'The answer for a quicker boost to growth is simple -- run a much larger deficit, use the resulting public resources to ensure adequate price support for agriculture, subsidise wage costs of MSMEs and accelerate public sector construction-intensive activities,' advises Nitin Desai.
In the 2020-21 Budget, the prime minister and the finance minister are keen to stamp their narrative, after various rollbacks following the previous Budget, said top government sources. Besides the scheduled meetings, the sources said, the Prime Minister's Office is expected to hold several meetings with top secretaries and officials on various ongoing schemes, their performance and also how some of them could be tweaked for better results.
'I have no problems with the finance ministry or with state governments treating petrol pump prices as the last resort for meeting their ambitious spending targets with very limited revenue resources.' 'But let's do away with this smokescreen of free pricing of petrol and diesel and go back to administered pricing regime,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
In many ways, the 68th Republic Day parade was unique.
The social media was abuzz over an image of an image of Finance Minister P Chidambaram alongside Taliban founder Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef during a conference in Goa.
They are now scaling or shutting down their businesses because they can't compete with untaxed grey market gold. India's gold smuggling has increased significantly since the import duty was increased in the Union Budget 2019 in contravention with the broader market expectations of a cut.
Sources said much has been done to ease the tax burden of the middle classes in the last five years, and that such a measure affects only a limited segment of people when the focus should be to put money in rural areas. Archis Mohan reports.
Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal on Friday said that because of lack of data on local seismic activities in those urban areas falling in seismic zones V and IV, construction activities so far done in those cities couldn't be termed very safe in the event of incidence of mega earthquakes.
The budget for the 'Shiv Smarak' has risen 35 times since it was first conceived.
RBI may also be open to injecting liquidity through open market purchases of bonds but is resisting relaxing capital buffers for banks.
Some may lose competitiveness due to higher compliance costs
Govt has done away with the need to secure crucial permits.
Particularly hit has been the apparel sector, where the time taken by the industry to adjust to the Goods and Services Tax regime, downward revision of export incentives, and a credit squeeze faced by small and medium scale enterprises, has pushed production downwards.
The vertical will be based out of Bengaluru.
'Common sense says if one can afford, servicing the loans during this period is a better bet than postponing it by three months,' says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The NDA govt launched the Mudra scheme to give unsecured loans of up to Rs 10 lakh to small enterprises with the objective to provide self-employment
The government on Wednesday said the ordinance seeking to empower Reserve Bank to cut Statutory Liquidity Ratio below 25 per cent is expected to be brought in by this month-end or early February.
'Steven MacQueen, who was working for the [Afghan] Ministry of Rural Development and Rehabilitation, was killed last night,' British embassy press officer Colin Ball said.
The Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
Major focus will be on adequately funding existing schemes to ensure their timely completion before the next General Elections.
Full list of the rejigged Union Council of Ministers
For the first time in our economic history a government has thought about more than 50 per cent of our economic activity instead of the five per cent represented by the Sensex companies, observes IIM-B professor R Vaidyanathan.
Three years and Rs 28,710 crore worth of transactions later, it has more than double the number of sellers than Flipkart.
Is the RBI unable to accept with grace that beyond 55, one can have the ability to head the compliance functions in a bank, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
In a presentation to investors in Mumbai last week, Aramane Giridhar, Joint Secretary (Exploration) gave detailed reasons for pendency of decisions in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas where officials approved of decisions but refused to issue formal orders, resulting in delays in production of oil and gas.
While the situation Sitharaman finds herself in may not be that good, how does it stack up against her three immediate predecessors Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and the late Arun Jaitley?
If banks cannot charge interest from borrowers during the moratorium, who will bear that cost? Should the depositors subsidise the borrowers by foregoing interest on deposits? In that case, we will turn banking on its head! notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
There is as yet no clarity on how the process of consulting with the RBI Governor, initiated under Section 7 of the RBI Act, would unfold in the coming days. The government is keen that its suggestions made in the public interest should be heeded by the central bank, says A K Bhattacharya.
India needs a place where all regulators could gather and function as in a war room.
Government looking at cushioning slowdown due to demonetisation with sops and higher outlay for micro, small and medium enterprises, agriculture, and affordable housing.
While the surcharge on super-rich would help garner additional income of around Rs 12,000 crore this fiscal on the direct tax side.
It is mind-boggling to find our prime minister putting exports on the back-burner, says Jayanta Roy.
Many argue there's a mismatch between Prime Minister Narendra Modi's focus on international exposure and his government's diktat to officials on limiting travel.
'Allegations of Reliance benefitting by thousands of crores is a figment of imagination, promoted by vested interests'
'The belief that FDI will shift from China appears to be a strategy of politicians to keep the media busy, chasing irrelevant news to ward off pressure and questions about the government's plans to deal with COVID,' observes Debashis Basu.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday hinted at not raising tax rates and providing incentives for manufacturing.
The 'Smart Cities' project is one that has faced many hurdles.
'There was already a cash crunch and this (lockdown) has created more trouble.'
Small and medium enterprises have been struggling to raise bank credit even as they have been powering India's manufacturing growth in recent years.
The government is likely to exempt iPhone and iPad maker Apple from mandatory local sourcing rule, a move which would pave the way for tech giant opening single-brand retail stores in the country.
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