Without periodic booster shots to display of strength, how is this government what it aims to be? There was also the landscape of prosperity pictured; the in-season affair with 'amrit' stretched to a longer residence in 'Amrit Kaal', notes Shyam G Menon.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
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 Union Cabinet has cleared disinvestment of the country's largest insurer LIC and a panel headed by the finance minister will now decide on the quantum of stake dilution, a senior official said on Monday. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) had in January appointed actuarial firm Milliman Advisors LLP India to assess the embedded value of LIC ahead of the IPO (initial public offering), which is touted to be the biggest public issue in Indian corporate history. The Budget amendments to the LIC Act has been notified and the actuarial firm is expected to finalise the embedded value of the life insurer. Under the embedded value method, the insurance company's present value of future profit is also included in its present net asset value.
An analysis of the frequency of various watchwords in the finance minister's Budget speech shows that he was perhaps trying to hold on to his ideas without treading on anybody else's toes, says A K Bhattacharya.
The target of mopping up Rs 1.75 lakh crore from divestments of some of the public sector companies, including LIC and BPCL during the current fiscal, is on track and groundwork is being prepared for the goal, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said on Monday. On the COVID-19 pandemic, Subramanian said the impact of the second wave is lesser than that of the first one. In an interactive session, organised by Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the CEA said robust GST collections, over Rs one lakh crore per month for eight months in a row shows that consumption is picking up indicating positive signal for growth.
She also took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party over its defeat in the just-concluded Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, saying the ruling party's president could not hold on to his home state. "Who is the Pappu now?" she asked.
'Looking at the speed at which changes were made post the Franklin Templeton issue, we are awaiting more stricter norms in the months to come.'
Budget for 2022-2023 has returned to its agenda for protectionism in the name of creating a self-reliant India, points out A K Bhattacharya.
In years past, we often approached the Budget expecting to see changes in direct and indirect taxes. Those days are behind us. The Budget of today seeks to expand the economy and keep it at the forefront of technology, observes Harsh Goenka.
India's services sector activity moderated further in January as new business rose at a noticeably slower rate amid the escalation of the pandemic, reintroduction of restrictions and inflationary pressures, a monthly survey said on Thursday. The seasonally adjusted India Services Business Activity Index fell to 51.5 in January, down from 55.5 in December, pointing to the slowest rate of expansion in the current six-month sequence of growth. For the sixth straight month, the services sector witnessed an expansion in output.
Under the Start-Up India campaign, recognition has been accorded to 27,000 new start-ups in the country.
The proposed move would help in cutting down compliance costs and reducing the friction between rules enacted by capital markets watchdog Sebi, depositories and government, experts said.
The Budget proposed abolishing the under-performing, authority of advance ruling, to replace it with a two-member board of advance ruling.
The government is unlikely to come up with the IPO of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) in the current financial year ending March 2022, as the valuation of the state-owned behemoth is taking more than anticipated time, and the preparatory work is still far from complete. There are still some issues that need to be addressed with regard to the valuation of LIC, a senior official of one of the merchant bankers said. Even after the valuation, there are several regulatory processes that have concluded, the official said.
The Railway ministry has been allocated budgetary support of Rs 140367.13 crore in the Union Budget on Tuesday - Rs 20,311 crore more than the revised figures of the previous fiscal. Overall, the national transporter is set to get a capital expenditure (CapEx) push of Rs 2.45 lakh crore in the financial year 2022-23, 14 per cent higher than the budgeted capital expenditure of Rs 2.15 lakh crore for the current financial year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech for 2022-23 said that India will manufacture 400 new, energy-efficient Vande Bharat trains in the next three years.
RLD sources said that the party chief was "taken aback" by the SP's delay in announcing his name as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections.
In a bid to boost agriculture infrastructure, the government on Monday announced a cess on certain items, including petrol, diesel, gold and some imported agricultural products. While proposing the Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess (AIDC), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said that care has been taken not to put additional burden on consumers on most items. There is an immediate need to improve agricultural infrastructure so that we produce more, while also conserving and processing agricultural output efficiently, the minister said in her Budget Speech in Lok Sabha.
Budget has already bombed at the box office and passing it without a revisit will be a mockery of the exercise though any modification may be short lived and perfunctory, observes V Ranganathan.
As the FM said, this is a Budget that lays the foundation for the next 25 years, observes Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Like last year, Sitharaman opted for a traditional 'bahi-khata' to carry budget documents. Dressed in a crisp yellow silk saree, the minister carried the documents wrapped in a red silk cloth, adorned with the Indian emblem in golden.
As Pranab Mukherjee passes away, we remember the man, the politician, the Rashtrapati.
While speaking of taxation, Sitharaman also quoted Sangam era Tamil classic's Yaanai Pugundha Nilam written by Pisirandhayar in Purananooru.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
After a hiatus of nearly two decades, the government's programme to privatise state-owned firms restarted with the handing over of debt-laden national carrier Air India to the Tata Group. With the new owner shelling out Rs 18,000 crore for the buyout of the 'Maharaja', this would be the highest-ever amount garnered through privatisation, and is even more than the cumulative sum mopped up through strategic sales from 1999-00 to 2003-04. The government had in October last year inked the share purchase agreement with the Tata Group for sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. Tatas would pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt.
Are you happy with his proposals? How would you rate the speech? Tell us...
According to highly placed sources, the finance ministry is likely to extend ECLGS and other loan guarantee schemes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), hospitality and tourism sector, and the health infrastructure beyond March 31, Business Standard has learnt. This is likely to be announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as part of her Budget speech on February 1.
With the new owner shelling out Rs 18,000 crore for the buyout of 'Maharaja' this would be the highest ever amount garnered through privatisation or even the cumulative sum garnered through strategic sale in 1999-00 to 2003-04. The government had garnered roughly over Rs 5,000 crore during that five-year period by privatising 10 CPSEs.
'...for at least 6 months and give them peace of mind to get back on their feet.' 'Entrepreneurs are suffocating and not able to run their companies peacefully.'
There are two ways: Deliver a rapidly growing economic pie or reform GST and close corporate tax loopholes, suggests T N Ninan.
FinMin has already sought inputs from different central ministries for the Budget speech, which would be the last Budget of the current BJP-led NDA government before the 2019 general polls.
On Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a salary hike for the President and Vice President of India while making his Budget speech. Currently, President Ram Nath Kovind gets Rs 1.5 lakh per month while Vice President Venkaiah Naidu gets Rs Rs 1.25 lakh. Jaitley announced that as per the revisions the president and vice president would receive Rs 5 lakh per month and Rs 4 lakh a month respectively. Rediff.com takes a look at the salaries of other world leaders and sees how India stacks up in comparison.
The government on Monday said it proposes to incentivise incorporation of one person companies, a move that will benefit startups and innovators.
She posed for the traditional 'briefcase' picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. She, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format.
Under the scheme called Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, Rs 6,000 will be transferred into bank accounts of farmers holding up to 2 hectares of land in three equal instalments.
Sitharaman said Aadhaar card for NRIs with Indian passports will be issued after their arrival in India, without the mandatory 180 days' waiting period.
Accusing the Centre of setting a new trend of playing "dirty politics" for votes through the budget, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said the allocation of more funds to poll-bound states is a kind of "bribery".
Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com's take on Delhi's sensational corporate espionage scandal.
Buy on the rumour, sell on the news" seems to me the best explanation of the stock market's swoon during and after the finance minister's Budget speech on Monday.
At his pre-Budget consultations with Finance Ministers of states, he is understood to have said that it was time to wrap up lose ends on GST.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances