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.
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'.
'Inter-ministerial coordination, information on the proposed PSUs, and due diligence are taking longer than expected to conclude the process.'
Gandhi said he was "waiting with open arms".
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.
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.
In his speech in the Lok Sabha on February 7, Rahul made several allegations against the government over the Hindenburg-Adani row.
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.
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.
"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.
'Not disclosing information to the public indicates that there is something wrong with Project Cheetah.'
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.
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.
The budget session of the Parliament begins today.
Modi said the policies of the government will empower the downtrodden and turn them into a "power house" for the development of the country.
'Milking poorly performing or easily marketable assets is the way to deliver more money for key programmes,' says T N Ninan.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'People have got into the habit of sitting at home (and watching films).' 'They don't want to watch movies in theatres because they do not want to waste as much as Rs 1,000 on tickets.' 'They feel there is no point in watching a film on the big screen because it will anyway come on OTT in a month's time.'
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 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.
Later, Sitharaman's office clarified that the FM had already met the industrialists, experts, and economists during the pre-budget consultations.
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first and only women till now to have presented the Union Budget.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
The Supreme Court verdict on the Ram temple showed India's secular character to the world, Shah said.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
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.
'The first duty of the government is to learn lessons from a bad experience and course correct. It's a pity that the government is making policy without looking at evidence and differentiating between immediate and urgent.'
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.
Six Himachal Pradesh Congress MLAs who voted against party nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha elections, along with three Independent lawmakers, have shifted to a hotel in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttarakhand amid an ongoing rebellion against Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
Parliament will now meet on March 8 for the second part of the Budget session.
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.
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.
She said I treated her like a bachchi. At another moment, she said I had gone to various people and 'bitched' about her. She also threatened to bring the entire matter to the PM's notice. A revealing excerpt from Subhash Chandra Garg's We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions.
Elections are not won or lost by expounding on such macro-economic matters. For the aam admi, what matters in manifestos are promises that will improve their quality of life, notes Vinayak Chatterjee.
