The early tabling of the financial Budget ends a 70-year tradition.
As soon as Lok Sabha assembled, opposition members stormed into the well holding placards and shouting slogans. They demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the alleged stock manipulation by the Adani Group.
The supplementary demands for grants include a gross additional spending of over Rs 2 lakh crore, which would be matched by savings of over Rs 1.21 lakh crore.
The idea behind advancing the Budget date is to ensure that the Finance Bill is passed before the start of the financial year, on April 1, so that all central government departments get their full allocations to work with right from the first day
The impact of economic slump was visible in the Budget's fine print, as this step-by-step explanation show how the Budget math was worked out, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
The opposition has attacked the Modi government over the National Democratic Alliance's last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
India will soon become a green hydrogen exporting country, the road transport and highways minister told reporters before leaving for Parliament in the car, which is the first of its kind in India.
She said I treated her like a bachchi. At another moment, she said I had gone to various people and 'bitched' about her. She also threatened to bring the entire matter to the PM's notice. A revealing excerpt from Subhash Chandra Garg's We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions.
'When it is unpaid, sometimes, they don't take you seriously.' 'Work is not reviewed, and there is no effort in making interns learn.'
The chairman of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee, K V Thomas, on Monday said a meeting with finance ministry officials has been deferred to February 10 in view of the Budget preparations.
As per the rules and regulations, members must not do anything that brings disrepute to the Parliament and affects their credibility, and members must utilise their position as Members of Parliament to advance general well-being of the people.
Parliamentary proceedings were disrupted for the third consecutive day in the Winter Session as opposition parties continued their protests over the Adani issue and violence in Manipur and Sambhal. Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned within minutes of convening, despite appeals from the Chair to engage in productive dialogue and refrain from disruption. The opposition members raised slogans demanding action against the perpetrators of violence in Sambhal, and sought discussions on allegations of irregularities against the Adani Group and the violence in Manipur.
Modi said he was "full of confidence" ahead of his "exam", the Budget, by 125 crore people
Likely to be merged with Union Budget from FY18
February 6 or 8 likely options; development will be the main theme
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP leadership believes these parties are flexing their muscles in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls for better seat-sharing deals.
'It would be reasonable to assume that Modi 3.0 would be more focused on projects and schemes which do not require any legislative change or which have the support of its coalition partners,' asserts A K Bhattacharya.
The meeting is believed to be called to chalk out the strategy of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
The real requirement for the finance minister's explanatory speech is to explain the measures taken in the Budget to influence inflation and growth not just through the announcement of a deficit goal, but more broadly through the impact on money supply, consumer demand, foreign trade and investment, explains Nitin Desai.
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
Budget 2018 bears imprints of a government unsure of second term with clear majority, says Shekhar Gupta.
Opposition parties have slammed the decision to change the long-standing practice, alleging it was being done with an eye on the assembly polls in five states.
Bank strike continued for day-two on Tuesday, led by nine unions of public sector banks (PSBs) in the country, opposing government's policy to privatise the lenders. Customers will be inconvenienced to get services such as cash withdrawals, deposits, cheque clearances, remittance services. Government transactions related to treasury as well as business transactions will also be impacted. United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, had given a strike call for March 15 and 16.
It was good fortune for India to have Atal Bihari Vajpayee lead the government at a crucial moment in our history. He avoided India meeting the fate of Iraq or Ukraine, asserts military historian Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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.
Following the address by President Ram Nath Kovind, the economic survey will be tabled in the two Houses.
'Are all roads in India privatised? Are governments not playing a role in airports or ports? If they (private players) want to set up lines for a specific requirement, I see no reason to object. It will expand the opportunity and passengers will also benefit.'
Watch all the proceedings and live debates.
Move is to encourage investment in the infrastructure sector.
Hussain said the new government had inherited an "empty treasury" while the prices of oil were shooting up.
Several parties had requested that the session, which was originally scheduled to continue till April 8, be curtailed due to the five assembly elections being held in eight phases till April 29.
There was no law that prevented the government from presenting a sixth full Budget, or something similar to it.
'I found it unbelievable that L&T said 45,000 jobs were waiting to be filled because of unavailability of suitable skillsets.' 'So, when the Opposition sweepingly says there are no jobs, I'm sorry... I'm not saying it's raining jobs, but there are jobs. The (skill) gap has to be bridged.'
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posed questions for the prime minister ahead of his rallies in Karnataka.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman on Saturday proposed a budget of Rs 85,000 crore in 2020-21 for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes and Rs 53,700 crore for Scheduled Tribes.
From dubbing voices to putting faces with the help of AI, political campaigns are undergoing a Bollywood makeover. Among the favourites is a scene from the Anil Kapoor-starrer Nayak, posted by the BJP, where Kapoor asks about the Chunaavi Vaade (poll promise), with Arvind Kejriwal at the receiving end instead of Amrish Puri.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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