India's 2030 Commonwealth Games bid is set to be formally approved on Wednesday at the Commonwealth Sport's general assembly in Glasgow.
With the fiscal deficit target staring at the government, the FY25 Budget has limited expenditure options, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The welfare of the common man continues to be the top priority. The minister has reduced fares for the fourth successive year.
Fitch Ratings on Tuesday said the FY25 Budget demonstrated the government's ongoing commitment to reducing fiscal deficit and ensured policy continuity during the NDA government's new term. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday presented the first Budget of the Modi 3.0 government in which she revised the deficit target for current fiscal lower to 4.9 per cent of the GDP, from 5.1 per cent projected in the interim Budget.
Among the Sensex firms, Larsen & Toubro, UltraTech Cement, JSW Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Nestle were the major laggards. Maruti, Power Grid, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, NTPC, HDFC Bank, ITC and IndusInd Bank were the gainers.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will set a record by presenting the sixth Budget in a row -- 5 annual Budgets and one interim -- a feat achieved so far only by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. With the presentation of interim Budget on February 1, Sitharaman will surpass the records of her predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row. Desai, as Finance Minister, had presented five annual Budgets and one interim Budget between 1959-1964. The interim Budget 2024-25 to be presented by Sitharaman on February 1, will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the interim Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman offers the "guarantee" of strengthening the foundation of a developed India and carries the "confidence of continuity".
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
The interim budget 2024-24 on Thursday allocated Rs 1,277.80 crore for census, a significant reduction from 2021-22 when Rs 3,768 crore was allocated and an indication that the exercise may not be carried out even after three years of delay.
Going by this Budget's estimate of government spending of Rs 48.2 trillion, the government has allocated a significantly lower percentage to defence -- 12.9 per cent.
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman Finance Minister, broke away from the colonial tradition of carrying a Budget briefcase in July 2019, opting instead for a traditional 'bahi-khata', to carry the Union Budget papers.
The Karnataka high court stayed enforcement of the Karnataka Cinemas (Regulation) (Amendment) Rules, 2025, which fixed a cap for movie ticket prices at Rs 200 across the state.
The Karnataka High Court has stayed the enforcement of a rule that capped movie ticket prices at Rs 200 across the state, following a petition by the Multiplex Association of India and other cinema stakeholders.
The Interim Budget for 2024-25 (FY25) to be presented on February 1 is likely to assume 10-10.5 per cent nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth against 8.9 per cent estimated for FY24 by the National Statistical Office (NSO). "We were waiting for the First Advance Estimates GDP numbers for FY24. "We will finalise the nominal GDP growth assumption for FY25 Interim Budget in a couple of days.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a Rs 11.11 lakh crore spending on infrastructure and vowed to continue reforms as she resisted resorting to populist measures in Modi government's last Budget before general elections, instead choosing to stay on the path of cutting deficit while bolstering measures for focus groups.
Moody's Ratings on Tuesday projected general government debt to stabilise above 80 per cent of GDP over the next three years, down from 89.3 per cent in 2020-21. "General government interest payments to fall to around 24 per cent of general government revenue over the next two years from over 28 per cent in fiscal 2020-21, although this remains much higher than the median 8.7 per cent recorded by Baa-rated peers," Moody's Ratings associate managing director Gene Fang said in a post-Budget reaction.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman commended the outstanding performance of chess prodigy Praggnanandhaa
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday participated in a traditional 'halwa' ceremony, marking the final stage for the preparation of Union Budget 2025-26 to be unveiled on February 1 in the Lok Sabha. The ceremony is a customary ritual in which traditional dessert 'halwa' is prepared and served to officials and staff members of the finance ministry who are involved in the preparation of the Budget.
She also holds the distinction of delivering the longest budget speech at two hours and forty minutes in 2020.
'This plan was never official. It was there secretly. It was by the high command.'
The Budget 2025-26 meets the expectations of fiscal consolidation, maintaining capital expenditure, and boosting consumption through tax cuts.
Sitharaman, in her pre-election Budget, which is technically a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget, said the government will also adopt an economic approach that facilitates sustainable development and improves productivity.
Commonwealth Sport's EB recommends Ahmedabad as host for 2030 CWG
The generation of quality jobs and skill development should be the focal point, cutting across ministries and departments, asserts Nivedita Mookerji.
She added that the government has extended the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for five years which is benefiting 80 crore people of the country.
Continuing on the fiscally prudent path, the Modi government in the interim Budget refrained from announcing populist measures, which will help it trim the fiscal deficit to 5.1 per cent of the GDP next fiscal and 4.5 per cent in FY26.
'Any finality in such matters requires political views. We will review it closer to the full Budget.'
The numbers become all the more important because actual tax collections fell short by Rs 1.91 trillion compared to what was projected in 2018-19. Besides, the Budget for FY20 did not give actual figures for 2018-19, but the revised numbers given in the interim Budget.
The size of Budget 2024-25 has increased 6.1 per cent to Rs 47.66 lakh crore because of the rise in expenditure and higher allocation for capital expenditure and social sector schemes.
To help compare numbers better, FinMin might retain the interim Budget Estimates with the new ones.
Interim Budgets are usually presented in an election year either just before the general polls or immediately after them.
India Inc on Monday said that the Interim Budget was 'absolutely' up to the expectations.
As per the Interim Budget 2024-25 document tabled in the Lok Sabha, the government is not expected to receive any money from monetisation of public assets in the current fiscal.
'The nominal GDP growth assumption for FY25 may be revised upwards on higher growth expectations.'
The interim Budget proposals that will be presented on February 1 in the backdrop of the general elections scheduled in April/May 2024 are likely to have a hint of populism, believe analysts, but are unlikely to derail the government from its path of fiscal prudence.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented the Interim Budget for 2014-15 on Monday.
The BJP won 37.70 per cent of votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while the Congress vote share declined to 19.67 per cent.
Presenting the Union Budget, Sitharaman announced that the government will partner with the private sector to set up Bharat Small Reactors and in the research and development of small modular reactors.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
