It is worrisome that salaries are consuming as much expenditure as equipment.
'If Modi is talking to every Tom, Dick and Harry, why is he afraid of talking to ex-servicemen?'
The meeting will review annual financial performance of public sector banks, credit offtake in the economy, priority sector lending and progress made under various social sector schemes, including Atal Pension Yojana (APY) and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
The abolition of wealth tax is again a welcome step.
The independent institute advising the PM on jobs seems to have missed the point that the challenge is to create net additional jobs, says Mahesh Vyas.
Consumers will thank the Modi government for this simple yet revolutionary move, which is long overdue, says Debashis Basu.
He cautioned people against forces inside and outside India which are working against the country by targeting it and its constitutional values.
Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Fauci said that India made the "incorrect assumption" that they were finished with COVID-19.
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 announcement comes on the first anniversary of the project.
Later, there may be some tax relief aimed at the middle class and measures to benefit the sectors worst hit by Covid-19 and the resultant nationwide lockdown.
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
It will be interesting to see whether India-China border tensions figure during the deliberations of PLA deputies to the NPC and CPPCC, notes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
Railways to hive off all production units and workshops into new govt-owned company; may invite bids from private players to run passenger trains in next 15 days, with ownership vesting with the government.
Deadline to submit convincing reform plans is this week.
The minister plans to reinstate the Railways as the backbone of the economy
West Bengal was the second-most industrialised state in terms of value added and first in terms of number of factories and employment even in the mid-1960s. With a severe and long process of deindustrialisation, it lost its primacy.
Rediff.com does a quick checklist on what the two manifestos have to say on hot-button issues of the day.
Most of the scanty 6.35% rise in the defence budget is accounted for by manpower and running expenses.
'The non-implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, almost a year after it was implemented for civilians, is gradually beginning to hurt morale in the armed forces,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Yoga sessions will be organized for central government employees and their dependents by the 'Grih Kalyan Kendra', a welfare society working under the aegis of the Centre.
After assuming power in 2014 with a full majority of its own, the BJP-led NDA government started an ambitious process of reforming labour laws in the form of codes aimed at making the framework less cumbersome with a variety of alterations. It had planned four codes each for industrial relations, wages, social security and welfare, and occupational safety, health and working conditions. To this end, 35 central labour laws were to be converted into four codes that would have had the virtue of streamlining labour relations. But none of the proposed code Bills could be converted into a law principally because neither trade unions nor industry representatives came on board. They hold the key to India's low-growth-high unemployment paradigm but the government may struggle to push them through this time as well. Somesh Jha explains why
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
Many exemptions make little sense, such as a monthly exemption of Rs 100 for college education and Rs 300 for hostel fees.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the nation for the seventh time from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day on Saturday and it will be his second speech of the second term in office.
The march, which commenced from Nashik on March 6, will culminate in Mumbai on Monday and protestors plan to gherao the Vidhan Bhavan where the Budget session of the state legislature is underway, said organisers.
A way out of the economic slump is to revisit the template of 15 years ago and follow its constituents, recommends Ajay Shah.
The country's new economic roadmap highlights the importance of creating a virtuous cycle of investment, savings and exports in order to sustain rapid economic growth over the next five years.
Long-term funding was a requirement for infrastructure projects, and asset-liability mismatch in the banking system, impacts the access to finance for infrastructure projects. One of the key challenges would, however, be to get private sector back into investing.
Universal basic income or social security? Economist Nitin Desai feels we need a blueprint for universal health care and pensions to help the vulnerable section.
'An expanding army, rising salaries due to the 7th pay commission, and raised pensions due to OROP are consuming money at the cost of badly needed bulletproof jackets, rifles, artillery, submarines, warships and fighter aircraft,' notes Ajai Shukla.
In other welfare schemes, such as those for cooking gas, pension and scholarships, which are linked to DBT, cash is transferred directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.
The defence sector is seeing renewed interest by Indian corporates, says Jyoti Mukul
The Modi government has not lived up to the muscularity the prime minister promised while campaigning, says Ajai Shukla
'We should hope and pray that the PM's sentiment is not held ransom by machinations and craftiness of a few junior babus who throw in an imaginary impediment at every welfare measure and snigger and giggle at the sidelines every time a soldier is ill at ease,' says Major Navdeep Singh on the one rank one pension debate.
It is easy to criticise but difficult to transform an institution, says CJI Misra
What does Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee thinks about India's education sector?
Air India must tighten costs to comes out of the red or it wil perish in no time, says experts.
The Budget will 'further reignite our growth engine, signalling the dawn of a prosperous future.'
