Finance Minister Piyush Goyal: 'I hope the Congress governments and other states like West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana will support our effort to bring petrol and diesel into the GST regime.'
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
'Even before the outbreak of the flu, it had become clear that the tax revenue numbers for 2019-2020 were overestimated,' observes A K Bhattacharya.
'GST had to come close on the heels of demonetisation as part of the same package.'
Jaitley, the first Union minister to meet Jaya since her conviction, manages to secure the AIADMK's conditional support to the government's crucial legislations in the Rajya Sabha.
The Congress chief said if his party is elected to power, its government would spend 6 per cent of the GDP on education.
In the four-paragraph letter, Jaitley said he had orally informed Modi about his desire not to be a part of the new BJP government to enable him to concentrate on treatment and health.
Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu alleged that by not allowing Parliament to function, Congress was not stopping the Modi government but "creating hurdles" in the country's development.
The Congress president addressing women students at the Stella Maris College said that the law must apply to everybody and not be applied selectively.
The party has asked all its leaders to be present with their supporters.
Narendra Modi was both conciliatory and mocking towards the Opposition, particularly Congress, during his hour long reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address in the Upper House.
Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC, speaks about a range of issues ranging from inflation, to how Goods and Services Tax and land acquisition bills can help India hit double digit growth, and her impressions about economic growth in the last one year after Narendra Modi took over as India's Prime Minister.
Citi, HSBC and UBS etc have already cut their market targets.
In the first part of an exclusive interview with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com on the eve of the first year of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, BJP President Amit Shah talks about the government's achievements and the controversy over the land ordinance.
'In old India, there was no hatred, anger or lynching. New India is one where humans are enemies of each other'
'Our prime minister has set a scorching pace. He's logged more airline miles than professional airline pilots... On his regular visits to Delhi, he has also signed files galore.' 'How much of this activity has translated into useful action on the ground,' asks Devangshu Datta.
P Chidambaram accused the BJP of making a u-turn on bills like GST after having stalled them during the UPA regime.
Only one 25 basis points rate cut is likely this calendar year, between April and June, the poll says
The full transcript of the exclusive interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The government has provided a long-term vision.
'The RBI is not releasing Rs 2,000 notes for the last 10 days; probably they have stopped printing it.'
If the government does not allow the Opposition a few victories, then it is opening the door to paralysis and an entrenched culture of confrontation.
Even in this darkest hour of a crumbling economy and raging disease, there is hardly a murmur of protest against the government, observes Sumit Bhattacharya.
Most Asian markets were trading weak on Monday.
Going by the number of changes Mr Jaitley's next Budget is likely to see, he will go down in the history of Budget-making as the finance minister who ushered in the largest number of changes in a single Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday hiked tax on petrol and diesel, raised import duty on gold, levied additional surcharge on super rich and brought a tax on high value cash withdrawals as she sought to spur growth with reduction in corporate tax and sops to housing sector, startups and electric vehicles.
This time, the global appetite for risk is in favour of India.
Global events will continue to be in the limelight, besides domestic policy.
When the Centre collects money through cess, it can retain the entire fund for the particular scheme.
The Sensex ended higher by 245 points at 27,372 mark and the Nifty gained 66 points at 8,225.
Whereas the headline growth rate appears very respectable, India needs faster to growth to generate jobs.
To begin, the Budget has no doubt attempted to address uncertainty.
'The economy needed 3 or 4 major fixes. The major one was, of course, the direct tax structure, but we ended up complicating the existing convoluted tax structure,' says M R Venkatesh, chartered accountant and lawyer.
A consensus builder, Jaitley was regarded by some as Modi's original 'Chanakya'.
The 30-share Sensex ended up 214 points at 27,890 and the 50-share Nifty closed up 52 points at 8,430.
Vociferous protests by Opposition members led by the Congress continued in the Lok Sabha.
Puri pointed out that government's work on agricultural constituents like functioning of the APMCs, irrigation and direct benefit transfers will help the supply side
The resurgence that Congressmen feel is in fact more sentimental than substantive. The substantive reality is that the Congress is a party in terminal decline since 1989, says Shekhar Gupta.
Mixed global cues and decline in crude oil prices further dent the sentiments.
Post-Jayalalithaa AIADMK cannot take on the Narendra Modi dispensation like their late charismatic leader did it on several occasions in the past, says R Ramasubramanian.
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