Exporters on Thursday demanded fiscal incentives, tweaking in customs duties on certain products and credit at affordable rates in the forthcoming Budget to boost exports and create jobs. In a pre-budget virtual meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said the depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar is affecting exports' competitiveness and the sector requires more support. "Creation of employment is the biggest challenge faced by the country...We would urge the government to provide fiscal support to units which provide additional employment in the export sector," the exporter's body said.
The vigilance department of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority is looking into such complaints in Rajiv Gandhi Shilpi Swasthya Bima Yojana, Weather Insurance Scheme, Shetkari Apghati Durghatana Bima Yojana and Panjikrut Kishan Durghatana Bima Yojana, according to a letter written by IRDA to Finance Ministry on its ongoing probe.
Starting a social media campaign, Irani has urged people to follow suit and share pictures of themselves in handloom textiles, tagging five others.
The annual rate of inflation based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI) was 1.22 per cent in December as compared to 1.55 per cent in the previous month. It was 2.76 per cent in December 2019. The decline last month was mainly due to lower increase in food prices, data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed on Thursday. The food inflation for December dropped to 0.92 per cent as compared to 4.27 per cent in the previous month.
In a bid to curb harassment of taxpayers, Sitharaman said, a faceless e-assessment scheme was launched in October to eliminate interface between an assessing officer and a taxpayer.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain DoPT, Atomic Energy as well as all important policy issues and portfolios not allocated.
Kerala's Tirur betel leaf, Tawlhlohpuan and Mizo Puanchei from Mizoram, and Palani Panchamirtham, a temple 'prasadam' from Tamil Nadu have been awarded Geographical Indication tag.
The party's performance in the assembly polls in the state -- which is the most populous and hence sends maximum number of MPs to the Lok Sabha -- will have a bearing on its future prospects on the national level.
She began her career as an aspiring model in the late 1990s. A few decades later, she is one of India's best known politicians.
The government, under the Finance Act, 2020, had allowed tax exemption for SWFs and pension funds in the case of incomes from investment in 34 key infrastructure sectors, including hotels, cold chains, educational institutions, hospitals, and gas pipelines.
After Nasim Zaidi retired as Chief Election Commissioner in July, there was a vacancy in the poll panel.
The expansion was the first by Sarma since he assumed chief ministership of the state about 13 months ago.
The free trade agreement (FTA) talks with India are no longer working towards a Diwali deadline though negotiations are progressing well, UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has said as New Delhi expressed confidence on Friday of an "early date" for a mutually beneficial deal. "There are ongoing negotiations as we know on the FTA. There is interest on both sides to see if we can work towards a deal, an FTA, that is beneficial to both the countries at an early date," external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters in New Delhi. It came as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke to his UK counterpart, James Cleverly, and referenced the Roadmap 2030 bilateral agreement signed between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former UK PM Boris Johnson in May last year, with no specific reference to the FTA.
The finance ministry has set up two committees of state finance ministers which would rework rate slabs, review GST exempt items and identify potential evasion sources. Four years after the roll out of the national Goods and Services Tax (GST), which replaced the complex indirect tax structure, the centre and states have started work on moving towards a "simpler rate structure in GST" by reviewing the current rate slabs, including special rates and merger of rate slabs. The Group of Ministers (GoM) on rate rationalisation would also review items under inverted duty structure to help minimise refund payout, and review the supply of goods and services exempt under GST with an objective to expand the tax base and eliminate breaking of input tax credit (ITC) chain.
Strengthening the portfolios of the home minister and the finance minister is a message that should not be missed, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi stood at 398 at 11 am, worsening from 357 at 4 pm on Friday. It was 354 on Thursday, 271 on Wednesday, 302 on Tuesday and 312 on Monday (Diwali).
The latest consignment from China consisted of about 1,70,000 PPE kits, including donations for the use of healthcare professionals involved in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Sources said these PPE kits were sent to the Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE), Gwalior, for quality testing.
The Election Commission will hold the 2019 general election under Arora .
'It was like a doctor giving some simple pain killers to a patient in dire requirement of chemotherapy.' 'There was no sense of urgency or desperation in this particular Budget.'
