The richest one per cent in India now own more than 40 per cent of the country's total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of wealth, a new study showed on Monday.
The jump can be attributed to increased assistance through soft loan.
The market is now likely to 'wait' for signs of softening of crude prices
'In the final analysis, all Budgets everywhere are like the schemes hatched by A A Milne's lovable Winnie-the-Pooh.' 'They may be well-intended, but often go awry.' 'Although Pooh and his friends agree that he 'has very little brain', he is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense.' 'This Budget at a first glance does not appear to belong to that latter category,' says economist Shreekant Sambrani.
Even if the same party returns to power, what is important to debate is that having introduced an entitlement, how challenging it is to reverse such decisions, says Mukesh Butani.
Annual plan of 65 ministries and depts hiked 27%.
Here's what celebrities had to say about Arun Jaitley's Budget.
The finance minister may stagger some of the recommendations.
Sheela Bhatt recounts the tension, suspense and disruptions during P Chidambaram's interim budget in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
That "Rollback Budget" ushered in an era of rollback.
The hike in the defence spending was announced as the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress opened its annual session, which this year also marks the once-in-a-decade power transfer.
One possible way of accelerating National Education Policy's outcome is to invite 10,000 retired highly accomplished teachers from the developed world and from India in STEM areas to create 2,500 "Train the Teacher" colleges in the country's 28 states and eight union territories, Murthy said.
The Metro line 3 project envisages an Rs 23,136 crore (Rs 231.36 billion).
The finance minister announced that E-governance allocation to be increased from Rs 395 (Rs 3.95 billion) to Rs 719 crore (Rs 7.19 billion).
No prior approvals required for setting up off site ATMs will enable banks speed up their franchise expansion.
Central ministries as a whole are expected to get an increase of only 15 per cent in gross budgetary support for 2008-09, much lower than the 62 per cent increase they had demanded.
Budget-makers in North Block are looking to maintain this fiscal status quo, in spite of tax revenues nowhere close to where the government wants and in spite of possible higher expenditure commitments.
MGNREGA scheme: A significant Rs 17,370.58 crore has been carried forward over to the next financial year as unpaid dues as demand for work continued unabated for the scheme in rural areas.
Before Budget, departments see outlays shaved.
We can hope that some of the benefits of the rural spending - on irrigation, roads, etc -- will spur rural demand and improve rural productivity, says P V Subramanyam.
We can hope that some of the benefits of the rural spending - on irrigation, roads, etc -- will spur rural demand and improve rural productivity, says P V Subramanyam.
We can hope that some of the benefits of the rural spending - on irrigation, roads, etc -- will spur rural demand and improve rural productivity, says P V Subramanyam.
The 50-share NSE Nifty was trading lower by 24 points.
The central government is likely to further consolidate its fiscal deficit by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.9 per cent in FY24 from 6.4 per cent in FY23, according to a recent report released by Goldman Sachs on Tuesday. In the current fiscal year, there is going to be an upside of 0.5 per cent on the receipts side due to higher nominal GDP growth, and higher tax buoyancy because of the formalisation, the report said. The upside to expenditure is mainly going to come from incremental subsidies (0.8 per cent of GDP), in both food and fertilizer, it said. The upcoming pre-election Budget will carry forward the trend of the increased capital expenditure seen in recent years.
The Cabinet has already cleared two proposals that will receive support from the fund.
The richest one per cent in India now own more than 40 per cent of the country's total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of wealth, a new study showed on Monday. Releasing the India supplement of its annual inequality report on the first day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, rights group Oxfam International said that taxing India's ten-richest at 5 per cent can fetch entire money to bring children back to school. "A one-off tax on unrealized gains from 2017-2021 on just one billionaire, Gautam Adani, could have raised Rs 1.79 lakh crore, enough to employ more than five million Indian primary school teachers for a year," it added.
India also went on an overdrive in expanding its military engagement with like-minded countries in its neighbourhood and beyond in the face of China's relentless attempts to become a regional hegemon and establish its primacy in South Asia.
Kerala budget for 2004-05 presented in the Assembly on Friday laid emphasis on agriculture, IT and tourism, making enhanced allocations to these sectors.
Harsh Roongta, Mahesh Padmanabhan, Anil Rego answer the most sought after questions on Budget Day.
All credit to the finance minister for walking the fiscal and expectation tightrope extremely well in his budget speech, says Ganesh Natarajan.
Three key babus will make room for a new set of officers to carry the baton of Budget programmes.
If one compares returns, the two public-sector ETFs have done better over the past year, but the ELSS category has done better over the trailing three and five years.
