Congress leader K C Venugopal on Friday gave Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar a breach of privilege notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks on why former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's family did not use his surname.
The government had no option but to cut spending to meet its borrowing targets.
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.
"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.
There are tell-tale signs of a slide in the quality of Budgets presented by the current administration, says Parthasarathi Shome.
In a boost to the space programme, the government on Wednesday approved the Chandrayaan-4 mission to bring back moon rocks to earth, to send a spacecraft to orbit planet Venus and to expand the Gaganyaan project to build an Indian space station.
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
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 minister will also visit the school in Tamil Nadu where she studied from KG to Class 5.
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.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will set a record by presenting the sixth Budget in a row -- 5 annual Budgets and one interim -- a feat achieved so far only by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. With the presentation of interim Budget on February 1, Sitharaman will surpass the records of her predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row. Desai, as Finance Minister, had presented five annual Budgets and one interim Budget between 1959-1964. The interim Budget 2024-25 to be presented by Sitharaman on February 1, will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections.
As per the allegations, some parts of Delhi also had posters with the caption Modi Hatao Desh Bachao.
The party, rallying in his support, campaigned that national icons like Periyar EV Ramasamy, Dr BR Ambedkar and Naryana Guru had spoken against discrimination including those based on a person's birth. That the Sanatan Dharma controversy cut no electoral ice in Tamil Nadu was also seen as a success for Udhayanidhi.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Monday said there was 'nothing wrong' in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to his residence on Ganpati Puja and underscored the need for a 'sense of maturity in political sphere' on such issues.
Anandiben Patel said students should study ancient Indian texts to appreciate the unparalleled research and discoveries made by their ancestors.
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.
The total allocation to the defence sector is 12.9 per cent of the total budget of the government of India for the financial year 2024-25.
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.
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.
PSU divestment, LIC IPO, fiscal deficit: Budget 2021 marks a clear change in the Modi government's stance from fiscal conservatism to growth orientation.
"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.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced the doubling of the upper limit of Mudra loans to Rs 20 lakh to promote entrepreneurship in the country. "The limit of Mudra loans will be enhanced to Rs 20 lakh from the current Rs 10 lakh for those entrepreneurs who have availed and successfully repaid previous loans under the 'Tarun category', she said while presenting the Budget in the Lok Sabha.
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.
Internship opportunities have been posted by 193 companies, including Jubilant Foodworks, Maruti, Eicher Motor, L&T, Muthoot Finance and Reliance.
Noting that elections will be held in four states, she urged party leaders to sustain the momentum and goodwill that had been generated for the party in the Lok Sabha elections.
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.
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 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.
From dubbing voices to putting faces with the help of AI, political campaigns are undergoing a Bollywood makeover. Among the favourites is a scene from the Anil Kapoor-starrer Nayak, posted by the BJP, where Kapoor asks about the Chunaavi Vaade (poll promise), with Arvind Kejriwal at the receiving end instead of Amrish Puri.
The government on Wednesday approved 12 new industrial cities in 10 states on the lines of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Dholera in Gujarat to boost domestic manufacturing with an estimated investment of Rs 28,602 crore. These industrial areas will be in Khurpia in Uttarakhand, Rajpura-Patiala in Punjab, Dighi in Maharashtra, Palakkad in Kerala, Agra and Prayagraj in UP, Gaya in Bihar, Zaheerabad in Telangana, Orvakal and Kopparthy in AP, and Jodhpur-Pali in Rajasthan, and one in Haryana. A decision in this regard was taken in a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The government will come out with a White Paper on the mismanagement of economy prior to 2014 with an aim to draw lessons.
The G20 declaration, which hit snags on the language to describe the Ukraine war, amounted to a 'coup' for host Prime Minister Narendra Modi though the final compromise statement reflected a stand far softer than those the United States and its Western allies have adopted on Russia, the world media said on Sunday.
'Milking poorly performing or easily marketable assets is the way to deliver more money for key programmes,' says T N Ninan.
Dr T V Somanathan is the first finance secretary to be appointed Cabinet secretary since 1985. His appointment at this juncture seems to carry much meaning for the forthcoming trajectory of reforms and restructuring of India's steel frame.
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.
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.
The budget session of the Parliament begins today.
'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.
"Earlier, governments were busy in vote bank appeasement but we are busy satisfying people," the prime minister said.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
