The session will commence with the maiden address of President Droupadi Murmu to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament. The address essentially highlights the government's achievements and policy priorities.
'With continued focus on votes, upcoming by-polls and purchasing politicians, the political hierarchy has little time for national defence.' 'They would do well to heed a veteran scholar, who says, "There will be war with China in the next few years. The next full scale war will have the involvement of Pakistan and terror elements, insurgents and intelligence assets operating inside India",' warns Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
It was touted as a game changer but big-ticket privatisation has been a mixed bag as the government faces unanticipated challenges of lukewarm investor response, employee union agitation and legal hurdles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's often-repeated statement 'the government has no business to be in business' guided the drawing up of an ambitious privatisation pipeline. While Air India sale succeeded, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) divestment failed.
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'.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejigged his team only once, in July 2021, in his second term, unlike in his first stint, when he reshuffled and expanded his council three times.
Modi knows that the BMC elections are critical for his party which has never won a majority in the city's 227 wards.
The new TDP government will have to mop up over Rs 10,000 crore to fulfill the financial requirements for July, a retired senior bureaucrat said.
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.
The budget session of the Parliament begins today.
'Milking poorly performing or easily marketable assets is the way to deliver more money for key programmes,' says T N Ninan.
Modi said the policies of the government will empower the downtrodden and turn them into a "power house" for the development of the country.
"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.
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.
'Inter-ministerial coordination, information on the proposed PSUs, and due diligence are taking longer than expected to conclude the process.'
The budget is "farmer friendly, common citizen friendly, business environment friendly" and will add to 'ease of living' and 'ease of doing business', Modi added.
In his speech in the Lok Sabha on February 7, Rahul made several allegations against the government over the Hindenburg-Adani row.
As per practice a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in the election year and a full-fledged budget presented by the new government.
In a statement, the Lok Sabha Secretariat said Thursday that due to their location at different places in the Parliament premises, visitors were not able to see these statues conveniently.
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.
In this year's budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hiked tax on petrol and diesel, raised import duty on gold, levied additional surcharge on super rich and brought a tax on high value cash withdrawals as she sought to spur growth with reduction in corporate tax and sops to housing sector, startups and electric vehicles.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first and only women till now to have presented the Union Budget.
Later, Sitharaman's office clarified that the FM had already met the industrialists, experts, and economists during the pre-budget consultations.
'There is a time for lowering one's expectations of the economy -- and therefore not trying to do too much in the Budget,' notes T N Ninan.
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.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said his party would oppose the Centre's move to bring a bill in Parliament to amend the 1995 law governing Waqf boards, and accused the BJP of trying to snatch the rights of Muslims.
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.
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 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.
The losses in state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh have put the ruling party under pressure to announce swift measures aimed at addressing rural distress and lack of employment.
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.
Gandhi said he was "waiting with open arms".
The 79-year old veteran leader, who has already announced his retirement from electoral politics, said there is no question of him sitting at home, and after the assembly session he will tour the state and campaign for the party and its candidates.
The first two days of the session will be devoted to swearing-in of the newly elected MPs while the Lok Sabha speaker will be elected on June 19.
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.
Parliament will now meet on March 8 for the second part of the Budget session.
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.
Will Finance Minister Arun Jaitley live up to the expectations of India Inc and individual taxpayers? Watch all the action here live from Parliament.
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.
'Not disclosing information to the public indicates that there is something wrong with Project Cheetah.'
Participating in the debate on the budget, leaders of parties like the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Aam Aadmi Party and Left launched an all-out attack on the BJP government for allegedly selling off the country's assets and PSUs to big industrialists.
