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.
The BJP would want that by March 2022, when UP votes, the economy starts looking up and it heads into the polls with no other issue distracting from its main poll plank of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
While no specific state-oriented sops were rolled out, a strong thread of political wellness ran through the Budget.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi asserted that the Congress will protect the Constitution and the reservation system at all costs and foil "conspiracies" of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Piyush Goyal presents the National Democratic Alliance government's Budget amid high hopes and expectations from across the spectrum of society -- from farmers to industralist. Will the Budget fulfill the expectations of all?
'Expectations are high regarding the change in LTCG with respect to equity investments.'
The government on Wednesday raised the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy by 5.35 per cent to Rs 2,300 per quintal for the 2024-25 kharif marketing season. The hike in paddy support price comes despite the government sitting on surplus rice stocks, but it is significant ahead of elections in states like Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Delhi.
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.
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.
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.
At the first meeting of Governing Council of NITI Aayog on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek views of Chief Ministers.
"Earlier, governments were busy in vote bank appeasement but we are busy satisfying people," the prime minister said.
Fifty-six months on, the government's record in implementing these schemes and projects has been mixed, report Arup Roychoudhury and Indivjal Dhasmana.
The finance minister will also visit the school in Tamil Nadu where she studied from KG to Class 5.
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.
'Ladakh has become a hollow UT.' 'Bureaucrats from Delhi rule Ladakh and there is no attention paid to the grievances of the people.'
Gandhi said the budgetary cuts were weakening the legal guarantee of timely payment and employment. She noted that the Supreme Court had likened the delay in MGNREGA payments with forced labour.
"The Union Budget represents the aspirations of 130 crore Indians and lays out the path towards India's development. I invite you all to share your ideas and suggestions for this year's Budget on MyGov," the PM said according to a statement posted on his official website on Thursday.
'Modi had not discussed demonetization with me prior to his announcement on 8 November 2016. 'I learnt of it along with the rest of the country. 'I was not surprised when he did not discuss the issue with me prior to making the public announcement. 'It fitted in with his style of making dramatic announcements.' A fascinating excerpt from Pranab Mukherjee's The Presidential Years: 2012-2017.
A day after the budget, the upper house of Parliament, Rajay Sabha, will meet to debate the Modi government's last full fledged budget before 2019 polls.
This will be the first time since the presentation of independent India's first budget on November 26, 1947, that the documents containing income and expenditure statement of the Union government along with finance bill, detailing new tax and other measures for the new financial year, will not be physically printed.
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.
PSU divestment, LIC IPO, fiscal deficit: Budget 2021 marks a clear change in the Modi government's stance from fiscal conservatism to growth orientation.
There are tell-tale signs of a slide in the quality of Budgets presented by the current administration, says Parthasarathi Shome.
Forget about interim Budgets, one cannot easily recall even a full Budget of any government in recent times having rolled out benefits of this order to such a large number of people, says A K Bhattacharya.
The government had no option but to cut spending to meet its borrowing targets.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The session started on January 29 and was originally slated to end on April 8 but several members had urged Speaker Om Birla to end the session earlier as they focus on electioneering for the five assemblies.
The Union Budget on Monday evoked contrasting responses in the political arena with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hailing it as a vision for an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and the Opposition describing it as a 'let down like never before' that was meant to 'deceive' people.
The record of other prime ministers too shows how much can change when a prime minister is faced with the two-year challenge, says T N Ninan.
Adnan Abidi/Reuters captures men at work in the streets of a wholesale market in old Delhi days before the Narendra Damodardas Modi government presents its final Budget, ahead of India's general election.
Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan claimed that Modi held 13 pre-Budget consultation meetings which were attended by top industrialists, but to none of these meetings Sitharaman was invited.
The government has convened an all-party meeting on July 21 ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament which will start next Monday, the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry said.
The Congress has so far announced 82 candidates for the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls beginning April 19.
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.
The focus is likely to be on consolidation and improvement of existing rural-centric programmes to ensure their completion ahead of the next general elections in 2019, rather than announcement of new schemes. Sanjeeb Mukherjee and Arup Roychoudhury report.
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.
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.
