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 absence of the CM at the airport irked the saffron party, which said Rao failed to follow the protocol and 'insulted the prime minister'.
Leaders of several opposition parties on Thursday hailed the Supreme Court verdict striking down the electoral bonds scheme and termed it an important step in ensuring transparency in electoral funding.
Fifty-six months on, the government's record in implementing these schemes and projects has been mixed, report Arup Roychoudhury and Indivjal Dhasmana.
Both the BJP leaders in their notices to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla have alleged that Gandhi's comments were baseless and that he made "contemptuous, unparliamentary and dishonourable" allegations.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
On his sixth visit this year to Karnataka, where assembly elections are due by May, he also asserted that the 'double engine' government is a necessity for the fast-paced development of the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership in Himachal Pradesh is making efforts to mollify party leaders who are disgruntled over distribution of tickets to six Congress rebels for the assembly bypolls, former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said on Tuesday.
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
At the first meeting of Governing Council of NITI Aayog on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek views of Chief Ministers.
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.
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.
Ramoji Rao lived as the interface between business and politics and was an active participant in both for most of his remarkable life.
The Congress released a booklet 'Nau saal, Nau sawaal', asking nine questions from Modi. The BJP rejected the Congress' criticism as a 'bundle of lies and mountain of deception' and said the questions are born out of 'pathological hatred' of the PM.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a two-day visit to the North East from Tuesday, during which he will attend the oath-taking ceremonies of new governments in three states of the region.
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.
There are tell-tale signs of a slide in the quality of Budgets presented by the current administration, says Parthasarathi Shome.
Without making two-thirds of the country's population a development partner, India's prosperity is impossible, the Congress leader added.
President Murmu reached the new Parliament building in a six-horse buggy accompanied by the Presidential Bodyguards riding horses.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar's decision to allow Singh to speak on the Bharat Ratna honour to Charan Singh drew sharp protest from the Congress, leading to a heated exchange of words between the opposition and the treasury benches.
'Investors need to be stock specific and should not rush to buy stocks at the current levels.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a Rs 100 per cylinder cut in cooking gas LPG price to ease financial burden on households. Non-subsidised cooking gas price will be cut to Rs 803 per 14.2-kg cylinder in the national capital with effect from midnight of Friday/Saturday, official sources said. Prices vary from state to state depending on the incidence on local taxes.
The government had no option but to cut spending to meet its borrowing targets.
Two full-fledged semiconductor fabrication plants are going to come up in India very soon entailing multi-billion dollar investment besides several chip assembly and packaging units, Minister of Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. In an interview with PTI, the minister confirmed that the two projects include a $8 billion proposal submitted by Israel-based Tower Semiconductors and the other from Tata Group. "I am happy to share this with you and you are probably the first one I'm sharing this with.
"For decades in our country, the meaning of the Budget was restricted to what announcements were made in whose name. The Budget was turned into an account of the vote bank," Modi said.
Modi said whenever Congress came back, all development works came to a standstill.
Boxer-cum-politician Vijender Singh has said he has no qualms about admitting that he has paid an emotional price for the decision to make a political switch from the Congress to the BJP, but insisted that he had his reasons to do so.
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.
The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the Union Budget for financial year 2022-23 (FY23) from October 12, according to an official notification released on Monday. "The pre-Budget meetings as well as the meetings to discuss the revised estimates will start from October 12 and will continue till the second week of November," according to the Budget circular of the Department of Economic Affairs' Budget Division. The Union Budget is expected to be announced on February 1, as has been the practice of the past few years.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday unveiled the budget for fiscal 2020-21, vowing to boost income of Indians and their purchasing power, in a bid to revive domestic economic growth that has slumped.
She said that despite government scheme and initiatives ranging from roads to agriculture, housing, scholarships to electricity benefiting lives of people, a false narrative was being created by the opposition that the government was working for cronies.
Asked about the BJP's claim that its performance in southern states will be exemplary, Tharoor said, "The claim of an 'exemplary' performance is yet another product of the BJP's propaganda mill."
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.
Gandhi said the prime minister did not answer the questions he had posed to him.
Modi said the policies of the government will empower the downtrodden and turn them into a "power house" for the development of the country.
From referencing "josh" of Bollywood flick 'Uri', to chants of "Modi, Modi" from the Bharatiya Janata Party, there were varied reactions in Lok Sabha as Finance Minister Piyush Goyal gave his interim budget speech on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said both public and private sectors need to leverage synergies and think out of the box to seize opportunities arising as a result of the emerging global environment. While interacting with noted economists and experts at NITI Aayog ahead of the Union Budget, the prime minister also applauded the success of the India Digital story and the rapid adoption of fintech across the country, an official statement said. During the meeting, economists offered suggestions on ways in which India can sustain its development momentum, it added.
Later, Sitharaman's office clarified that the FM had already met the industrialists, experts, and economists during the pre-budget consultations.
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The budget session of the Parliament begins today.
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