The insurance regulator wants the removal of the minimum entry capital requirement of Rs 100 crore for setting up an insurance business in a bid to facilitate the entry of multiple players such as standalone micro insurers and niche players. Debasish Panda, chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), said it should be left to the regulator instead to decide what should be the entry fee for interested players, depending on the size of the business and operations. According to the current norms, insurers are required to have a minimum paid-up capital of Rs 100 crore.
This will, of course, go a long way in meeting the promised fiscal deficit target of 3.6 per cent of GDP in 2015-16.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das kept the red flag on cryptocurrencies flying, warning that the next financial crisis can be triggered by private cryptocurrencies if such speculative instruments are allowed to grow.
PSB chiefs tried to argue that liquidity is in surplus in the system and the problem was related to lack of demand in the economy, instead of banks' reluctance to lend, but 'the FM said it is a perception issue that loan is not available, which we need to dispel,', reports Somesh Jha.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja on Sunday said he was ready to serve life imprisonment if a single rupee or dollar was found in any offshore account in his name.
It raises three major questions - the incentive compatibility issue, the fairness issue and fiscal challenge, said Panagariya.
This will cost the government Rs 3.1 trillion, about 10 per cent of its annual expenditure, and higher than any other spending item in its Budget.
It is a sea of men clad in veshtis with distinctive party colour border design seeking votes with a smile and folded hands for their party candidates. The town is abuzz, with electioneering at its peak, and teeming trendy cars criss-cross the busy roads and bylanes bringing in more and more leaders from elsewhere for campaign.
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 government chose moral persuasion to make people give up subsidies, notes Rahul Khullar.
With Narendra Modi about to make his first Independence Day speech, there is a buzz in Delhi that Modi will make some big announcements to signal major reforms and directional shifts. But we have to wait and see if it happens, says Mohan Guruswamy.
Stressing on the need to protect both lives and livelihoods, he said public health action in India and across the world must be continually guided by evidence from four key questions -- how transmissible is the variant, severity of the disease it causes, how well vaccines and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protect and how common people perceive risk and follow control measures.
This columnist cannot pretend to be an economic expert but can certainly point out that the statistics being reeled out on a daily basis now, have added to the economic burden of the people, says Seema Mustafa.
India on Tuesday successfully test-fired the nuclear-capable strategic ballistic missile Agni-IV from a test range off the Odisha coast.
Implementing the Food Ordinance is the bigger challenge and there are many provisions of the National Food Security Bill which need to be expanded and strengthened.
The bench said it has to balance the equity and it was not against any policy of the government or the scheme.
'Demand is wonderful. We have crossed 10 million on many days.' 'The Swedish trade commissioner recently said, "You guys are vaccinating the entire Sweden in one day".'
Expressing commitment to augment the country's infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday proposed to significantly enhance capital expenditure to Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the next fiscal, besides creating institutional structures and giving a big thrust to monetizing assets to achieve the goals of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Sitharaman said NIP, that was launched in December 2019 with 6,835 projects, has now been expanded to 7,400 projects and around 217 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore under some key infrastructure ministries have been completed. "For 2021-22, I propose a sharp increase in capital expenditure and thus have provided Rs 5.54 lakh crores which is 34.5% more than the BE of 2020-21," the finance minister said.
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Can the leaky public distribution system, or PDS, deliver the subsidised grain to two-thirds of the population?
'What's the point in lamenting widespread toxic work culture, and the capitalist system that gives rise to it if there is no alternative?' 'Actually, there is,' says Ashish Sharma.
He rued that people who work hard and honestly are put through enormous difficulties and Indians excel in making an ordinary task into an extraordinary one.
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 government will create an EV Venture Capital Fund, for financial support to start-ups in the segment. The overall aim is to make Tamil Nadu the preferred destination for EVs and component makers.
The government has opted for the RuPay debit card over the Aadhaar-based platform for "last-mile" authentication in its Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
Critics said a 10-plus per cent annual increase in incomes is a tall order, given that between 2002-03 and 2012-13, farm incomes grew yearly by 3.6 per cent.
Agri experts are meeting FinMin ministry officials on Monday to give their inputs on the Budget.
Food subsidy bill rises 20% in April-January
As of July 13, at least 111 countries, territories and areas have reported detection of the Delta variant, and this is expected to continue to increase, becoming the dominant variant globally in the coming months.
'The 24x7 power for all vision is inspiring, because as we've so often seen, where India leads, the world follows,' says Rajiv J Shah, President, The Rockefeller Foundation.
'Helicopter drop' was first proposed as an alternative to quantitative easing.
Denmark topped the list of the 144 nations.
'To re-establish the writ of the State and resume governance, frayed tempers in the streets and in the media need to be calmed.'
Long-term capital gains tax may be scrapped and the burden of dividend distribution tax could perhaps be shifted from companies to shareholders. Also, the Budget could provide income tax relief for the salaried classes, while proposing tax sops for small, medium and micro enterprises.
Sources said much has been done to ease the tax burden of the middle classes in the last five years, and that such a measure affects only a limited segment of people when the focus should be to put money in rural areas. Archis Mohan reports.
Cipla is among the three Indian companies that signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with US-based Gilead Sciences to make and distribute the latter's repurposed Ebola drug Remdesivir in 127 countries including India.
Stepped up public expenditure must be accompanied by focused policies, advises Vinayak Chatterjee.
India will also play an increasingly important role as one of the Asia-Pacific region's major economic growth engines, helping to drive Asian regional trade and investment flows.
Only three percent of Indians pay income tax; our tax-GDP ratio is among the lowest in the world. This must change. Our elites must realise that India's poverty has damaging consequences for them, and that they can help decrease it. The food security bill, with all its limitations, will hopefully contribute to generating such awareness, says Praful Bidwai.
Legislators, bureaucrats feel an impact, with works relating to their constituencies stuck at various levels.
