In order to reduce government litigations, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the GST Council has fixed a monetary limit for filing appeals by the tax department before the various appellate authorities. It has recommended a monetary limit of Rs 20 lakh for GST Appellate Tribunal, Rs 1 crore for the High Court and Rs 2 crore for the Supreme Court for filing of appeals by the department before these legal forums, she said after the 53rd GST Council meeting held in New Delhi.
India's economy is likely to grow by 6.5 per cent in the current and the next financial year, an EY report said, attributing lower than anticipated expansion in the September quarter to fall in private consumption expenditure and gross fixed capital formation. Real GDP growth eased to a seven-quarter low of 5.4 per cent in July-September -- the second quarter of the current 2024-25 fiscal year.
Seven out of eight women street vendors reported experiencing high blood pressure, while women in the middle age group raised concerns about delays in their menstrual cycles due to the extreme heat.
For those looking for more affordable options, purchasing an under-construction property could be a smart move, as these generally cost less than ready-to-move-in properties.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday allowed microfinance lenders to fix interest rates on loans with a rider that those should not be usurious for the borrowers. A microfinance loan is defined as a collateral-free loan given to a household having an annual income of up to Rs 300,000. Each regulated entity (RE) should put in place a board-approved policy regarding pricing of microfinance loans, said the 'Master Direction - Reserve Bank of India (Regulatory Framework for Microfinance Loans) Directions, 2022'. In the past, the central bank used to announce the rates on quarterly basis.
'There is a misconception that gold is a dead asset in India.' 'Around 30 per cent of agriculture loans are collateralised by gold, Soumya Kanti Ghosh and Saket Hishikar, economists at the SBI, point out.
Almost 80 per cent of all income losses during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020 were incurred by the private sector in India, while in many other countries the entire loss was on respective governments, a report said on Wednesday. While the Centre had announced a Rs 21 lakh crore COVID-19 relief package, comprising 10 per cent of the GDP, the actual financial support was only about 2 per cent of GDP, as the rest was all credit-driven. "Almost four-fifths of all income losses during the pandemic in 2020 were incurred by the private sector in the country, while the government sector bore only about a fifth of the losses.
Many senior citizens 'underestimate the impact of inflation, taxation, health-related expenses, and the heavy premium they will have to pay on health insurance.'
Workplaces of 2025 will be defined by a deep focus on people-first values, inclusivity, and sustainable growth, foresees Sonica Aron, founder of Marching Sheep.
62 per cent of respondents across various demographics, including villages, towns, and cities, perceived a greater difficulty in securing employment compared to the previous five years, shows pre-poll survey by Centre for Study of Developing Societies.
The developing-region cities of the City 600 will be home to an estimated 235 million middle-class households earning more than $20,000 a year at purchasing power parity (PPP) by 2025, points out a McKinsey study which maps the economic power of cities.
'If you are watching cricket and don't want to leave the screen, you could check the menu and order through Zomato (or any other app) from a small part of your screen. That is what we are working towards.'
Be it poor, middle class, upper middle class or rich, every individual who is 70 years and above is eligible for getting Ayushman card and will receive free treatment up to Rs 5 lakh at any of the AB PMJAY empanelled hospitals once the expanded scheme gets launched.
'They take care of the problem: How can I ensure my child's education and other goals are not compromised, even if I am not around?'
It will be the second Budget of the Modi 3.0 government and eighth straight Budget for Nirmala Sitharaman, rare in Indian polity.
Experts say you should be certain of living in a city and locality for a long time before purchasing a home.
Recovery of the Indian economy depends to a great extent on acceleration in the spending of these relatively richer households, explains Mahesh Vyas.
Feature for feature, bank FDs are indeed better than debt funds today, mainly thanks to Ms Sitharaman, notes Debashis Basu.
Updated new base years for national accounts and other macro-indicators are expected to come into effect from January-February 2026, coinciding with the first and second advance estimates of national income for FY26, senior official sources aware of the development told Business Standard. "The statistics ministry set up the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) earlier this week. "It will advise on the base year for GDP (gross domestic product) and its alignment with other macro-indicators.
Looking under the hood, I see India on the terrible, but commonplace, road to prosperity failure, warns Rathin Roy.
