Getting locked into instruments before the new regime kicks in would be a good strategy.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday raised the personal income tax rebate limit, doled out sops on small savings and announced one of the biggest hikes in capital spending in the past decade as she did a tight rope walk in the Budget between staying fiscally prudent and meeting public expectations in the year before general elections.
The number of cyberfraud cases has skyrocketed from 2,677 in 1999-2000 to 29,082 in FY24 -- more than a 10-fold increase. The RBI pegs digital payment frauds at Rs 1,457 crore in FY24, up more than five times in a year. It's not just the number of frauds. What's alarming is the growing sophistication of the fraudsters, exposing the vulnerabilities within the financial system, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
MFs continue to find it difficult to attract and retain long-term money from investors
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.
Ramalingam Kalirajan explains the pros and cons of both investment types.
Government to pay disproportionately high interest for borrowings from savings, overturning a nearly two-decade-long process of reforms in the management of public debt.
Net NPAs increased to Rs 36,260 crore in the December quarter from Rs 34,843 crore in September and Rs 33,116 crore in December 2023, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Households are likely to remain the primary net lenders to the economy in the coming decades.
Invest in MFs for liquidity and choice of funds. Invest in NPS for the tax benefits, tax-free rebalancing, and for earmarked savings for retirement.
We the people are left in the wind, waiting on the whims of an unengaged president and an oligarch with a nearly bottomless wallet, observes Sree Sreenivasan.
Such holders will earn only post office savings account rate of 4 per cent and not the higher rate on those instruments when the status was one of resident.
Use this window to lock into bank FDs; unless govt cuts small savings rates, banks may not cut deposit rates
This is the highest in the past five years and almost 24 per cent more than last year.
Tax-saving investments should not be made with the sole purpose of saving tax, but should also help an individual grow his wealth, suggests Archit Gupta, founder and CEO, ClearTax.
Backloading the government's borrowing programme suggests the finance ministry's confidence in better revenue numbers, says A K Bhattacharya.
The staff at post offices misappropriated Rs 95.62 crore of public money between November 2002 and September 2021, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said. The money may seem small but it is what common citizen invested in post office savings, the oldest and the largest banking system in the country. The system serves the investment needs of urban and rural clients through schemes such as savings bank, recurring deposits, time deposits, national savings certificates, kisan vikas patras, public provident fund, monthly income account scheme, sukanya samriddhi accounts and senior citizens savings scheme.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
'The global situation is not very good.'
India is expected to harvest 291.95 mt of foodgrain in 2019-20
The total number of demat accounts in the country stood at 171.1 million as of August 31.
FPIs are currently capped at 5 per cent of the total outstanding government dated securities, and own 4.5 per cent
Let's wait for the monetary policy on February 8 -- to see how it complements the fiscal commitments, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
State-owned Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL), which operates India's strategic crude oil storage, will make awards by December to lease around 1 million tons of crude oil storage space (7.3 million barrels) at two of the country's three existing Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPRs), around a fifth of the total SPR capacity. This will enable the refilling of crude caverns even as escalating hostilities in the Gulf threaten disruptions in crude supplies, two industry sources said.
Equity-linked savings scheme, PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana are recommended instruments.
The BJP may win more seats in the February 5 assembly election, but not enough to trump AAP, notes Ramesh Menon.
Investors need to evaluate how they stack up against other high credit quality fixed-income options before putting money in them.
'As a donor, you may think you are saving one life. But you touch the lives of the entire family and community associated with the person. And it only cost you a few hours of your life.'
The decline is attributed to lower salary growth and a rise in households' financial liabilities.
A day ahead of Lok Sabha polls announcement, the government today decided to hike interest rates on fixed deposit schemes offered by post offices by up to 0.2 per cent.
In the Union Budget for Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had held forth on the need for better governance and investor protection in the banking sector. She had proposed certain amendments to the Reserve Bank of India Act (RBI Act), 1934; the Banking Regulation Act (BR Act), 1949; and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970.
There are reasons to limit your exposure, even with the rise in rates of small savings schemes.
There was no smooth surge in middle class prosperity for foreign businesses to tap into because of the Indian economy was mismanaged, argues Debashis Basu.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has brought down the budgetary allocation for the fertiliser subsidy for FY21 to Rs 71,309 crore, from the RE of Rs 79,998 crore for FY20, while increasing food subsidy to FCI through "ways and means advance" to Rs 50,000 crore for FY21, from Rs 36,000 crore in RE for FY20, and under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to Rs 77,982 crore, from Rs 75,000 crore.
Has Vijay Shekhar Sharma given up on the bank? For now, he seems to be on a save-OCL mission. The bank will face its logical end, observes Tamal Bandopadhyay.
SIP top-ups are especially beneficial for young investors, who may start with a small SIP installment and grow it over their working careers, says Dwaipayan Bose.
'In a complex situation a PM coming was not necessary'
The number of dematerialised (demat) accounts required to hold shares and other securities in electronic format rose by 3.1 million in April, bringing the total tally to a fresh record of 154.5 million. Since December last year, the new additions have consistently remained above the 3 trillion mark, a sign that the stock markets continue to attract new investors despite a spike in volatility.
To make possible discretionary spending including capex and that on welfare, the government decided to borrow more than planned in FY21 -- Rs 12.7 trillion.
Top officials said asking employees other than the fund management team to mandatorily invest a fifth of their salary goes against the principle of natural justice.
