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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
'After the presentation of the Budget, the House will be adjourned.'
'The estimated expenditure is expected to be more than double the Rs 60,000 crore spent in 2019'
From real estate to metals, what Sitharaman's Budget has in store.
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 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).
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.
This is the full text of the address to the nation by President Droupadi Murmu on the eve of India's 78th Independence Day.
'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.
Amid the row over Congress leader Sam Pitroda's remarks, the party on Wednesday asserted that it has no plans whatsoever to introduce an inheritance tax and cited former Union minister Jayant Sinha's remarks to allege that it is the Modi government that wanted to do so.
Two full-fledged semiconductor fabrication plants are going to come up in India very soon entailing multi-billion dollar investment besides several chip assembly and packaging units, Minister of Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. In an interview with PTI, the minister confirmed that the two projects include a $8 billion proposal submitted by Israel-based Tower Semiconductors and the other from Tata Group. "I am happy to share this with you and you are probably the first one I'm sharing this with.
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.
Barely two months before the Lok Sabha election, Gandhi will be filing her nomination papers in Jaipur on Wednesday. Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are likely to accompany her.
'The sooner Kalyan Chaubey leaves, the better it is for Indian football'
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.
'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.
'If you invest in sovereign gold bond, you are going to get the price rise of gold over an eight year period.' 'You're also going to get that two-and-a-half percent which the Government of India is willing to give you, treating the money that you've invested in the sovereign gold bond as a kind of a FD or a deposit.' 'That kind of return you can never get anywhere else.'
Global rating agency Moody's on Monday raised India's growth forecast for 2024 calendar year to 6.8 per cent, from 6.1 per cent estimated earlier, on the back of 'stronger-than-expected' economic data of 2023 and fading global economic headwinds. India's real GDP expanded 8.4 per cent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2023, resulting in a 7.7 per cent growth for full-year 2023. Capital spending by the government and strong manufacturing activity have meaningfully contributed to the robust growth outcomes in 2023, Moody's Investors Service said.
'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.
Finance minister attempts a clean-up job, keeps projected expenditure growth low.
The 54-page document tabled in Parliament detailed how the Modi-government pull the economy from being counted among the most fragile-five in the world to being the fasted growing and the most attractive investment destination.
Sunak announced that the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) would be hiked from 400 pounds to 624 pounds.
Escalation of the conflict in West Asia between Israel and Iran has had a direct impact on the energy markets, and more broadly on the financial markets as well as the global economy.
Business success often involves a combination of planning, implementation, and continuous learning, says rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
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.
Ramoji Rao lived as the interface between business and politics and was an active participant in both for most of his remarkable life.
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.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who presented the budget in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, said the government will target a growth rate of 3.5 per cent in the coming fiscal year.
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.
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.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posed questions for the prime minister ahead of his rallies in Karnataka.
'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.
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.
