A 'White Paper' versus 'Black Paper' battle erupted on Thursday as the Centre and the Congress unveiled documents and crossed swords over the handling of the Indian economy during the nearly 10 years of the BJP-led NDA rule and the previous 10-year tenure of the Congress-led UPA government.
The row over the appointment of Bharatiya Janata Party leader and seven-term member Bhartruhari Mahtab as the pro-tem speaker is likely to cast a shadow over the session.
In line with India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy, the largest share of aid portfolio has been granted to Bhutan with the allocation of Rs 2,068 crore.
As per the allegations, some parts of Delhi also had posters with the caption Modi Hatao Desh Bachao.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget for 2014-15 on Thursday.
Structural reforms, pro-people programmes and employment opportunities helped the economy get new vigour, the finance minister said. After contracting by 5.8 per cent in 2020-21, the economy recorded a growth of 9.1 per cent in 2021-22.
Moody's Analytics said that the reduced political stability and the need for consensus building that is inherent with a coalition government, might erode investor confidence in the near term.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic. This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget. While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
Economists want the government to focus on jobs, farms, and fiscal consolidation. They also favour re-imposition of the long-term capital gains tax on listed securities and mutual funds.
Further stimulus measures are expected in the upcoming Budget where the focus is likely to be on reforms, including some structural measures such as reducing red tape and boosting foreign direct investment. The meeting with industrialists is in the series of discussions that Modi has had during the last couple of weeks to seek suggestions to revive growth.
He said politicians should work for non-political causes as well as they have a lot of impact on society. In this context, Modi noted the Gujarat government's work for "beti bachao" (save daughters) when he was the chief minister and said it helped a lot in improving the gender ratio.
"Religious festivals seem to have become occasions to intimidate and bully others -- a far cry from when they were occasions for joy and celebration. Instead, there is intimidation and discrimination only on account of their religion, food, caste, gender or language," Gandhi said.
It was also the shortest speech by Sitharaman, who had delivered the longest speech last year. Her first Budget speech in July 2019 went on for around 137 minutes and in 2020, it went on for more than 160 minutes and was cut short after she felt unwell.
The ministry of finance will kickstart its massive budgetary exercise from October 15.
Most of the members, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were seen wearing face masks. However, members had crowded the Lok Sabha chamber, while hardly a handful of others, including union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Piyush Goyal, were seen seated in the Rajya Sabha chamber.
NEET is a court-ordered examination, supposedly aimed at meritocracy. However, over the past years when the incumbent Narendra Modi government at the Centre began implementing it, it took on political and casteist colours, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The new government that presents the full Budget for 2024-2025 in July should be ready to restructure the way divestment is managed and implemented, proposes A K Bhattacharya.
Describing the general Budget as a 'sanjeevani' (new life) to the "moribund economy", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said it converts hopes and aspirations of the people into trust and is in line with his government's endeavour to bring India out of crisis.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor were also present with the PM as he interacted with the students inside the train.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's promises of bold Budget decisions and broadsides against the 'mindless populism' of his left-of-centre predecessors have proved a hit with investors.
The loss in Bihar has forced a change in NDA's market positioning, says Shekhar Gupta.
Though there was no official word on the nature of the business on the last day of the last session before the Lok Sabha polls, some party leaders said there is a possibility that it may touch the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Budget for 2022-2023 has returned to its agenda for protectionism in the name of creating a self-reliant India, points out A K Bhattacharya.
In televised remarks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the budget, Modi said it has many provisions for the agriculture sector, including for making loans easier for farmers.
"Earlier, governments were busy in vote bank appeasement but we are busy satisfying people," the prime minister said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in the United States for a three-day state visit, has gifted an eco-friendly lab-grown 7.5 carat diamond, placed in Kashmir's exquisite Papier mache box, to First Lady Jill Biden.
'China is struggling to get out of its property bubble.' 'Japan took 35 years to walk out of its equity bubble.' 'Bubbles can be difficult to forecast.'
That is what you will hear again after Nirmala Sitharaman presents a speech that will prove to be meaningless and numbers that will show themselves to be wildly off the mark, observes Aakar Patel.
Modi also suggested them to identify redundant laws in their respective ministries and move towards scrapping them, the sources said.
It also saw the suspension of 100 members in a span of four days for unruly conduct and a major security breach on the anniversary of the 2001 Parliament terror attack.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said Pradhanmantri Suryodaya Yojana will enable one crore families to get up to 300 units of free electricity monthly and help them save up to Rs 18,000 annually. "There is provision of Rs 10,000 crore for rooftop solar (scheme) in the Budget," said finance secretary T V Somanathan in press conference on Budget later in the day. Earlier in the day Sitharaman in her interim Budget speech said through rooftop solarisation, one crore households will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units of free electricity each month.
Modi claimed that some other parties were also helping the opposition alliance from behind but any vote for them will take Tripura several years backward.
This will violate the time-honoured convention that a government elected for a five-year tenure presents only five full Budgets, but the NDA government will no doubt present it as yet another initiative of Mr Modi.
'Investors should not go for lump-sum investments in infrastructure funds at this point.' 'The SIP route is the best to avoid any major disappointment.'
With the Budget-making exercise in full swing, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said Budget 2021-22 is expected to be prudent and growth oriented. Das before donning the hat of RBI Governor was a career bureaucrat and was directly involved in crafting of about 10 Budgets for the country including one in the aftermath of global financial meltdown in different capacities at the finance ministry. In view of unprecedented pandemic and its impact on the economy, he said the government has maintained fiscal prudence in the response to deal with the crisis.
Using lines of a popular Hindi song, "Kya hua tera vaada (what happed to your promises)," Lalu attacked the PM.
Rationalisation of income tax slabs, infrastructure status for digital services and incentives to hydrogen storage as well as fuel cell development were some of the suggestions made by various stakeholders at the pre-Budget consultation meeting convened by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The customary pre-Budget consultation meetings were held with the finance minister virtually between December 15 and December 22, as per the finance ministry statement. More than 120 invitees representing seven stakeholder groups participated in eight meetings, scheduled during this period, it said.
There hasn't been any dramatic moment in the first act (the Budget) but nobody would complain. It's par for the course as long as the figures don't change in the main Budget, which will be presented after general elections.
'Inter-ministerial coordination, information on the proposed PSUs, and due diligence are taking longer than expected to conclude the process.'
The Supreme Court verdict on the Ram temple showed India's secular character to the world, Shah said.
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