A 15 per cent corporate tax rate for services companies in SEZs, setting up a fund for deep-tech startups and establishing clusters to demonstrate design-to-manufacturing capabilities of tech firms were some of the key demands made by the IT sector at the pre-Budget consultation on Monday. The participants shared their views and suggestions regarding Big Data, incentives for encouraging setting up of data centres, fiscal incentives for data localisation, incentives for pushing digital penetration in rural areas, and corporate guarantee to startups for competing with other nations.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and locally elected representatives, as well as region president Valerie Pecresse and sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, attended the inauguration.
The Congress top brass on Wednesday rushed former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar to Shimla to parley with members of the party which is facing loss of support and risks losing power in the state.
'After the presentation of the Budget, the House will be adjourned.'
Multi-asset allocation funds emerged as the most popular option for MFs as they provided the needed flexibility.
As per the rules and regulations, members must not do anything that brings disrepute to the Parliament and affects their credibility, and members must utilise their position as Members of Parliament to advance general well-being of the people.
The government is expected to dole out some populist policies, especially for the rural / farm sector while presenting the interim budget, given that the country is heading towards general elections over the next few months.
'Pakistan is a nuclear country.' 'With the kind of situation that is there in Pakistan today, America will help Pakistan stay afloat.'
'Nirmalaji's Budget announcements have long-term implications and are not backed by enough money when the short-term outlook looks bleak,' notes T N C Rajagopalan.
The battle on creating jobs is virtually lost. If the battle for achieving higher growth too is lost, then its political consequences could become difficult to manage, says A K Bhattacharya.
The Congresssaid BJP veterans Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishan Advani never did this, but PM Modi by doing so is "demeaning" the high office he holds.
The new army chief's highest priority must be to address the critical hollowness in the Indian Army's operational preparedness, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
From real estate to metals, what Sitharaman's Budget has in store.
In a statement, the Lok Sabha Secretariat said Thursday that due to their location at different places in the Parliament premises, visitors were not able to see these statues conveniently.
The Union Budget on Monday evoked contrasting responses in the political arena with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hailing it as a vision for an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and the Opposition describing it as a 'let down like never before' that was meant to 'deceive' people.
But the government will present a second tranche of Supplementary Demands for Grants during the Budget session of Parliament in February, when it can seek additional spending.
The welfare schemes of the government, particularly Lakshmir Bhandar, have had a major impact on the electoral outcome.
The central government's Great Nicobar development project, proposed around an unprecedented transhipment port, will be executed to keep environmental impact minimal, and is essential as it is of national importance, the government has said amid calls to abort the controversial project due to ecological concerns, the Centre said in an official statement.
'The finance minister in her Budget speech should spell out how exactly she intends to get back to the 7% track, and the hard decisions she intends to take in order to adjust to the realities of a slowing economy until growth momentum returns,' suggests T N Ninan.
'The first duty of the government is to learn lessons from a bad experience and course correct. It's a pity that the government is making policy without looking at evidence and differentiating between immediate and urgent.'
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first and only women till now to have presented the Union Budget.
The budget is "farmer friendly, common citizen friendly, business environment friendly" and will add to 'ease of living' and 'ease of doing business', Modi added.
By taking the mutual fund route, investors can take exposure to gilts with small amounts. Over a decade or more, returns from these funds tend to be sound.
Finance minister attempts a clean-up job, keeps projected expenditure growth low.
'The clubbing of policy announcements in the Budget speech creates policy surprises.' 'Economic actors dislike policy surprises because they throw their plans off track,' points out Alok Tiwari.
After some enforced slowdown in offtake during April-May 2024 due to elections, the cement sector is looking at a possible demand rebound which may help it to push up prices. The April'24 offtake was muted while May'24 saw some improvement with a likely 5-6 per cent rise in demand month-on-month (MoM). In June, some price hikes seem to have been taken, which suggests more sustained improvement in demand.
'Investors should not go for lump-sum investments in infrastructure funds at this point.' 'The SIP route is the best to avoid any major disappointment.'
The sources said that Priyanka Gandhi remained in constant touch with the party president, the chief minister, ministers and all important leaders, and did not allow any laxity.
'The Budget numbers presented severely underestimate the magnitude of the unstated fiscal crisis that we went through in 2018-2019, which cannot be conceivably be fully reversed in 2019-2020,' points out Rathin Roy, director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
rediffGURU Dr Pananjay Tiwari lists the options and cost of pursuing an MBBS education outside of India.
Sunak announced that the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) would be hiked from 400 pounds to 624 pounds.
As March draws to a close, two consecutive long weekend opportunities - Holi and Good Friday - are driving up hotel occupancy and airfares across major routes. According to travel platform Cleartrip, hotel bookings have seen a 3.5 times spike for the Holi weekend, while a 3.7 times spike has been visible in the Good Friday weekend.
The government will formulate a strategy to make India self-reliant in edible oils by boosting domestic output of oilseeds and launch a comprehensive programme to support dairy farmers, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Thursday. India imports a large quantity of edible oils to meet the domestic demand. During the 2022-23 marketing year (November-October), the country imported nearly 165 lakh tonnes of cooking oils, valuing a whopping Rs 1.38 lakh crore.
The government had pegged the fiscal deficit for 2020-21 at Rs 7.96 lakh crore or 3.5 per cent of the GDP in the budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in February.
In a major breakthrough, the NIA had on Wednesday arrested Muzammil Shareef, the key conspirator in the blast case.
The extra borrowing implies Jaitley will have extra spending space in the Union Budget for FY19, the last full one before the 2019 general election
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'Kofi Annan will be remembered more for his Nobel Prize and related glory rather than Rwanda and Volcker,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan with whom he worked in the UN.
A query has been raised about the "missing" Rs 1.7 trillion fiscal hole in India's financial accounts. This is so because the Budget uses the revised estimates, a projection of how much the government was expected to earn, while the Economic Survey uses the first actual numbers.
Slamming the Union budget as 'insipid' and lacking in stimulus for growth, the Congress on Saturday said it does not address the main issue of unemployment and describes the mindset of the government.
