Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the Union Budget strikes a fine balance between growth, employment, and fiscal consolidation, and promotes cooperative federalism. Replying to the discussion on the Union Budget 2024-25 and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Budget in Rajya Sabha, the minister said the government is on track to achieve the pre-announced fiscal deficit target of 4.5 per cent by 2025-26. Sitharaman, also a former defence minister, said the Agniveer Scheme to recruit people in the age group of 17.5 to 21 years, is aimed at keeping the armed forces fit, young and battle-ready.
The market regulator's newly proposed selection criteria for the over Rs 400-trillion-a-day futures and options (F&O) market could pave the way for the entry of popular stocks such as Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India, Jio Financial Services, Zomato, Paytm, DMart, and Adani Energy into the derivatives segment. The Indian derivatives market, which accounts for most of the trading volumes, could see big churn with over two dozen exits from the current list of 182 stocks due to an upward revision in the eligibility thresholds.
The CBI has initiated the action on the complaint of Bank of Baroda, which was a member of consortium led by Bank of India, which had approached the agency fearing that Kothari may flee the country like Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
That's the only way to convince those who have money to return to the bank fold, ditching other asset classes, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Till the BJP does not understand Kejriwal they cannot win Delhi.'
...benefiting 350,000 persons. Also, Trai detected and blocked seven million mobile phone connections involved in cyber fraud and suspicious activities.
From the Sensex pack, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zones, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, State Bank of India, UltraTech Cement and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the major gainers. In contrast, Tata Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finserv, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services were among the laggards.
'The last year's growth is a foretaste of things to come in the retail credit market.'
'The hacker replaced original emails and planted fraudulent emails with a request letter and invoices to be paid to fraudulent bank accounts.'
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendment to the DICGC Act to provide account holders access to up to Rs 5 lakh funds within 90 days of a bank coming under moratorium to ensure timely support to depositors. Last year, the government raised insurance cover on deposit five-folds to Rs 5 lakh to provide support to depositors of ailing lenders like Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank. Following the collapse of PMC Bank, Yes Bank and Lakshmi Vilas Bank too came under stress, leading to restructuring by the regulator and the government.
India will need an annual investment of Rs 15 trillion in infrastructure over the next five years, says Chandrajit Banerjee, DG, CII.
Future Enterprises Ltd (FEL) on Tuesday said it has defaulted on payment of Rs 19.16 crore to Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank and Union Bank of India under the one-time restructuring plan. This is the second default by FEL this month. The due date for payment of Rs 19.16 crore was March 28, FEL said in a regulatory filing.
'During his stint as prime minister, he got 270 million people out of poverty.' 'This, according to the World Bank, is the fastest compression of poverty anywhere in the world.' Arvind Mayaram, the former finance secretary, recalls his encounters with Dr Manmohan Singh.
We'll need to wait a couple of years to see how many restructured loans turn bad and whether some banks fall victim to their obsession for growth, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The finance minister has done as much as she can when you look into the fiscal constraints she had.'
Congress leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir on Thursday promised that LPG cylinders will be provided in Jharkhand at a subsidised rate of Rs 450 even for 'infiltrators', sparking a political row in the midst of assembly elections in the eastern state.
Unprecedented bribery charges, farewells, separation, failed union, monumental mergers and record-breaking IPOs, along with a healthy dose of online happenings in the form of spat and lessons in customer care, corporate India saw it all in 2024.
Indian banks are the 2nd-fastest-growing ones.
The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal to provide Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for security receipts issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) as part of resolution of bad loans, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. The proposed bad bank or NARCL will pay up to 15 per cent of the agreed value for the loans in cash and the remaining 85 per cent would be government-guaranteed security receipts. The government guarantee would be invoked if there is loss against the threshold value.
The Aam Aadmi Party dismissed the allegation as "baseless" and claimed it was "another conspiracy hatched by the BJP" to tarnish AAP's image ahead of voting for Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and Punjab.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will review the performance of regional rural banks (RRBs) after the Budget session of Parliament, according to two people familiar with the matter. The finance minister will review the performance of RRBs after August 13. The review will include discussions on enhancing the digital capabilities of RRBs, said a senior government official.
The Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-India), the national agency responsible for analysing suspicious financial transactions, has received requests from four more offshore crypto exchanges to operate in India again, said a senior government official familiar with the matter. In the beginning of 2024, India had banned nine crypto exchanges - Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, Bittrex, and Bitfenix - for non-compliance with anti-laundering law in the country.
Alloting more funds for MNREGA and PM-KISAN could wipe out the entire additional money that the Centre may have for FY25.
The eighth Budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman continued to focus on 'GYAN' (Garib, Youth, Annadata, Nari) to maintain a consistent and coherent strategy initiated over the years in pursuing the government's vision for Viksit Bharat. The approach, characterised by incremental yet impactful steps, aims to create a compounding effect over time.
The pilot project for central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the retail segment went live on Thursday with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issuing Rs 1.71 crore to four participating banks based on their indents. The central bank has identified four banks for the first phase of the pilot - State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank - in four cities, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar. The highest indent was received from one private sector bank.
The government does not seem keen on issuing fresh gold bonds given the overall cost and rising gold prices.
Shaktikanta Das will demit the office on Tuesday after completing six years as the 25th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra will replace him as the 26th Governor. He was appointed as the Governor on December 12, 2018, after the abrupt exit of Urjit Patel.
EPS has had its way on most things, alliance-wise. A week earlier, he reiterated that he would not re-admit OPS and Sasikala Natarajan back in the party. It was a message not just to detractors in the AIADMK. It was even more so for the BJP leadership in Delhi. Even more important for the AIADMK was their demand for accepting EPS as the chief ministerial candidate of any alliance that the party would form, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are taking place today, with the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance seeking to retain power and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) hoping for a comeback. The campaign saw prominent leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crisscrossing the state to garner votes. The Mahayuti is banking on popular schemes while the MVA focuses on issues like caste-based census and social justice. The elections have also seen a significant rise in the number of candidates and voters.
Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance throwing all its weight to snatch Jharkhand from the hands of a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-headed coalition, the saffron camp suffered a debacle leaving the party's rank and file wondering what had gone wrong.
Jaitley said that the banks have to play an important role in achieving the higher growth rate.
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
Feature for feature, bank FDs are indeed better than debt funds today, mainly thanks to Ms Sitharaman, notes Debashis Basu.
According to the complaint filed by SBI, the account had become non-performing asset on January 27, 2016.
The association also wondered how the brand value of Kingfisher was considered as a collateral while sanctioning a loan, and alleged that even when RBI knew that this was a "deliberate default", no action was taken by the banks.
The All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) on Monday said it has launched a wing to deal with issues faced by those working for private sector lenders.
Moody's Ratings on Tuesday projected general government debt to stabilise above 80 per cent of GDP over the next three years, down from 89.3 per cent in 2020-21. "General government interest payments to fall to around 24 per cent of general government revenue over the next two years from over 28 per cent in fiscal 2020-21, although this remains much higher than the median 8.7 per cent recorded by Baa-rated peers," Moody's Ratings associate managing director Gene Fang said in a post-Budget reaction.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday asserted that Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, will not be restored even if Congress stalwart and late PM Indira Gandhi comes down from heaven.
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