GST 2.0 may cushion consumers against US tariffs, but like the 2019 corporate tax cut, it risks being another tactical fix rather than a structural growth strategy, expects Debashis Basu.
Vijay, with his chief ministerial ambitions, is a one-man army, at least as of now, and his campaign team considers him omnipresent. He has to be present in all districts, if not all constituencies at the same time, as there is no second-line leader or platform speaker in the party, who can draw crowds, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
She has shown shrewdness, sensitivity, and courage. All of these will be needed in ample quantities for the real challenge that will emerge after the elections, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Several executives argue that UPI has the potential to grow tenfold, but warn that the absence of a monetisation model risks stagnating the real-time payments system, which has been recording all-time-high transaction volumes every year.
How do you feel about Modi 2.0's first Budget? Does it meet your expectations? Or do you feel let down?
Modi said he believed that a big section of the country's democracy-loving people will appreciate the conduct of those MPs who used their wisdom and talent and showed their concerns for the masses, even though they might have been critical in their views.
Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday assumed charge as the Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister for the second consecutive term and is slated to soon present the final Budget for FY '25 that is going to set the tone for the Modi 3.0 government's priorities and direction for Viksit Bharat. Upon her reaching the North Block office, Sitharaman was greeted by Finance Secretary T V Somanathan and other top officials. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary was also present. Chaudhary assumed charge on Tuesday evening.
At the customary meeting ahead of the session beginning Monday, the opposition raised various issues, including voter roll revision in Bihar, the Pahalgam terror attack and Trump's 'ceasefire' claims.
'The Bhashini Mission has delivered a working technology at large scale, which is as good as or better than the one with MNC tech giants.'
Perhaps because the Modi government had some differences of opinion with two of the economist governors (one of whom was appointed by the Manmohan Singh government), there is a view that its political leadership prefers a civil servant to head the RBI, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagging the 'deplorable' conditions in residential hostels for Dalit, ST, EBC, OBC and minority students and the delay in post-matric scholarships for those from marginalised communities.
'Given our turbulent neighbourhood, the prime minister is likely to emphasise on democratic dividend as the reason behind India's continuous prosperity.'
'Indian families' needs and expectations have gone through a revolution across economic demographics.' 'As this latest Modi-Sitharaman Budget demonstrated, politicians have understood this change. They are responding to it,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
'There is no retrospective changing of the law, only its simplification.'
The time limit is proposed to be extended from the current two years to four years.
The row over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur's remarks in Lok Sabha escalated on Wednesday with the Congress submitting a notice to move a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for posting on 'X' a video that allegedly also contained expunged portions of Thakur's speech.
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
If it was Andhra Pradesh last Budget, it's poll-bound Bihar that has now turned to Centre with a list of demands. How the NDA government is delivering on promises.
'We had tremendous faith in honorable Modiji in his second term as he was well-settled. Sadly that has been belied.'
Sources close to the top BJP leadership tell me that Tharoor has already had secret meetings with the BJP's top brass and is waiting patiently to make his next move, reports Ramesh Menon.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Engagement with neighbours is a strategic imperative, and not an option, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
India has no intention to escalate tensions with Pakistan, but any military attacks on its soil will be met with a "very" firm response, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday. Jaishankar made the remarks at a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, emphasizing that the "barbaric" Pahalgam terror attack compelled India to carry out strikes on "cross-border" terror infrastructure on Wednesday. He reiterated that India's response was targeted and measured, but stressed that any further military attacks would be met with a firm response. The Iranian foreign minister, who landed in New Delhi amidst escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, called for de-escalation of the situation and stressed the need for regional cooperation to eradicate terrorism. The meeting also focused on boosting ties in areas of trade and investment, including the Chabahar port project.
'We've moved from thousands killed yearly in Jammu and Kashmir to 127 last year.' 'Cross-border terrorism in Kashmir is being solved. We are winning it.'
Union Home Minister Amit Shah attributed his health turnaround to a regimen of adequate sleep, a focus on diet and water intake, and regular exercise. Speaking at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) on World Liver Day, he urged young people to prioritize physical activity and sleep for good health. Shah shared his personal experience, revealing that he has been free from allopathic medications for the past 4.5 years due to this lifestyle change. He emphasized the positive impact on his work capacity, thinking, and decision-making. Shah inaugurated an Integrated Liver Rehabilitation Centre at ILBS and visited a cartoon gallery dedicated to liver health. He encouraged corporate houses to support liver health initiatives and praised the Modi government's focus on healthcare.
In a heinous terror attack, two Indians were killed while one was abducted in the Dosso region of Niger, as noted by the Indian Embassy in Niger.
The budget will empower the poor, give a boost to the farmer and an impetus to the economic growth, the PM said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Agnipath scheme is an example of necessary reforms undertaken by the Army and accused the opposition of playing politics over the recruitment process aimed at keeping the average age in armed forces young.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said she is likely to introduce the new income tax bill, which will replace the six-decade-old I-T Act, in the Lok Sabha in the coming week.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday again took a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional 'bahi-khata' style pouch as she headed for Parliament to present Union Budget 2023-24 in a paperless format just like the previous two years. She posed for the traditional 'briefcase' picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. She, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi slammed Pakistani politician Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his "blood would flow in rivers" remark and called former cricketer Shahid Afridi a "joker" for his comment on the Pahalgam terror attack. Owaisi also supported India's decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty and called for Pakistan to be placed on the FATF grey list. He also advocated for cyber attacks against Pakistan.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Interim Budget on February 1 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections likely to be held in April-May.
The finance minister's assertion that industry should not expect any spectacular announcements in the 2024 interim Budget suggest that the electoral imperatives of more tax concessions or higher expenditure on welfarist programmes could be far less pronounced than they were before the 2019 interim Budget, expects A K Bhattacharya.
As the 240-seater prime minister attempts to moderate his image of hardline hero, he has made room for others to elbow in and that is what is happening. And that it what will continue to happen from inside the BJP, notes Aakar Patel.
The TMC-led West Bengal government has already started laying the groundwork for the election, setting the tone with the recent Bengal Global Business Summit and the state Budget.
Census exercise with caste enumeration will be carried out with the reference date of October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas like Ladakh and of March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country, the Home Ministry announced on Wednesday.
Caste census politics took centre stage on Thursday with the Congress terming the government's decision as a 'diversionary tactic' and a move for headlines management and the Bharatiya Janata Party saying it has exposed the difference between the Centre's 'true intentions' and the 'empty sloganeering' of the opposition party.
The presentation of the Delhi government's Budget for 2023-24, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has been put on hold with the Kejriwal dispensation and the central government trading charges over allocations under various heads.
The Congresssaid BJP veterans Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishan Advani never did this, but PM Modi by doing so is "demeaning" the high office he holds.
Currently, the NAPCC has eight active missions across sectors like water, energy, and agriculture, aimed at addressing climate change.
