Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said he has noted reports about reservations Swiss banks have in sharing client details with India, but did not say what course of action the government would take.
However, the finance minister did not oblige members in the Rajya Sabha with clarifications on his intervention in the debate on the issue of price rise, even when Communist Party of India-Marxist member Sitaram Yechury sought some more information.
Senior Congress leader and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee resigned as chief of party's West Bengal unit on Sunday citing "heavy government responsibilities", and Congress Legislature Party leader Manas Ranjan Bhunia was appointed to the post by Sonia Gandhi.
Rashtrapati Bhawan has filed a complaint with Delhi Police against former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi for posting "defamatory" tweets against President Pranab Mukherjee and his Secretary Omita Paul.
Ahead of the first quarterly review of credit policy on Tuesday, RBI Governor D Subbarao on Friday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to review the macro economic situation.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has asked Communications Minister Andimuthu Raja to complete the auction of the third generation (3G) spectrum within the agreed deadline (February 15), so that the revenue from it can be reflected in the Union Budget for 2009-10. Mukherjee had earmarked Rs 30,000 crore as revenue from 3G auction, which has already been delayed by a year, in the Budget.
Hitting back at Team Anna, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has rejected their allegations of corruption against him as "unfair" and "self-seeking" and said it reflected the lack of responsibility on behalf of those claiming to represent high standards of ethical behaviour.
Notwithstanding the ruling Congress remaining undecided on who should be its presidential candidate, Congress members of Parliament and members of Legislative Assembly have come out in open demanding the post for Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the ongoing investigation against the owners of Indian Premier League teams.During the briefing, Mukherjee explained to Dr Singh how bids for franchisees were made.Reportedly, Dr Singh and Mukherjee also discussed the names of Nationalist Congress Party leaders Praful Patel and Supriya Sule being drawn into the IPL controversy.
Factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production, contracted in March to a five-year low of 3.5 per cent.
Anticipating an adverse impact in view of a bad monsoon, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday set an ambitious direct tax collection target for the current fiscal, revising it upward to Rs 4 lakh crore, up Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) over the Budget estimates.
In a surprise statement, Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the Congress has announced that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is not their Presidential candidate, comments that came shortly after a Congress spokesperson suggested he is too "valued" to be spared.
Pranab said he had clarified this issue in no uncertain terms with US Treasury Secretary who had brought up this issue during bilateral talks.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has questioned the granting of hefty funds to certain states by Pranab Mukherjee, the United Progressive Alliance's Presidential candidate, and sought to know if this was meant to influence the ruling parties including Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal - United and the Trinamool Congress.
Sharad Yadav, JDU chief and NDA convener, tells Gyan Varma if the UPA had discussed Pranab Mukherjee's nomination for Presidential election before announcing his name, the NDA would not have put up its candidate against the former finance minister
Anirban Ganguly recounts moments from the past when Pranab Mukherjee had to face uncomfortable questions from opposition MPs.
With the United Progressive Alliance announcing the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee for the President's post, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Finance Minister have reached out to Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar for support but he was non-committal.
Lagarde said that she had elaborate discussions on the general economic situation.
Communist Party of India general secretary A B Bardhan and national secretary D Raja will go to Kolkata and represent their party at the cremation.
Breaks self-imposed rule never to return to an office he has occupied in the past.
Pranab Mukherjee said the government proposes to move various legislative Bills related to financial sector reforms.
Agitated over the police action against protesting Bharatiya Janata Party youth wing activists in New Delhi on Tuesday, senior BJP leader L K Advani on Wednesday complained to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the orders seem to have come directly from Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury created flutters on Thursday when she talked of how valuable Pranab Mukherjee is to the government but the party stepped in immediately to clear the air saying the finance minister is not ruled out from the Presidential race.
For starters, the assumption of nominal (ie real plus inflation) GDP growth of 10.1 per cent for 2009-10 seems on the low side if it is assumed, as Mr Mukherjee said, that the worst of the financial crisis is over. Against this backdrop, the assumption of poor tax buoyancy in 2009-10 is confusing.
The finance minister said this while presenting the Union Budget 2009-2010 at the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Most of the Budget work is done; only some "final touches" remain. For those, he will soon sit with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh--who was governor of the Reserve Bank during Mukherjee's stint in North Block in the 80s--before his draft speech goes to print.
A reshuffle-cum-expansion of Union Council of Ministers appears to be on the cards after the July 19 Presidential elections.
Stating that both the CPI and RSP would not vote, CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy asserted, "the author of the economic policies was Pranab Mukherjee. The wide chasm created between the rich and poor is the handiwork of Mukherjee as a Finance Minister".
Has President Pratibha Patil become an embarrassment to the United Progressive Alliance government? The answer is in the affirmative, if judged by reports emanating from the highest corridors of power.
Ahead of a scheduled discussion in Parliament on the Finance Bill, 2012, for its clearance next week, top bosses of Vodafone Plc met senior functionaries of the government on Tuesday to discuss tax issues that have emerged due to the proposed retrospective amendments in the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The Congress on Monday bid a warm farewell to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, poised to become the country's President, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that the veteran leader will be missed.
To check price rise, the government is importing some of the commodities to bridge the supply-demand gap and strengthening mechanism for providing subsidised items to poor, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday.
United Progressive Alliance Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee on Friday telephoned Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and is understood to have expressed his gratitude for extending support to him in the July 19 Presidential poll.
He sought to know from the industry if it wanted India to become a no-tax country.
Toughening its stand, key United Progessive Alliance constituent Trinamool Congress on Thursday said if the Congress names Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee or Vice President Hamid Ansari as its Presidential candidate, it will "contest" the election with A P J Abdul Kalam as its nominee.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee cited a statement by former Union Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha on December 7, 2011, alleging that the Centre had deviated from its own statement.
Why Krishna is miffed. The Congress's power politics. The BJP's politics over Modi. All this, and more, in Dilli Gupshup....
The demand got a further clout after the economic growth in 2011-12 recorded the nine-year low growth of 6.5 per cent.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram will soon have to decide whether to stick by his predecessor's choice of former Reserve Bank governor Y V Reddy for chairmanship of the 14th Finance Commission, to be set up next month.
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