Officers responsible for preparing budgets say their detailed costing projections are mostly ignored. The defence ministry simply takes the previous year's budgetary allocations for each service and adds a small percentage to those.
In a Twitter post last Friday, the 39-year-old son-in-law of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy is seen holding a bag of Yorkshire Tea along with the message: 'Quick Budget prep break making tea for the team. Nothing like a good Yorkshire brew.' It attracted a host of trolls and negative reactions, largely directed against the ruling Conservative Party but also targeted at Yorkshire Tea -- one of the UK's oldest tea brands.
The major focus of this year's Economic Survey was on pushing economic growth, which has been projected by the Central Statistical Organisation at 5 per cent for this fiscal, sharply lower than the original estimate of 7.6 per cent (+/- 0.25 per cent).
In a first, the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) officers reached out to several ministries in the last week of April as part of a confidence-boosting measure. The meeting brought the CAG officials and those from the ministries across the table to discuss the pain points in their relations. CAG of India Girish Chandra Murmu took this novel step because of growing tensions between those audited and the auditor.
A bill to modify the list of scheduled castes in Tamil Nadu by grouping of seven castes which presently exist as separate castes, was passed by the Lok Sabha on Friday.
According to state government sources, not only did the governor insert some corrections, but he also initialled the final draft after those corrections had been made, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Thank you, Mr Prime Minister, for bringing colour to our colourless, drab, despair-ridden lives.
The central government on Monday issued a Gazette notification to extend the tenure of defence secretary, home secretary, director of Intelligence Bureau, and secretary of Research and Analysis Wing for a period of two years.
For its development, India needs a movement akin to the freedom movement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.
In an exclusive column to Rediff.com, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat explains what is wrong with the Union Budget 2011-12 that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented in Parliament on Monday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman cut fuel subsidies while slapping additional fuel taxes on unblended transport fuels in the latest Union Budget. The former will hit the rural poor, households that secured a subsidised LPG connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), a programme that was partly instrumental in helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the 2019 general elections. The latter will pretty much hurt the entire population after it kicks in from October. That's what it looks like. Or, perhaps, it's not as it appears to be, at least on the subsidy front.
Demonetisation hit informal sector hard and caused job losses which was not addressed by the budget, Moily said.
As Pranab Mukherjee passes away, we remember the man, the politician, the Rashtrapati.
'He has a splendid opportunity to capitalise on the CPEC and turn the economy around decisively, putting Pakistan firmly on a higher growth trajectory.' 'Indeed, under the Imran-Bajwa dispensation, there has been a noticeable whittling down of support to militant groups,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Index heavyweights Reliance Industries and ITC were the top losers along with ICICI Bank and SBI
Almost all infrastructure ministries continued spending on capex throughout the lockdown, even as the Centre tried to maintain some semblance of economic normalcy.
With an aggressive Opposition and unyielding government, important legislation could be the biggest casualty, as details of the helicopter contract surface.
Bank strike continued for day-two on Tuesday, led by nine unions of public sector banks (PSBs) in the country, opposing government's policy to privatise the lenders. Customers will be inconvenienced to get services such as cash withdrawals, deposits, cheque clearances, remittance services. Government transactions related to treasury as well as business transactions will also be impacted. United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, had given a strike call for March 15 and 16.
Survey likely to be tabled in July by the new government.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, he said, 'We will not allow reservation to be done away with, no matter how much Modi Ji or Mohan Bhagwat dream of it.'
The event will be significant for the Congress and Trinamool Congress leaderships, cementing the proximity during the winter session of Parliament.
After meeting Shah, Patnaik said he briefed the minister on the current situation in Hauz Qazi area.
The Finance Ministry said it has followed standard practice and has not violated any Constitutional provision by not showing interest on tax refund as separate expenditure in the Budget.
Jaitley is now a minister without portfolio in the Narendra Modi government.
It is baffling how the PM chose the LCH as an indigenous product to celebrate on Rashtriya Raksha Samarpan Parv, even while his Cabinet holds up manufacturing clearance for 15 LCHs on the grounds that they are not Indian enough.
Modi had clearly not come to terms with the limits to a prime minister's powers, any prime minister's powers however strong numbers he may have in Parliament, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'Will Mr Jaitley listen, or is that expecting too much in pre-election season?' asks T N Ninan.
Indian economy about to take-off
Finance ministry sources have countered CAG audit finding of central government wrongly retaining Rs 47,272 crore of GST compensation cess meant for states, saying temporary retention cannot be termed as diversion.
The new regulator will be called Civil Aviation Authority that will also administer financial matters.
Supplementary provisions exceeded the original provision by as much as 239,900 per cent in 2014-15.
Called "Babuji", the former chief minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh and former Governor of Uttar Pradesh in the post-Babri Masjid demolition era was considered as a people's man and was accessible to all.
If the CBDCs don't offer interest, why will people shift from cash to CBDCs?, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Sonia Gandhi is expected to unveil Congress' strategy on Monday in the backdrop of opposition flak over issues like the VVIP chopper deal, Italian marines and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam threat to pull out of UPA on Sri Lankan Tamils problem.
Facing huge financial crunch, the Railways has invited suggestions from the general public to increase its revenue and reduce expenditure ahead of the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament.
Indian elections are won and lost on 'negative' imageries and campaigns - but not certainly on 'negativity' as a political trait and electoral creed, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
But use of that word -- privatisation -- is not encouraged. This seems to be a classic case of reforms through subtle signals, observes A K Bhattacharya.
Stating that a weak fiscal position continues to constrain India's sovereign ratings, Fitch said the next government's medium-term fiscal policy will be of particular importance from a rating perspective.
The Congress party will have an elected president by June 2021, with the party's working committee on Friday approving holding the internal election after the assembly polls.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances