The core dilemma remains: Why provide further stimulus to an economy that is already booming at an 8 per cent growth rate? asks Rajeswari Sengupta.
Rural India outpaced urban centres in passenger vehicle sales in 2025, recording a growth of 12 per cent compared with 8 per cent in cities.
Ahead of the Budget exercise, which is set to begin on Wednesday, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday hinted at further moderation in tax rates, deepening of reforms and cut in wasteful expenditure.
Indian government's decision to cut GST rates on various products will increase purchasing power of consumers and boost demand for residential properties in the upcoming festive season, according to realtors' body CREDAI. The association, which has a 13,000 members from across India, said the construction cost is expected to come down because of reduction in GST rates on cement and few other building materials.
Advertisers will pay 18 lakh to 25 lakh per 10 seconds, a 10% to 20% increase over the last Asia Cup final.
Banks are receiving requests for cancellation of approved car loans, in view of the implementation of GST rate cut, which will lower the price of passenger vehicles and also lead to subsequent reduction in the amount needed to purchase them. It is to be noted that the 56th GST Council meeting earlier this month, approved substantial reduction in the GST rate for cars for up to 1,200 cc to 18 per cent from the existing 28 per cent.
Trade deals ease risks for Indian equities, but weak demand and stretched valuations raise questions over whether optimism -- especially in smallcaps -- can turn into a sustained bull run, points out Debashis Basu.
Investors have often been left scratching their heads over why a company's stock fails to move despite delivering beating earnings results, only to see the stock fall. According to theory, beating earnings should translate to higher stock prices, but in today's interconnected world, stock prices do not depend on the numbers.
States will remain "net gainers" of the proposed GST rate rationalisation exercise with their GST revenues, including devolution, estimated to be over Rs 14.10 lakh crore this fiscal, according to an SBI Research report released on Tuesday. It said that, as was evidenced in the earlier exercise of GST rate rationalisation in 2018 and 2019, an immediate reduction in rates can cause a short-term dip of around 3-4 per cent in month-on-month collections (roughly Rs 5,000 crore, or an annualised Rs 60,000 crore), revenues typically rebound with sustained growth of 5-6 per cent per month.
'Stay invested but progressively reduce risk. Beyond a point, the objective should shift from maximising returns to avoiding unpleasant surprises.'
Shares of Dr Reddy's Laboratories jumped 5.3 per cent on Thursday to Rs 1,217 apiece, making it the top gainer in the Nifty 50 and the BSE 100 indices. By comparison, the Nifty 50 was up 0.53 per cent at 25,289.
Customs regimes can lead to labyrinthine legal disputes. Budget 2026 must recognise that an excessively defensive Customs posture can itself become a trade barrier, point out Mukesh Butani and Shankey Agrawal.
rediffGURU Vipul Bhavsar answers readers' personal income tax queries.
Retail sales of vehicles across categories in India in 2025 grew by 7.71 per cent at 2,81,61,228 units as compared to 2,61,45,445 in 2024, with GST 2.0 helping overcome a subdued start to the year, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations said on Tuesday.
At present, the service tax rate stands at 12 per cent. Added to this is a 2 per cent education cess, bringing the incidence to 12.24 per cent.
As many as 17 cancer drugs, along with medicines and food for special medical needs for seven rare diseases, components for microwave ovens are some of the items that are set to become cheaper with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing cuts in customs duty in the Union Budget 2026-27.
'Sebi's move to cap brokerage charges will help investors by lowering the overall cost of investments.'
'Ek baar aap GST dekh lo!' - Prime Minister Narendra Modi's gentle nudge to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in December last year sparked the beginning of a mammoth exercise to overhaul the tangled goods and services tax regime. And the final outcome is a significantly simplified system with lower tax rates and easier compliance for businesses.
The Indian government has expressed its disagreement with the IMF staff's 'baseline' assumption that the 50 per cent US tariffs on its goods exports 'would remain in place indefinitely', based on which the staff pegged the country's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent this year, and pared its 2026-27 projection by 20 basis points to 6.2 per cent.
In a pre-Budget wishlist, Vinod Juneja, managing director, Braj Binani Group, said, "I expect the finance minister to target the GDP growth of at least 8% or higher for the next 3 financial years."
Sustaining 8 per cent-plus growth rates is necessary if we are to reach high-income status by 2047, points out Amitabh Kant.
Trent reported decent margins in the second quarter (July-September) of 2025-26 (Q2FY26) but growth moderated. Same store growth was low single-digits. Trent's revenue growth decelerated in Q2FY26 at 17 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) while area additions were offset by decline in revenue per square foot (sq ft).
Silver prices rallied sharply by Rs 15,000 to hit a lifetime high of Rs 265,000 per kg in the national capital on Monday, and gold advanced to a fresh record of Rs 144,600 per 10 grams, mirroring strong gains in the global markets.
Total pending Customs arrears, including amounts under litigation, court stays and cases where the appeal period has not expired, stood at about Rs 1.36 trillion at the end of December 2024.
India was being evaluated for a potential weight of around 1 per cent in the index, an allocation that could have translated into $25 billion of inflows, spread over roughly 10 months.
Room for rise of up to 2 percentage points, move to help meet higher expenditure need in FY17
The food delivery platform sector in India employed 1.37 million workers in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) and is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 per cent, estimates a new report released by the Delhi-based think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
'There is a challenge in repositioning yourself, maybe reinventing yourself.'
'It must become faceless, just as the entire direct tax assessment system has already become fully online, without any human intervention in the normal course,' recommends A K Bhattacharya.
Overlap refers to the same stocks appearing across fund portfolios.
Supported by strong buoyancy in public sector capital expenditure (capex), growth in infrastructure investment is expected to accelerate in 2025-26 (FY26) compared to 2024-25 (FY25), according to the First Advance Estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for FY26 released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Wednesday.
Passenger vehicle dispatches from companies to dealers raced to the highest ever sales mark in a calendar year in 2025 as a reduction in prices due to GST reforms led to robust sales in the festive season, industry body SIAM said on Tuesday.
The share of first-time luxury customers in BMW's portfolio has risen sharply -- from around 43 per cent in 2024 to nearly 49 per cent in 2025. In some models, the figure is even higher.
After two years of strong gains, smallcap stocks fell sharply in 2025, but the correction may be setting up opportunities for long-term investors.
Three laws passed in Parliament could boost central revenues, reshape GST cess flows, shift MGNREGA costs to states and create new budget headroom ahead of the 2026-2027 Union Budget, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The Centre has proposed exempting life and health insurance policies for individuals from GST, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and convenor of insurance GoM Samrat Choudhary said on Wednesday. Currently, health and life insurance premium attracts 18 per cent GST.
The old tax regime remains unchanged. 'Taxpayers opting for it will continue to follow the existing slab rates and deductions.'
Seeking investments to boost growth, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday vowed a corruption-free governance.
As of now, no firm has launched a flex-fuel vehicle in India, as these models are more expensive than comparable petrol-run vehicles.
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