For next fiscal, the minority stake sale target has been kept at Rs 36,000 crore.
Allowing it to lapse leaves you unprotected and can, in some cases, cause loss of premiums paid, experts tell Sanjay Kumar Singh.
Arun Jaitley had a tough fiscal hill to climb.
Of the seven surveys presented under Modi govt, predictions of three were quite close to the actual GDP growth rate, one saw the base year change in between, but the last three were way off the mark.
The government also sought approval from Parliament for equity infusion worth Rs 2,345 crore into struggling Air India and another Rs 1,300 crore for Air India Asset Holding.
Listing out priorities for the Finance Ministry under Arun Jaitley and the Narendra Modi government as a whole, it said the growth rate can pick up to 6 per cent with the extent and pace of reform measures.
There is a case for analysing the fiscal deficit, separately for expenditure and investment.
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
GST rate cut for real-estate, income transfer scheme, farm loan waivers execution and recapitalisation of PSU banks have the potential to boost India's growth in a few months, says Neelkanth Mishra.
Govt resists pay panel suggestion on scrapping allowances for acting, bad climate, family planning, funeral, robe maintenance and even hair cutting.
It is possible that the final Budget architecture may be at variance with the comments.
Softening the demonetisation blow, the Budget for 2017-18 on Wednesday halved the tax to 5 per cent on incomes up to Rs 500,000 but proposed a new surcharge of 10 per cent on incomes between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore and raised duties on cigarettes and pan masala while stepping up allocations for infrastructure, rural, agriculture and social sectors.
The main reason was that CPI inflation would likely remain below 4 per cent till July.
21st century may have witnessed expansion of higher educational institutions, but who can afford it? Sushree Panigrahi & Jeet Singh look at the numbers.
'Is the appointment of a CDS likely to achieve the creation of battle-ready, tri-service military commands, from the current 17 single-service commands?', asks Ajai Shukla.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sumitra Mahajan will be appointed Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha on Friday. Other key parliamentary posts like that of Leader of Opposition, deputy Speaker, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and head of the all-important standing committee on finance will be keenly contested.
Significantly, about half of the CEOs who took part in the survey indicated that they propose to increase their investments in near future, 45 per cent cited no change in investment levels, while only 5 per cent expected a fall.
The Bill neither plans to make the Aadhar mandatory or limit its issuance to citizens.
'Growth is predicated on the misery of large sections of people.' 'Maybe Hindutva will be used to suppress any such unrest.'
Prime Minister Modi felt there were too many silos with no arrangement to take a comprehensive view on national security. The PM has entrusted NSA Ajit Doval to evolve a comprehensive roadmap and get it implemented, reveals Nitin Gokhale, Editor-in-Chief, Strategic News International.
The CAD in 2012-13 was at 4.7 per cent of GDP and in 2013-14 it will only 1.7 per cent, the Finance Minister said.
Rajan said it was important that the government and the RBI be vigilant to the growth scenario.
'On the tax front, most of the Budget proposals are sensible'.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leash on foreign junkets of his ministers and bureaucrats seems to have trickled down to states as well.
Kerala has seen one of the worst floods in its history during this monsoon. From August 8 to 20, nearly 223 people have lost their lives, 33 are missing and around 1.2 million individuals from 3,02,441 families are in 3,941 relief camps. Initial losses are estimated to be around Rs 200 billion (Rs 20,000 crore). With the rescue measures in its last leg, the Kerala government is looking at raising funds to rebuild the state. In an interaction with Gireesh Babu and T E Narasimhan, Kerala Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac says he has a three-pronged strategy to raise funds. Edited Excerpts.
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The catalyst is the run on emerging market equities, but many investors are just tired of waiting for India to get its act together.
Modi govt must implement few policy measures which it announced in Budget 2015.
All the Gujarat cadre officers have one thing in common. They do not need Modi's 'informal interactions' and advice because they are from the so-called 'Modi school of governance.' They know Modi well enough to perform their assigned roles.
The Union government is reportedly considering doing away with the practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget.
'There is tension between the zones all the time.'
Indian economy about to take-off
A brief report card on Modi's ministers.
As a result of the mass state-led scheme, the processes in the health insurance market could get simplified over time and become uniform
Upon implementation of the 7th Pay Commission the expected yearly burden on the central exchequer will be more than Rs 100,000 crore. Central government employees will get on an average a 24 per cent pay hike. Still, the unions aren't happy.
Expenditure on health in India is at a global low of 1.2% of GDP.
A sovereign bond float continued to be among the range of options to address the current account deficit (CAD), Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Tuesday, even as former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha asked him to tell Parliament the Centre would not countenance that measure.
The absence of a clear underlying economic ideology in the Budget was quite evident, say experts.
Whilst substantive public allocations have been made in the infrastructure sector, this strategy is plateauing due to the fiscal deficit constraint, capacity limitation of statal implementing agencies, the declining ability of PSUs, and the precarious situation of the Railways' operating ratio. It is, thus, high time to get the policy compass to point at rejuvenating private sector investments in infrastructure, says Vinayak Chatterjee.
The Islamic State rakes in over US $1 million (Rs 6.4 crore) per day in extortion and taxation and the dreaded terror group has enough assets to cover its expenses despite falling oil prices, according to a media report.
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