose for the Covishield.
Finance Minister announced the approval of the scholarship scheme for students of minority communities. The scheme will be effective during 11th Five Year Plan.
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