An analysis by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has revealed that retail traders remain at the wrong end of the stick when it comes to equity derivatives trading. About 93 per cent of them incurred an average loss of Rs 2 lakh (per trader) during the last three financial years. The new report highlights an increase in the loss-making individual investors in futures and options (F&O) to 91.1 per cent in FY24 compared to 89 per cent in FY22.
A bill will be brought in the assembly during the ongoing session, possibly this week according to sources in the cabinet.
Deloitte India on Friday said it estimates India's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent in the current fiscal helped by consumption expenditure, exports rebound and capital flows. In its India's economic outlook report, Deloitte said the rapid growth of the middle-income class has led to rising purchasing power and even created demand for premium luxury products and services. With the expectation that the number of middle-to-high-income segments will be one in two households by 2030/31, up from one in four currently, we believe this trend will likely become further amplified, driving overall private consumer expenditure growth, it said.
The Budget proposals are expected to boost the fortunes of consumer goods and fast-moving consumer goods companies, which have been struggling with poor consumer demand for more than a year. The Budget announcements, such as the increase in standard deduction by Rs 25,000 for income-tax payers and slab revisions, will put more money in their hands, boosting consumer demand. Private consumption is also likely to benefit from a new scheme to offer internships to 10 million youths in the country's top 500 companies.
Adopting overly aggressive strategies without considering risk could lead to significant losses during the next downturn.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana envisages housing to 20 mn households by 2022.
'Subject to any worldwide economic collapse.'
The share of women employed in regular salaried jobs in urban India hit a fresh low in the January-March quarter (Q4) of 2023-24 (FY24). In the same period, the share of women engaged in self-employment went up. An analysis of the latest quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data showed the share of women in regular wage work among all employed women stood at 52.3 per cent in Q4FY24, down from 53 per cent in the previous quarter.
'One of the big findings is that younger men seem to have shifted towards the Republican Party.' 'In 2020, about 23% of younger men said they would vote Trump.' 'Now that number is 48%.' 'It is like a 25 point shift, and you don't actually see shifts that big in surveys.'
Kharge's remarks came after Modi on Friday said the Congress stands "badly exposed" in front of people for promising to them what the party knows it will never be able to deliver.
Amid a debate on the basis of a monetary policy stance, one may be curious enough to know how non-food retail inflation has behaved over the years in India. Let the eager souls catch a glimpse of facts. In the past 10 years, non-food inflation came down below 4 per cent on two occasions - pre-Covid period of 2019-20 and now in the first four months of the current financial year (FY25).
The ministry of finance is likely to assume crude oil price to remain within $85 per barrel while estimating subsidies for the Interim Budget 2024-25 (FY25), to be presented on February 1. Brent crude prices moved up on Thursday, ending at $78.9 per barrel. Crude oil and cooking gas prices, which move in tandem, impact fertiliser and cooking gas subsidies, constituting 53 per cent of the government's total subsidies.
'The linking of Aadhaar to births and deaths will revive the debate around citizenship.'
'As long as economic growth remains steady, creating jobs and generating stable incomes, the rise in home loans should not create problems.' 'If the growth trajectory changes course over the medium term and interest rates rise along with inflation, the expanding trend in home loans may not sustain.'
'In the case of corporate credit, especially to AAA borrowers, lenders will have to take a fresh look at pricing.'
A change in the desire to buy consumer durables is perhaps the most important indicator of an economy changing direction, explains Mahesh Vyas.
The banking regulator was uncomfortable with the runaway pace at which consumer credit was growing.
Urban men lost more jobs than women during the second wave of COVID-19, implying a complete loss of livelihood for millions of households, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The most disproportionate loss of jobs because of the first wave of COVID-19 was among urban women, CMIE's MD and CEO Mahesh Vyas said in his analysis. He said urban women account for about three per cent of total employment, but they accounted for 39 per cent of total job losses in the first wave of the pandemic.
'Sebi had no problem with derivatives until trading exploded after Covid.' 'But now, having built a dangerous road, from which different entities, mainly governments, are extracting a heavy toll, Sebi is concerned that people are driving on it in much greater numbers,' explains Debashis Basu.
For women, it is important to build an emergency fund and a financial independence fund independent of the couple's joint goals and plans.
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