President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday said the country's farm production and procurement increased during 2020-21 crop year despite the pandemic and agricultural exports reached a record level of Rs 3 lakh crore during the same period. In his address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget session, Kovind said the government is focusing on making the country self-sufficient in edible oils besides making special efforts to promote organic farming, natural farming and crop diversification. "My government is working continuously to empower the farmers and the rural economy of the country... I would like to give maximum credit to the small farmers of the country for this consistent success and strengthening of the agriculture sector," he said.
Members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) felt that though the Indian economy was resilient in the third wave, it, however, lost some momentum and with inflation likely to soften, there is room to continue with the accommodative stance and support revival, the minutes of the MPC meeting released on Thursday revealed. The six-member MPC voted to keep the policy rate unchanged and continued with the accommodative stance at its meeting on February 10. However, external member Jayanth Verma voted against the stance because he felt a switch to neutral was long overdue and the current stance has become counterproductive and deflects focus away from addressing recessionary trends that date back to at least 2019.
The government on Wednesday said it will raise Rs 72,500 crore through disinvestment of PSUs, including listing of three railway PSUs IRCTC, IRFC and IRCON, and proposed merger and consolidation to create globally competitive public sector units.
Seven years after Modi took office, merchandise exports were lower in 2020-2021 than when he had taken over from Manmohan Singh, points out Aakar Patel.
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier, while presenting the Budget on February 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had proposed to cap cash transactions at Rs 300,000 with effect from April 1.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said monetisation of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) assets is based on the principle of value creation for the government and investors and would bring about a paradigm shift in infrastructure augmentation and maintenance. Chairing the National Workshop with the states/UTs on Asset Monetisation organised by Niti Aayog, the minister sought the collaboration of states for the holistic development of infrastructure. She said India can become a $5 trillion economy, while striking the right balance between fiscal imperatives and socio-economic welfare, through active collaboration between the public and private sector.
Any attempt to defang Islamic State must first cut off its main sources of funding, especially its revenue from oil sales, extortion and crime, ransom payments, and support from foreign donors. This will also be need to be backed up by efficient forces on the ground.
The broader Nifty scaled its life-time (intra-day) high of 12,311.20, before ending 40.90 points, or 0.33 per cent, higher at 12,256.80. Other gainers included Ultratech Cement, Maruti, Kotak Bank, Asian Paints and HUL.
The main risk to the fiscal deficit arises from subsidies, which are threatening to far exceed the provision made for them in the Budget.
Moody's said the government will face challenges in achieving its deficit target for the fiscal year ending March 2021, amid persistent structural and cyclical headwinds to growth.
The fiscal deficit, as per the survey, deteriorated to 5.8 per cent of the GDP as compared to 3.4 per cent for 2018-19 estimated in the interim Budget.
'We get an overzealous army of tax inspectors pushing the economy too hard,' says Ajay Shah.
Equity benchmark Sensex rallied 487 points on Monday to close at a fresh lifetime peak, tracking gains in Infosys, HDFC twins and HCL Tech amid massive foreign fund inflows.
Modi's critics will say that he has put up cement and steel structures, but weakened the institutions of governance whereas Nehru strengthened them, observes T N Ninan.
Petrol prices on Thursday crossed Rs 73 a litre mark, the highest level since the BJP government came to power in 2014, while diesel touched a record high of Rs 64.11 a litre.
'There will always be a challenge to maintain a fine balance to ensure that the growth keeps happening and inflation is contained.'
There is a need for stimulus, as India is essentially a consumption economy, argues Cargill India chairman Siraj Chaudhry
'There is a need for stimulus, as India is essentially a consumption economy.'
Analysts say investors should increase their exposure to gold up to 10% of their portfolio, depending on their comfort with a 2-year horizon. But avoid investing in physical gold or deposit schemes run by jewellers
'Russia has got inherent military strength, they have a very good military equipment manufacturing infrastructure and by and large they are self-sufficient in their production capabilities'
Reliance Industries was the biggest loser in the Sensex pack, falling 2.62 per cent, followed by Nestle India, IndusInd Bank, UltraTech Cement, M&M and SBI.
