Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman on Friday met her counterparts in Singapore and Canada and discussed various issues, including economy, health and opportunities for collaboration. Sitharaman met UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, Singapore Finance Minister Lawrence Wong and Canada's Deputy Prime Minister & Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on the sidelines of the G-20 Joint Finance and Health Ministers' meeting. "Finance Minister Smt. @nsitharaman had an engaging discussion with @cafreeland Dy. Prime Minister & Finance Minister of Canada on the sidelines of #G20 Finance & Health Ministers Meeting in #Rome. The Ministers discussed various issues, including economic and health cooperation," a Finance Ministry tweet said.
With a rise in the number of cyber crimes and hacking, and many putting a question mark on safety of Aadhaar data, the FM might bring proposals in this regard and allocate funds separately.
Our last mile delivery stood out, she said, and promised that programmes will be accelerated and red tape will be reduced.
Macroeconomic management is usually a lot more comfortable with lower fiscal deficits. The sooner we get there, the better for the economy, says former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Shankar Acharya.
The e-commerce sector is also fraught with redundant taxation laws that need immediate overhaul
In years past, we often approached the Budget expecting to see changes in direct and indirect taxes. Those days are behind us. The Budget of today seeks to expand the economy and keep it at the forefront of technology, observes Harsh Goenka.
R S Gujral shifted after controversial taxation proposals during his tenure
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held wide-ranging talks with his visiting Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Wednesday against the backdrop of widespread anger in West Asia over controversial remarks on Prophet Mohammed made by two former Bharatiya Janata Party spokespersons.
The aim of the exercise was to further simplify GST forms and make the filing process more user-friendly, the finance ministry said in a tweet, reports Dilasha Seth.
Will Family Man have a season 3?
Junking of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, he said, will help the world's fastest growing major economy to move towards less cash economy and digital payments that will help shore up tax revenues and check evasions.
After the finance minister directed public sector banks to join the account aggregator (AA) ecosystem, 5-6 major ones, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda are expected to go live by July-end. Sahmati, an industry alliance for the AA ecosystem, has been working with PSU banks to get them onboarded for quite some time now. So far, Union Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have gone live on the AA ecosystem. While Union Bank has been live for a while, PNB went live earlier this month.
Two years ago, India was touted as a rare bright spot in a gloomy global economy with GDP growth outpacing a slowing China.
Market experts on why the bulls will be on the rampage first thing on Monday after the scrapping of enhanced surcharge on FPIs and other measures to ease the systemic liquidity squeeze and boost demand. Prasanna D Zore reports.
Speaking at CNBC TV 18's business leadership awards event, Sitharaman made it clear that she was not expecting a jump in the number either.
Credit to priority sectors as well as small and medium industries will be discussed to find ways to accelerate economic growth.
At a pre-Budget meeting, the FM was asked to ensure that NBFCs come out of the liquidity crisis they are facing with the help of RBI. They also spoke about the futility of trying to achieve a 3 per cent fiscal deficit target over the medium term.
These new coins will be made available for public use shortly, said Sitharaman.
Jaitley said that when cash is deposited in the banks, it loses anonymity and can be identified with its owner.
Referring to demonetisation of high value currency notes, Jaitley said it was well received as 'imandari ka utsav.'
There's a 13 per cent increase over last year, in an effort to put its flagging revenues back on track.
There are no regulations governing virtual currencies in India and the RBI has not given any licence to any entity/company to operate such currencies.
While India's GDP growth slowed to five-year low of 5.8% in Q4, China grew at 6.4%.
Take some time off to write a postcard to the finance minister, tell Mr Arun Jaitley your wishlist for Union Budget 2018.
An Australian court on Thursday rejected the 2Day FM station's petition, paving the way for the country's media watchdog to conclude its probe into handling of a royal prank call by the Sydney-based radio station that led to the death of an Indian-origin nurse in the United Kingdom.
Days after the government went public with its intent to examine a Sebi order in the NSE matter, its outgoing chairman Ajay Tyagi on Wednesday made it clear that the markets regulator did not "dilute" any of the quasi-judicial verdicts. The comments assume significance as they come after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, as per reports, recently said the government is examining if Sebi has taken "necessary punitive" action in the case. In a media interview, the FM had said the government was analysing if there had been "enough application of mind in dealing with this" and if after applying its mind, Sebi took adequate corrective steps.
He also reiterated India's strong support in the fight against terrorism with Sri Lanka, which saw the country's worst terror attack on Easter Sunday.
Harrish M Bhatia, chief executive of 94.3 MY FM, the station under the Dainik Bhaskar group, tells Gaurav Laghate regional markets hold great potential.
RJ Malishka has a message for the BMC! Who's listening?
Another major development is REITs coming closer to reality
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday approved the biggest tax reform since Independence.
Speaking at a roadshow in Frankfurt on investment opportunities in India on Monday, the Minister said the economy was on the right path to achieve growth levels recorded during 2004-2008.
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, who faced a stinging attack from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for presiding over the "worst phase" of the Indian banking sector, on Thursday reminded her that two-third of his tenure as the head of the central bank was under the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
He was permanently absorbed into the ED cadre in 2014 and has headed some high-profile investigations into the 2G spectrum allocation case, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the money laundering cases against former Union finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, the Aircel Maxis and VVIP choppers case.
Mitra also said currency demonetisation has led to closure of small industries and left hundreds jobless across the country
Party leader Rahul Gandhi dubbed the Union Budget as a 'zero-sum budget', saying it has nothing for the salaried, middle class and the poor.
The FM said an announcement with regard to the additional steps will be made after consulting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
These houses will have amenities such as LPG, electricity and toilets, she said.
India has maintained that there can be no talks with Pakistan unless it stops supporting terrorists.
