Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday makes history as she presents a record ninth consecutive Budget that is expected to unveil measures to sustain growth momentum, maintain fiscal discipline, and contain reforms that could buffer the economy from global trade frictions, including US tariffs.
For India, much is at stake: Crucial energy supplies traversing the Strait of Hormuz, the fate of its 10 million citizens living and working in West Asia -- who send generous remittances home -- and its major trade links with the region.
"I think it was a mistake. We should have re-looked at it. I don't know of any other coalition government where the portfolios of Home, Finance and Planning are not with the chief minister," Chavan said.
Delhi Police inform court that a BMW driver involved in a fatal accident last September is charged with culpable homicide for allegedly delaying medical assistance to the victim.
Samrat Choudhary's appointment as Bihar's Chief Minister marks a significant milestone for the BJP, ushering in a new era of leadership in the state's political landscape.
'The preparedness of our defence forces and positioning of intelligence assets were very different in 2008, so we had to rebuild our assets and preparedness.'
The finance ministry on Wednesday reimposed expenditure curbs on ministries and government departments for July-September quarter. There will be no spending restrictions on the ministries of health, rural development, agriculture, MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) and railways as part of a two-pronged strategy. "The existing guidelines for expenditure control have been reviewed. "Keeping in view the evolving situation arising out of Covid-19 and anticipated cash position of the government, it is felt essential to regulate Quarterly Expenditure Plan (QEP)/Monthly Expenditure Plan (MEP) of specific ministries/departments for July-September, 2021," the Department of Economic Affairs in the finance ministry said in a notification.
Sitharaman continues with the tradition she set in 2019, carrying the budget speech in a 'bahi-khata', which she used after dropping the briefcase tradition.
The Union Budget 2025-26 had allocated Rs 2,33,210.68 crore (BE) to the ministry helmed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The orders issued this month have selected ministries ranging from home affairs under Amit Shah to rural development, headed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, to move to Building 3 -- currently named CCS-03 -- on Kartavya Path. The scale of the shift will be even larger than when most of Lutyens' Delhi's present crop of government buildings came up in the early 1930s.
'If in our cities, all urban bus transport services are free, then the taxpayers are paying for it, or if electricity were to be made free, that's a huge cost to the rest of the people'
State Bank of India has 18,000 pending cases and Bank of Baroda has around 1,000 cases.
The health and family welfare ministry spent 70 per cent of its allocation till October. The ministry may need additional funds for the vaccination drive which is expected to be kicked off from January.
Nirmala Sitharaman moved into her Kartavya Bhavan office on October 2, in time to get the work on the Budget 2026-2027 going.
India will also launch a sovereign gold bond to lower physical demand.
FinMin urges reduction not be weighed against Budget estimates.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened the Cabinet Committee on Security to address the impact of the West Asia conflict on Indian citizens, focusing on safeguarding them from the conflict's effects and ensuring the smooth flow of essential supplies.
'In all these years of rupee depreciation, of rising oil prices, of inflation caused by import dependence, not one leader had the courage to look the people in the eye and say: Please do this for your country.'
The way the present government has dealt with appointments of civil servants remains to be a cause for concern.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri attended the swearing-in ceremony.
The Border Security Force (BSF) is set to receive government approval for 16 new battalions, comprising around 17,000 personnel, and two forward headquarters for its western and eastern commands. The move aims to strengthen security along the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders, respectively. The new battalions and headquarters are part of a larger plan to address evolving security dynamics and challenges in the border regions.
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has reviewed the evolving situation in West Asia, directing departments to assist Indian nationals affected by recent developments and emphasizing the need for dialogue and diplomacy.
The government on Friday received financial bids for the strategic disinvestment of IDBI Bank, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (Dipam) said in an official statement on X.
Nationalist Congress Party leader Jayant Patil on Tuesday became the new Home Minister of Maharashtra.Dilip Valse Patil, also of NCP, has been given Finance Ministry, sources said.The Home portfolio was earlier held by NCP's R R Patil, who along with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, resigned following the terror attacks in the city.
CAG warns most states of fiscal imprudence as March spending overshoots limits, with key departments exhausting large portions of budgets in the last month of FY24.
What we are watching is something different: A fog manufactured and maintained by the people who started the war, so that the question of why it was started never has to be answered, observes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the war in the Middle East.
Nine days after he took charge of the finance ministry after incumbent P Chidambaram was shifted to the home ministry following the terror attacks in Mumbai, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has informed Congress President Sonia Gandhi that a full-time Cabinet minister would be needed for the portfolio because he was extremely busy with other works.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has sent a judicial request to the United States seeking information from private investigator Michael Hershman, who has claimed to possess crucial details about the Rs 64-crore Bofors bribery scandal of the 1980s. Hershman, the head of the Fairfax Group, had previously expressed his willingness to share information with Indian agencies, alleging that the investigation into the scam was derailed by the then Congress government. The CBI's request comes after previous attempts to obtain information from US authorities yielded no results. This move highlights the continued efforts to uncover the truth behind the decades-old scandal, which has had a significant impact on Indian politics.
The country's new home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, today said he prefers a Congressman as his successor in the finance ministry, setting off speculation about the implication of his statement.
The Supreme Court has directed the CBI to conduct a pan-India investigation into digital arrest scams and questioned the RBI about its lack of AI usage in detecting and freezing accounts used by cybercriminals.
Kumar, who played a key role in implementing decisions following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir during his stint in the Union home ministry, took charge as an election commissioner on March 15, 2024.
The CBI arrested Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, an absconder carrying a Rs 10 lakh reward, in connection with the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed. He is allegedly part of a conspiracy hatched by the banned JKLF.
Ajit Pawar, who was the finance and planning minister, would have tabled his budget for 2026-27 next month when the state legislature's budget session begins in Mumbai on February 23.
Nitish said he wanted his government to have a clean image and it was reflected in the resignation of Jitan Ram Manjhi even before he could assume office as he was facing a case in the bachelor of education scam.
A Delhi Police SWAT commando died after allegedly being brutally assaulted by her husband, who reportedly announced the killing during a phone call with the victim's brother. The family alleges prolonged torture and dowry harassment.
Vishwajit Rane, who had unsuccessfully lobbied for the CM's post, has been given crucial Health and Town and Country Planning Portfolios along with Urban Development, Women and Child, and Forest departments.
Opening up the corner office is fine, but will the government be able to attract talent without giving a market-rate salary?, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
A special court has released Shafat Ahmed Shangloo, arrested by the CBI in connection with the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiyya Sayeed. The court denied the CBI's request for custody, noting his absence in the charge sheet.
'He is a man of action and goes to the ground and solves the problem.' 'Be it the Air India crash of Ahmedabad, Morbi bridge collapse, Deesa blast or Gambhira bridge collapse, he is on the spot.'
New Delhi will substantially reduce tariffs on industrial and agricultural goods while continuing to protect sensitive sectors. Tariffs on some agricultural products that are not traditionally considered sensitive will be brought down to zero, while in the case of relatively sensitive items, duties will be reduced in a graded manner and quotas will be imposed.
