The Day in Politics: Featuring Dr Singh, Messrs Kejriwal and Sisodia and Mamatadi.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Interim Budget on February 1 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections likely to be held in April-May.
Forbes magazine has honoured Bandhan of being the world's largest micro finance institute.
'Amit Shah was, briefly, a stockbroker before devoting himself to politics. By instinct or training, he knows the value of keeping blue chips in one's portfolio.'
Sources in the West Bengal government's finance department said the state had made budgetary provisions that would run into several hundred crores every year for 20 to 30 years to attract Tata Motors' Nano project to Singur.
Performance-based incentives were recommended by the 13th Finance Commission, but omitted by the 14th Finance Commission
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
The closed-door discussions between Kishor and Pawar at the latter's residence lasted for about one-and-a-half hours, sources said.
While presenting the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament, the finance minister said poll-bound West Bengal will see highway projects worth Rs 25,000 crore. She also announced that highway projects worth Rs 65,000 crore will be undertaken in Kerala. She also announced an Rs 18,000-crore scheme to augment public transport in urban areas.
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.
He will succeed Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani.
The BJP doesn't want to focus entirely on an anti-Mamata campaign.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his Telangana counterpart Revanth Reddy visited some inundated areas in their respective territories.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday assured farmer leaders led by Rakesh Tikait and Yudhvir Singh of support to their agitation against the new agriculture laws.
Banerjee, however, didn't clarify whether any other minister of her cabinet would attend the meeting on her behalf or not.
'Since the NDA took office in 2014, and aggressively since 2019, the Union government seems hell bent on centralising all power and resources, only to fail spectacularly.'
Denied of any relief from the UPA-II government, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday pinned her hopes on the new BJP government at the Centre for a positive response on the state's huge debt repayment problem.
Appreciating efforts of West Bengal to attract investments, the finance minister said the Centre would extend all support to the Trinamool-government to promote industry and boost growth in the state.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the government will roll back a steep interest rate cut on small saving schemes such as PPF and NSC -- saying it was an oversight, a move being seen as an attempt by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to contain the fallout of a decision hitting the common man in the ongoing elections in West Bengal, Assam and three other states.
The organisation established its electoral presence post-Independence in states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Assam, with West Bengal being its main stronghold, but eight decades down the line, the party, now limited to just some pockets of the country, has no MP or MLA in its kitty.
Ponzi or MLM schemes are fraudulent investment operations.
What some of our leaders were up to in the last couple of days.
DFC is the US government's development finance institution. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (APSEZ) in a statement said that the US fund will support the development of deepwater shipping container terminal in the Port of Colombo.
While the likelihood of these states going the Lanka or Greece way may be an alarming assessment, the financial situation of some states such as Punjab and West Bengal is indeed quite weak.
'You don't win elections on the basis of borrowed players.' 'There is a great crisis of leadership for the BJP in Bengal'
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday approved the biggest tax reform since Independence.
In an apparent reference to political differences between Bharatiya Janata Party and Trinamool Congress, Jaitley said there are national causes to stand together, notwithstanding political differences.
It epitomises a significant opportunity lost, just when the state was beginning to shed three decades of leftist inhibitions in favour of economic reform.
The demand for extension of the GST cess regime among others was made by several state finance ministers at a pre-budget consultation called by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. Besides, many states also demanded raising the share of the Union government in the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). Currently, the central government and state government share in some CSS is 60:40 while in others it is 75:25.
The government has sanctioned Rs 95.61 crore to Maoist-affected states, including West Bengal, under the 'Special Assistance Scheme' to carry out speedy development works. The amount has been sanctioned to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
A day after slamming Narendra Modi as "Butcher of Gujarat", the Trinamool Congress on Monday demanded that the Gujarat Chief Minister should apologise publicly or face a defamation case for questioning the sale of Mamata Banerjee's painting.
Shah attacked Banerjee over the alleged culture of political violence in the state, saying the only industry that was flourishing in Bengal was that of "crude bombs and illegal weapons".
Accordingly, West Bengal can borrow Rs 20,362 crore, Maharashtra (Rs 46,182 crore), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 29,108 crore), Karnataka (Rs 27,054 crore), Gujarat (Rs 26,112 crore) and Rajasthan (Rs 16,387 crore).
Facing a deepening slowdown, the auto sector is pinning hopes on the GST Council meeting on September 20 for a rate cut from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. However, states including Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, and Punjab are of the view that the slowdown in the auto sector is not because of the GST rate but structural issues in the economy.
7 states account for over 80 per cent of the total direct tax collections by the Union government.
The TMC chief had said that she would never allow the Centre to conduct a similar exercise in West Bengal.
'Persisting with the inequalities, indeed seeing them get worse, is no one's prescription for national unity,' notes T N Ninan.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
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