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
Retirement fund body EPFO net added 14.81 lakh subscribers in August 2021, reflecting a growing trend in net payroll for the first five months of this fiscal. The provisional payroll data of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) released on Wednesday highlights that it added around 14.81 lakh net subscribers during the month of August 2021, a labour ministry statement said. The data reflects a growing trend in net payroll for the first five months of the current financial year, it added.
Of these 8.5 million additional people employed in September, 6.5 million were in rural India, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
Ajit Balakrishnan on learning from past technology revolutions.
The Centre and states are looking to further tighten the GST registration process and legal measures to deal with the rising cases of fake invoicing. A meeting of the law committee of the GST Council has been convened on Wednesday to discuss these issues, finance ministry sources said. The committee, comprising senior central and state tax officers, would also discuss the GST fake invoice frauds, further tightening of the GST registration process and work out other legal measures including necessary law amendment required in the GST Act to curb the menace of fake invoicing, they added. Also the provisions related to deemed registration under Goods and Services Tax (GST) law may be tightened to prevent the misuse of such provisions by fake dealers and the provisions related to suspension of registration may also be streamlined to make the procedure of suspension and cancellation of registration more efficient and faster, so that such fraud operators can be prevented in time from continuing to pass on fake credit down the chain.
In the early part of 1800, a 30-acre plot next to Fort Gloster on the banks of river Hooghly in Howrah district of Bengal was the nerve centre of industrial activity; it housed India's first steam-powered cotton mill, Bowreah Mills, which was set up by a British merchant and went on to become a hub of factories - a rum distillery, foundry, cotton yarn factory, an oil mill and a paper mill, et al. Spearheaded by Dwarkanath Tagore, the industrialist grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, the commercial complex was possibly the first of its kind in the country. Close to 200 years later, after much ebb and flow of history, the hub is set for a resurgence of sorts.
Despite being a neighbour, Pakistan has never accounted for more than 2 per cent of India's total exports, and its share in India's total imports is less than 1 per cent. On the other hand, bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh has increased five times.
The youth have to turn into entrepreneurs if India's massive demographic dividend is to be taken advantage of: Smriti Irani.
Trade deficit during the month narrowed to USD 14.54 billion from USD 15.3 billion in January 2020. It was USD 15.44 billion in December 2020.
Vinai Kumar Saxena's current job as lieutenant governor of an Opposition-ruled state will raise the bar -- not just for him, but also for the Aam Aadmi Party government, which never says no to a fight with the representative of the central government in India's capital.
The Indian inspiration behind the First Lady's look on her arrival to India.
Unlike the first two stimulus packages, this time the focus would be on boosting demand.
The much-delayed insurance bill and the goods and services tax bill are among the 39 bills that are expected to come up during the month-long Winter Session of Parliament beginning next week.
'India has an advantage because we produce more cotton and we have more workforce.'
Finance Minister P Chidambaram is expected to extend a relief package for leather and textile exporters, who are hit by the rupee appreciation, as demanded by the commerce ministry.
The appointments committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared Bhalla's appointment as OSD in the ministry with immediate effect.
The country's exports grew 5.37 per cent year-on-year to $27.24 billion in January 2021, mainly driven by healthy growth in pharma and engineering sectors, according to provisional data of the commerce ministry. Trade deficit during the month narrowed to $14.75 billion from $15.3 billion in January 2020. It was $15.44 billion in December 2020. Imports in January 2021 rose 2 per cent to $42 billion.
As India's top designers including Tarun Tahiliani, Vikram Phadnis, David Abraham, Rohit Bal, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Wendell Rodricks gather in Varanasi today to try and give a boost to the Benarasi handloom sari, in an initiative by designer turned BJP politician Shaina NC, Rashme Sehgal outlines the crisis facing the weavers.
The appreciating rupee may just be one of the reasons why the Indian textiles sector may have suffered in the exports market.
The chief minister, who had on Wednesday expanded his new cabinet by inducting 29 ministers, had played it safe by and large retaining old faces, as 23 of them were Ministers in the previous Yediyurappa cabinet, while six were new.
Market breadth continued to remain strong, with 1899 gainers and 674 losers on the BSEs.
