Besides urging the Centre for extension of loan moratorium, the hotel and travel industries have also demanded deferment of GST and advance tax payments and waiver of fees for all forthcoming licences and permits.
The finance minister is likely to announce the government's vision for a tax-friendly regime by raising the I-T exemption limit from the current Rs 250,000 per annum.
Also on the anvil is abolition of distinction between Plan and non-Plan expenditure and replacing it with capital and revenue expenditure
While GST and insolvency laws are among the major achievements of the Modi government, the list of failures include demonetisation, toxic banks, manufacturing hiccups and most prominently bizarre job creation figures. Mihir S Sharma takes a look at the four years of Modi government.
'If the Modi government is successful in extraditing a high-profile fugitive such as Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi before the 2019 election, the government will be able to link demonetisation to this and turn it into a positive.'
Jaitley, while reviewing the security situation of Jammu and Kashmir at a high level meeting, also asked the forces to deal firmly with the inimical elements but ensure safety of the innocent people, officials said.
Campaigning for the third day in a row in the state that goes to the polls on November 9, he said the election was not being fought by his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, but the people of the state who were out to "teach" a lesson to the Congress for corruption and poor law and order.
The Nifty rose 176.50 points, or 1.74 per cent, during the week.
In a resolution passed at its national assembly in Haridwar, the SJM said the Modi government's proposed strategic divestment of PSEs was an "imprudent business decision" and "against national interest".
The trio, 'twin shocks' of demonetisation and GST, 'twin balance sheet' problem that has been weakening India's banking system and the 'twin deficit' problem will continue to challenge economic management and performance in the year ahead, says Shankar Acharya.
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
'The real lifting of the economy will happen only if this momentum sustains in the coming months.'
In fact, no other recent Union Budget has held so much significance for the Indian economy as the one to be presented in about six weeks from now, notes A K Bhattacharya.
'The AMs are a different beast and reflect the political play within the government.' 'Prime Minister Modi does not need to assuage any interest group to take the final call on any decision that belongs rightfully to the Cabinet,' points out Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian says that he hopes GDP growth will be at the upper end of the 7-7.5 per cent range.
Its governing allies are not happy on the economy and complain of ignored concerns but find themselves unable to be assertive.
India's economy is moving towards a higher growth trajectory and is likely to grow at around 10 per cent in 2021-22, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) chairman Bibek Debroy said on Wednesday. "I am confident that we are on a path towards a higher growth trajectory, higher poverty reduction, higher employment, and a prosperous, more developed and better governed India. "I think it is, more or less, agreed that the real rate of growth this year (FY2022) is going to be around 10 per cent," Debroy said at an SBI event. At the beginning of FY2021-22, the forecasts for real growth were in the 8.5-12.5 per cent range, he noted.
'Challenges will come but we will stay the course. No big step can be taken if one is afraid of criticism. We will not flinch from criticism,' says Railways Minister Piyush Goyal.
It is worth reconsidering if this fascination with either having a single party majority or Modi's leadership or, indeed, both, is such a great idea for India, says Udit Misra.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
India needs to spread irrigation and do so against a backdrop of rising water scarcity and depleting groundwater resources
In another round of economic booster, Sitharaman announced steps to help homebuyers and push exports.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Sunday
Broader market underperformed with the BSE Midcap and the BSE Smallcap indices losing up to 0.2%
Sitharaman said the government understands that the contours and tone of issues for each sector varied from one to the other.
'I had expected them to fight this election on the issue of development, but they are not doing that.' 'Now they have decided to belittle Gujarat's development.'
Kejriwal's centralised way of governance might work in Delhi, but Punjab will call for delegation, observes Sanjeev Nayyar.
A K Bhattacharya lists three reasons why Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will most likely present a full Budget on February 1, 2019.
There are indications or signs of the economy picking up -- collection of GST and consumption of electricity, said former RBI governor, C Rangarajan.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and discussed issues related to the Maratha reservation, pending GST compensation and the proposed Metro car shed in Kanjur.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh puts it succinctly: "Arun Jaitley was every non-BJP person's favourite BJP-ite."
'This country today is demonstrating to the world the true meaning of federalism, the true meaning of working in partnership between the central government and the state governments.'
'We have promised to ensure reduced tax rates.'
Good monsoon, farm loan waiver -- the two key reasons behind more customers in jewellery shops
The market sentiment was also impacted by mixed global cues as setbacks for a healthcare overhaul in the US raised doubts over prospects for a range of reforms backed by President Donald Trump.
They are now scaling or shutting down their businesses because they can't compete with untaxed grey market gold. India's gold smuggling has increased significantly since the import duty was increased in the Union Budget 2019 in contravention with the broader market expectations of a cut.
Market breadth turned negative with 1,779 declines over 884 advances on the BSE
Measures may include tax slab and rate revisions for individuals, companies.
Consumption of gold is the highest among middle-income households - those with annual income between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh - who account for an average of 56 per cent of gold sales over the last five years, according to a nationwide survey conducted by India Gold Policy Centre (IGPC) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). "Per capita consumption is highest among the rich, but total volume still rests with the middle-income group. "With increasing income, there is an increasing propensity to consume gold, although the share of gold in the portfolio does not increase with the same proportion of income," the survey report says.
With certain quarters demanding privatisation of public sector banks in the aftermath of the alleged fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB), Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister chairman Bibek Debroy tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Ishan Bakshi and Indivjal Dhasmana that reducing government equity even to zero would not mean giving up of government control over these banks.