"We are seeing the feel-good factor is back. It's only a matter of time before the entire economic engine starts working seamlessly," says Motilal Oswal.
The agreement is subject to approval by the IMF management and consideration by its executive board, which is expected in early April.
'The fiscal deficit target of 3.9 per cent of GDP seems achievable.'
You may be popular initially because of politics and ideology but if the economy slows down, you will be losing your popularity: Nouriel Roubini.
Time and cost overruns are endemic to most Indian warship building projects. A central reason is the Indian Navy's operational assessment that it is better to get a warship late and ov
The size of the GDP in the second quarter of 2018-19 is estimated at Rs 33.98 lakh crore, as against Rs 31.72 lakh crore a year ago
India's jugalbandhi with coal and clean energy is coming unstuck, neither achieving adequate renewable generation nor ensuring sufficient coal-fired power in the quest to become a $5-trillion economy. Six months have elapsed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ambitious climate agenda for India at COP26 at Glasgow. The net zero emissions target by 2070 is a distant one, but there are nearer-term plans to meet 50 per cent of energy demand with renewables by 2030 by increasing capacity to 450 Gw. A cursory look at the balance sheet of India's climate progress since November reveals ponderous progress towards meeting the renewables target even as the country is scrambling to expand coal-fired generation in the face of a power crisis.
On the White House website, his staff post a variety of proposals ranging from an "American First Foreign Policy" to killing former President Obama's climate action plan with agenda largely echoing his campaign website.
Excise duty was cut by six per cent in two phases since December 2008 from a peak of 14 per cent earlier to perk up the economy, which came under the impact of deepening financial crisis.
A collapse in global oil prices has unleashed a wave of monetary easing.
'If the epidemic is sharply contained in a month or two, we have a huge buying opportunity. 'If not, we are staring at a serious economic crisis, the contours of which we are totally unaware of,' warns Debashis Basu.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das has pitched for policy support from all sides -- fiscal, monetary and sectoral -- to nurture recovery of the economy hit by the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The dent on economic activity due to the second wave of the pandemic during April-May necessitated continuation of monetary measures to support the process of economic recovery to make it durable, Das had said while participating in the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) earlier in the month. "Overall, the second wave of COVID-19 has altered the near-term outlook, and policy support from all sides - fiscal, monetary and sectoral - is required to nurture recovery and expedite return to normalcy," Das said, as per the minutes of the meeting released on Friday.
Search is on for reliable indicators of underlying activity.
The rally in index heavyweight ITC has boosted the sentiment across the board.
The Modi government caved in under American pressure without even token resistance. Two countries similarly placed as India with high dependence on Iranian oil -- China and Turkey -- have shown the grit to stand up to Washington, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Soon after RBI announcing a much- awaited rate cut, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on Wednesday said that the global rating agencies should look at upgrading their stance on India's credit outlook. "Now we have a 50 basis points rate cut (in two tranches within two months) and I think that is good for the economy and all rate cuts benefits... If the outlook is looking good, the rating agencies should draw their lessons from that om improving the outlook," Subramanian told reporters. After presentation of Union Budget 2015-16 last week, global and domestic agencies had ruled out any immediate upgrade in India's sovereign ratings and had red-flagged the country's delayed fiscal consolidation roadmap and had also warned against any slippages from the "ambitious" disinvestment plan proposed in Budget. Subramanian said that the rate cut is consistent with the government's views in the last week's Economic Survey and thereafter in the Union Budget for the outlook on inflation and for the outlook on overall economy. "It (rate cut) shows that RBI and government are on the same page in terms of how we view the economy. It also means that Budget can be seen as conducive to non-inflationary growth," he added. On monetary policy framework agreement, Subramanian said that both Finance Ministry and RBI have shared concern about inflation. Recently, the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank agreed to 'inflation rate targeting' under which the apex bank will aim to lower retail inflation to below 6 per cent by January 2016.
The Indian market has corrected a lot already. Valuations are clearly more attractive than they were earlier this year.
The S&P BSE Sensex ended 80 points up at 23,789 while the Nifty50 closed at 7,235, up 24 points.
