The Budget oration of the finance minister and the confidence with which she delivered it, along with the measures and the recent upsurge in the economy would all contribute to unleashing the storied 'animal spirits' and help the economy run on the growth path quite smoothly. Or so the government hopes, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
For the first, Jaitley said the Parliament held a comprehensive debate on sanitation.
"We know you have the numbers and you will pass the budget anyway. But some good suggestions could have come from here (assembly)," he said.
In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that the government is committed to the universalisation of the Integrated Child Development Services scheme in the country. Expressing grave concern at the low level of female literacy in the country, Mukherjee said the aim of the National Mission for Female Literacy would be to reduce the current level of female illiteracy by half in three years.
The Rajya Sabha gave its nod to the Railways for withdrawing additional funds of Rs 1024.61 crore (Rs 10.24 billion) for 2010-11 amidst din.
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 Congress is planning to call a meeting of Opposition parties in May. It is possible to keep all possibilities open in case Karnataka yields a hung House, leading to a recalibrated Opposition.
Rajya Sabha will sit for late hours in last week of the first half of the budget session from Monday to clear the pending legislative and other businesses.
'That Modi and the BJP can continue to treat the rising and expanding middle class this way shows that they have gamed its mind quite perfectly,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Can Jaitley's team hope to garner 17% more on personal income tax?
The pre-budget exercise is scheduled to begin after Diwali holidays, from October 29, with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh starting consultations with various government departments.
Tharoor's social media post condoling Musharraf's demise evoked a sharp response from the Bharatiya Janata Party which accused the Congress of "Pakistan parasti (worshipping)".
The results of the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are likely to play out during the winter session of Parliament beginning Wednesday.
Eminent economist Arvind Panagariya has said India is on the cusp of returning to a high growth trajectory and voiced confidence that the country will become the world's third-largest economy by 2027-28. Currently, India is the fifth largest economy "so it's another five years.We are already in (the year) 2023. "So 2027-28, India should be the third-largest economy," Panagariya, Columbia University Professor and former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, told PTI in an interview in New York.
The Lok Sabha, chaired by Speaker Om Birla, has been working for more than its scheduled time and has sat till midnight on two occasions to complete its legislative business.
The cross-Line of Control surgical strikes, policy towards Pakistan, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, besides One Rank, One Pension and the plight of farmers were also among issues that were raised at the meeting with parties demanding discussion on them.
In 2009, FinMin proposed to move regulators' reserves into public account. These accounts were finally opened in 2013-14. However, no funds have been deposited in it so far.
Jaitley said a 10 per cent tax long on capital gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh made from the sale of shares has been introduced but those made till Janaury 31 would be grandfathered. A 10 per cent tax on distributed income by equity oriented mutual funds has also been proposed in the budget.
The monsoon session of parliament is all set to begin on July 21, but it will be a truncated three-week affair.
The Union minister asked Gandhi to "follow the law "and secure acquittal from a higher court.
Indications of a stormy start to the Budget session emerged at an all-party meeting with opposition accusing the government of "setting the agenda for disruption".
Opposition parties on Friday criticised the government's decision to hike railway fares terming it as "criminal" to burden the people with such an increase and questioned as to why Parliament was not taken into confidence before taking the step.
Politicians and Twitter warriors around the globe have a new buzzword among them: Net zero. Everyone appears to be keen to state their commitment to net zero, with India providing an outlay of Rs 35,000 crore to achieve energy transition and net-zero objectives in its Budget for FY24, even as the latest and final report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that current efforts are not enough to curb global warming. A number of small factory owners and businesses, however, have pointed out that the transition to net-zero emissions will cost them hugely.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday presented the Union Budget for 2016-17.
Sunday curfew. Weekend curfews. Deserted streets. Crowded streets.
The Budget session of Parliament concluded on Wednesday with passage of record official business in recent years but the government failed to ensure passage of the controversial Land Acquisition Bill as also key reform measure of GST amid stiff resistance from opposition.
The CrPC (Identification) Bill empowers the police to obtain physical and biological samples of convicts and those accused of crimes while the DMC (Amendment) Bill, 2022 seeks to unify the three civic bodies in the national capital.
'In his 2014 election campaign, Mr Modi had boasted that he would apply the Gujarat model to the rest of India. We just have to ensure he doesn't start with Parliament,' says Shashi Tharoor in this fascinating excerpt from his new book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi And His India.
The fiscal deficit in the first three months of current fiscal stood at Rs 2.86 lakh crore or 51.6 per cent of Budget estimates for 2015-16.
The agitational programmes include the 'Loktantra Bachao Mashal Shanti March' starting from Red Fort on Tuesday and a series of press conferences in 35 major cities across the country on March 28 and 29.
A strong showing will be vital to Narendra Modi's chances of a second term.
A BJP leader in Bihar on Thursday died while taking part in a 'Vidhan Sabha march' against the state's Nitish Kumar government, evoking allegations from senior party leaders that he was "killed in a brutal lathi charge".
The 42-year-old is holding a solid 55 per cent lead with the Oddschecker betting odds aggregator, followed by a 29 per cent chance of former prime minister Boris Johnson making a comeback. Third placed in what is emerging as a three-way contest is Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, who had polled third in the first round of parliamentary votes to shortlist candidates for the last leadership race.
'The finance minister and the government have met the immediate challenge. The wine this time is new and also in a new bottle, which, though not full, is less than half empty.'
Railway Budget will be presented on February 26.
According to the third batch of supplementary demands for grants tabled in the Lok Sabha, approval is being sought for gross additional expenditure of over Rs 1.58 lakh crore.
The Union Cabinet has approved amendments to the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, paving the way for privatisation of government-owned insurers. The amendments, approved by Cabinet, will remove the clause for the Centre to hold at least 51 per cent in public sector insurance companies at any given time. It will also have an enabling provision for the transfer of management control from the government to the potential buyer of the public sector insurance company. The finance ministry will move amendments to the insurance Act in the ongoing Parliament session.
Congress members also vociferously pressed for a discussion on the Comptroller and Auditor General report.
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