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.
'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.'
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.
'After the presentation of the Budget, the House will be adjourned.'
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.
'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.
From real estate to metals, what Sitharaman's Budget has in store.
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 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.
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).
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
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.
In a major breakthrough, the NIA had on Wednesday arrested Muzammil Shareef, the key conspirator in the blast case.
'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.
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.
Engagement with neighbours is a strategic imperative, and not an option, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
'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.
Finance minister attempts a clean-up job, keeps projected expenditure growth low.
Following a virtual meeting on June 16th, 2024, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) announced a change in leadership for the Senior Men's National Team.
'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.
Addressing the Manipur assembly during the commencement of the budget session, she said that 198 companies of central armed police forces and 140 army columns have been deployed along with state forces to maintain law and order.
'For experienced and risk-taking investors, now may be the time to go all in.' 'By 'experienced and risk-taking', I refer to those who remained net buyers in equities during the early stages of the 2020 pandemic.' 'On the other hand, those who exited the markets during the pandemic may go the SIP way.'
The party on Wednesday removed former minister Sudhir Sharma, who was among the six rebel MLAs who were later disqualified for defying party whip on the state budget, from the post of All India Congress Committee secretary with immediate effect.
Sunak announced that the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) would be hiked from 400 pounds to 624 pounds.
'The estimated expenditure is expected to be more than double the Rs 60,000 crore spent in 2019'
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.
NEET is a court-ordered examination, supposedly aimed at meritocracy. However, over the past years when the incumbent Narendra Modi government at the Centre began implementing it, it took on political and casteist colours, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
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.
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
'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.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has brought down the budgetary allocation for the fertiliser subsidy for FY21 to Rs 71,309 crore, from the RE of Rs 79,998 crore for FY20, while increasing food subsidy to FCI through "ways and means advance" to Rs 50,000 crore for FY21, from Rs 36,000 crore in RE for FY20, and under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to Rs 77,982 crore, from Rs 75,000 crore.
Welcoming them into the BJP fold, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav cryptically said many people are feeling anxious and they will eventually join the saffron party in the coming days.
Long-term capital gains tax may be scrapped and the burden of dividend distribution tax could perhaps be shifted from companies to shareholders. Also, the Budget could provide income tax relief for the salaried classes, while proposing tax sops for small, medium and micro enterprises.
'The market was expecting the Budget to do more, given the domestic economic slowdown and global uncertainty. Over the next few days, the market is expected to absorb the volatility.'
The losses in state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh have put the ruling party under pressure to announce swift measures aimed at addressing rural distress and lack of employment.
The Union government's finances witnessed significant improvement in August after a stressful first four months of the current fiscal year. India's gross tax revenue, comprising both direct and indirect taxes, for the first five months of 2023-24 surged 16.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 11.8 trillion. During the April-July period, gross tax revenue increased by a mere 2.8 per cent compared to the Budget Estimate of 12.1 per cent growth for FY24.
