'The next two to three weeks will not be decided in Washington.' 'They will be decided in Tehran, in whatever calculation Iran makes about the costs of continued resistance against the costs of appearing to have yielded.'
India has managed high government debt-to-GDP, a slowing domestic revenue engine, lower household savings and a more hostile geopolitical environment separately in the past. But together, they threaten to undo the growth narrative on which today's optimism rests, warns Debashis Basu.
Capex, infrastructure development, and prudent fiscal management are the key focus areas in the Budget, says Nilesh Shah.
Wholesale price inflation (WPI) fell to (-) 1 .21 per cent in October, driven by a decline in prices of food articles like pulses and vegetables, as well as lower fuel and manufactured items' prices, government data showed on Friday.
Industry body Assocham has asked the government to retain both excise duty and service tax at existing rate of 10 per cent in the Budget for 2012-13.
Benchmark stock indices Sensex and Nifty dived sharply by nearly 2 per cent on Sunday after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a hike in the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on derivatives. Reversing the early gains, the 30-share BSE Sensex plunged sharply by 2,370.36 points or 2.88 per cent to slide below the 80,000-mark at 79,899.42 in afternoon trade as the finance minister announced a hike in STT on futures contracts to 0.05 per cent from the current 0.02 per cent.
'LIC will reduce but not fully exit its stake in IDBI Bank, which remains an important bancassurance partner,' says LIC of India' MD and CEO R Doraiswamy.
Real GDP growth surprised on the upside in 2025, but weaker nominal growth, trade uncertainty, and soft demand signal a bumpier road ahead.
'Sebi's move to cap brokerage charges will help investors by lowering the overall cost of investments.'
After a subdued first quarter of 2025-26 (Q1FY26), banks are now betting big on the festive season, rolling out attractive loan offers to boost credit growth in the second half of the current financial year (H2FY26) - a trend likely to be further accentuated by the second-order effects of the good services tax (GST) cuts.
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The notice also said service tax amounting to Rs 28.08 crore (Rs 280.8 million), in addition to education cess of Rs 56 lakh and secondary and higher education cess of Rs 28 lakh (Rs 2.8 million) for the period between October 2007 and September 2012, should be recovered from Amity under the provision to sub-section 1 of section 73 of the Finance Act.
ICICI Bank on Wednesday said tax authorities have slapped a demand notice of Rs 49.11 crore on it for alleged short payment of GST.
With the scope of expanding excise and customs duties getting increasingly limited, the government would turn to service tax for widening the tax base, mop up from which is expected to fetch over Rs 10,000 crore by 2005.
Gross GST collection rose 9.1 per cent to over Rs 1.89 lakh crore in September on the back of increased sales due to rate rationalisation, as per government data released on Wednesday.
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 issuing notices to hotels across the country for allegedly underpaying goods and services tax (GST) on restaurant services, the revenue department has now widened its scrutiny by seeking information from online travel platforms.
The Service Tax Department has once again frozen the bank accounts of the national carrier Air India for non-payment of dues running into a little over Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion).
Festive buying spree unleashed by lower tax rates pushed gross GST collection to about Rs 1.96 lakh crore in October, registering a 4.6 per cent year-on-year growth -- the slowest rate so far this fiscal.
The Budget reflects a clear focus on strengthening India's long-term prospects by leaning on nation-building sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, and technology while maintaining fiscal responsibility.
India will now face a lower reciprocal tariff of 10 per cent, down from 25 per cent, after US President Donald Trump announced a new global levy on items imported into America in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict against his sweeping duties on several nations.
Banks are depending more heavily on the market for certificates of deposit (CDs), whose worth climbed to a record Rs 5.75 trillion in the fortnight to January 15, owing to deposit tightness in the system.
'We kept this Budget on a larger plank, rather than on one incident, however serious.'
Base revisions are technical exercises, but history shows they can significantly reshape the narrative around India's growth performance.
The market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies eroded by Rs 9,40,581.75 crore to Rs 4,50,61,658.60 crore (USD 4.90 trillion) in a single day.
Fitch Ratings on Thursday raised India's GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal to 7.4 per cent, from 6.9 per cent, on increased consumer spending and improved sentiment boosted by GST reforms.
'The impact will be minimal and it will only increase compliance cost on consent, data flows, localisation timelines, internal audits, data mapping, and new tooling.'
India's new national accounts will leverage new data sources and surveys to enhance the measurement of the country's informal economy, and introduce double deflation methods across sectors, replacing the current system that relies on a single deflation mechanism in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculations.
The contrast with the old Income-Tax Act is stark. The 1961 law ran into 512,000 words; the 2025 one pares that down to 259,000. Chapters have been cut from 47 to 23, while sections have reduced from 819 to 536. One of the clearest changes is terminological. The confusing twin concepts of 'assessment year' and 'previous year' have been scrapped.
The verdict marks a notable shift from a series of recent wins for Trump at the Supreme Court.
'This is not a case of tax evasion but the result of long-standing ambiguities in GST rules and unawareness.'
The turning point came with the appointment of Sergio Gor as the US ambassador to India.
Afghans have deep self-respect and are the last people to put up with humiliation. Is it any surprise that relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have touched an all-time low and the two countries are now at war? asks M R Narayan Swamy.
In view of the difficulties faced by the corporates due to torrential rains in Maharshtra and Gujarat, industry body Assocham has sought extension of deadline for payment of service tax to August 20.
Banking sector has witnessed healthy growth in advances in the third quarter of financial year 2026 (Q3FY26) against the same period last year, as the full impact of goods and service tax (GST) rate cuts drove growth. Most of the lenders saw their credit growth outpace the deposit growth in the quarter.
State debt is rising because revenues are disappointingly weak. Ten states have debt ratios exceeding 30 per cent. In 2023-2024, states were borrowing simply to meet day-to-day expenses, points out Debashis Basu.
Analysts have sharply reduced cigarette maker ITC's earning estimates for the next two years, fearing a significant dent in the company's profitability and margins. This is owing to a steep hike in excise duty on tobacco by the government.
A nationwide strike called by central trade unions saw a mixed response across India, impacting various sectors and states differently, with some areas experiencing disruptions while others remained largely unaffected.
The government has been taking steps to promote cashless or digital transactions to take India towards a less-cash economy
India's net direct tax collections contracted 1.3 per cent to about 5.63 trillion as of July 10, with corporate taxes dropping 3.7 per cent and non-corporate taxes recording a fractional 0.04 per cent contraction, Income Tax department data released on Friday revealed.
