Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her sixth straight Budget ahead of the Parliamentary elections, matching the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Sitharaman in her pre-election Budget, which technically is a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget, will seek Parliament's nod for a grant in advance to meet the central government's essential expenditure for the first four months of the new fiscal year that starts in April. A new government elected after the April/May general elections will present the full Budget, likely in July.
The Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) expressed serious concern over outsourcing of printing of Indian currency notes amounting to Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) to three countries in 1997-98 and said that such a tendency would put India's economic sovereignty at stake.
The sources claimed that one of those arrested is believed to be Arsh Dalla, who is associated with the banned Khalistan Tiger Force and ran terror modules on behalf of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a designated terrorist who was killed in June last year.
As persources, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das will represent India at the 2-day event to be hosted in Islamabad from August 25-26.
Unlike the previous visit, where TDP MPs accompanied Naidu to meetings, sources termed the current visit as "low profile", with one-on-one meetings with key Union ministers.
Currently, Railways is facing a loss of Rs 34,000 cr in passenger segment and its earnings are falling.
India has reduced the time period for foreign investors to seek international arbitration from five years to three years as part of the recently signed investment pact with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a departure from its model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). Under the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, if the Indian judicial system is unable to resolve a dispute within this shortened period, investors can resort to international arbitration. The investment pact, signed on February 13 in Abu Dhabi, came into force on August 31, replacing the previous pact.
The 8.1 per cent interest rate was recommended by the Central Board of Trustees after its meeting in Guwahati under the chairmanship of Union Labour and Employment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, a labour ministry press statement said.
TDS has been successfully used for direct taxes like the income tax.
The department of economic affairs in the Union finance ministry has suggested aggressive sterilisation of foreign capital inflows, tightening of government expenditure and intervention in key farm produce markets like wheat.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has stated that backward state of Assam and the Northeast region as a while need more fund from the Centre instead of frequent visits of Union ministers, a new and unprecedented trend since Independence.
The L-G will take decisions on police, officers of all-India services such as the IAS and the IPS, and giving sanction for prosecution in various cases.
In a major embarrassment to the Congress-led United Democratic Frontn government in Kerala, state Finance Minister K M Mani was on Thursday booked by the vigilance and anti-corruption bureau in the bar bribe scam.
May dilute stakes in PSUs to 90% instead of big-bang approach
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
The GST, an indirect tax regime, is to be rolled out from April 2016.
The ministry has also advised the Reserve Bank of India to make provisions for immediate relief in the affected areas.
'They think quick fixes like internship in the private sector will help. 'In fact, internships have been going on for the last one decade.' 'In 2014-2015 itself, we had a ministry of skill development. None of the programmes have yielded results, still they are continuing with such schemes under some other name.' 'We don't see any seriousness on the part of the government to attack the problem of unemployment.'
A recent decision of the high court in Chennai on the levy of service tax on software sale has made the Union finance ministry hopeful of a similar verdict in the case of copyright services.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
Union Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma said on Tuesday that the Central Board of Trustees would be meeting on May 31 at New Delhi for reviewing the interest rate of employees provident fund.
With a rising proportion of Non-Performing Assets in education loans, banks have approached the government, seeking protection in the form of a credit guarantee fund of at least Rs 2,500 crore.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
It is also likely to assume a deflator of around 4 per cent. That could take the nominal GDP outlook for FY21 to around 10 per cent. It is this nominal GDP forecast on the basis of which the finance ministry is calculating key Budget targets like the fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP and tax revenue growth for the coming year.
Jaitley, 66, has become 'very weak' as his health has deteriorated over the past few weeks, sources said, adding that he has developed some throat condition as well that prevents him from speaking for long.
Structural changes to government finances could be focus of the Union Budget, says Mihir S Sharma.
'There will be 200 ITIs developed as hubs, while 800 will be developed as spoke, connected with five National Skill Training Institutes.'
If things go according to the plans of the Indian government, Mumbai may rob Belgium's Antwerp, currently the world's top diamond destination, of its priced position.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
This followed a notification from the Union Finance Ministry asking it to "investigate, countrywide, the entire episode of mass circulation of fake revenue stamps."
The name of the Maharashtra chief minister will be announced on Wednesday, a day ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of the Mahayuti government, after the Bharatiya Janata Party elects its legislature party leader, a senior functionary said on Monday.
The government must expedite its plan for asset sale and privatisation, both of which hardly got any mention in the Budget speech, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the federal economic snoop agency under the Union finance ministry, sent 289 legal requests to its counterparts across the globe during 2018-19 as compared to 177 in 2017-18 and 138 in 2016-17.
As the government is busy preparing Budget, the Army on Thursday sought more funds for the force, saying this would help in its modernisation process.
He underwent a renal transplant on May 14 and on the same day, his ministerial charges were given to Piyush Goyal on an interim basis.
