Canada's foreign direct investment (FDI) into India doubled after the pandemic years even as India's own investments into Canada show signs of slackening in recent years. The cumulative equity FDI inflows from Canada rose from $1.8 billion in March 2019 to $3.9 billion in March 2024, shows data from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The overall share is up from 0.42 per cent to 0.57 per cent during the same period, suggesting that Canadian FDI grew faster than overall FDI during this period
A higher level of private sector financing and resource mobilisation from new sources will be crucial for India to build quality infrastructure, according to the Economic Survey 2023-24. The Economic Survey 2023-24 was tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday.
The Budget for 2024-25 should focus on employment generation, besides promoting the manufacturing sector, economists attending the pre-Budget consultation meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman here on Wednesday said. The meeting was attended by National Co-convenor Swadeshi Jagran Manch Ashwani Mahajan, Director and Chief Executive of the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) Nagesh Kumar, and TCA Anant among others.
The government is planning to introduce legislative changes to the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema) regulations, with a focus on easing the pathway for inflows from a foreign portfolio investor to transition seamlessly into foreign direct investments (FDI) once the FPI surpasses the 10 per cent ownership threshold in a company. This move stems from multiple requests by foreign investors seeking to streamline the reporting requirements that arise when their stakes in Indian firms cross the 10 per cent mark.
The fund will promote domestic shipbuilding of all types and sizes to reduce India's dependence on foreign ships.
Long-term tax-saving FDs can also be considered after the PPF limit has been exhausted.
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
Forty-five specialists will soon be joining key posts of joint secretaries, directors and deputy secretaries in different central ministries as part of the Modi government's ambitious plan to infuse fresh talent to further improve ease of governance.
India's population is projected to peak in the early 2060s at about 1.7 billion and then decline by 12 per cent, but the country will remain the world's most populous throughout the century, the United Nations has said.
Three years after India declared its goal to become a net-zero economy by 2070, the policy design for achieving the target has begun, with the NITI Aayog forming dedicated multi-sectoral committees to prepare a transition plan. In 2021, India joined a select group of nations that set a target year for becoming net-zero carbon economy. At COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined a five-pronged 'Panchamitra' climate action target for India and committed to a net-zero target by 2070, joining nations like the US, the UK, and China.
'The committee has been constituted. Different government departments and FSDC members are part of it.'
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.
With the prediction of an above normal monsoon in 2024, the government is expecting food prices to come down, the finance ministry's monthly economic report for March has said. The report, released on Thursday, said robust foreign inflows and comfortable trade deficits were expected to keep the rupee within a comfortable range. "Further easing of food prices is on the anvil as IMD (India Meteorological Department) has predicted above-normal rainfall during the monsoon season, which is likely to lead to higher production, assuming good spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall," the monthly report, released by the Department of Economic Affairs, said.
Development economist Jean Dreze said the Indian democracy is currently navigating a crisis that is not only limited to the 'recent wave of authoritarianism' but also suppression of opposition voices by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
...benefiting 350,000 persons. Also, Trai detected and blocked seven million mobile phone connections involved in cyber fraud and suspicious activities.
'Not even a single rupee from the electoral bonds should be allowed to be used in the election.' 'If it is used in the election, it will taint India's electoral process itself.'
The contribution from asset management companies (AMCs) has surpassed the Rs 3,000 crore target for the creation of a Rs 33,000 crore backstop facility for debt mutual funds (MFs). The initial corpus for the Corporate Debt Market Development Fund (CDMDF) is nearly Rs 3,100 crore, according to multiple government officials and AMC executives. "The fund is operational now. "The required corpus has been raised by AMCs and the remaining part (Rs 30,000 crore) is in the form of a guarantee from the government which will be activated only in case of a credit event," explained D P Singh, joint CEO and deputy MD, SBI MF.
To check digital frauds, the government has disconnected 70 lakh mobile numbers so far involved in cybercrime or financial frauds, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi said on Tuesday. Emerging from a meeting to discuss issues related to financial cyber security and increasing digital payment fraud, Joshi, who chaired the meeting, said banks have been asked to strengthen the system and processes in this regard. More such meetings would take place, he said, adding the next meeting is scheduled in January.
'Das is friendly, but he finally does what he does. The quality of engagement is very good.'
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) may require at least five more years to comply with the minimum public shareholding of 25 per cent beyond the current exempted timeline of 2027. Formal communication in this regard had been shared recently with the finance ministry, underlining LIC's roadmap, plans of further dilution of stake, current norms around public float, and challenges ahead, a government source familiar with the matter said. "Going forward, we will have to take a call, along with Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) and the Department of Economic Affairs on the roadmap for minimum public shareholding (MPS).
Das had claimed that the alleged electoral manipulation by the BJP also appeared to have taken the form of targeted electoral discrimination against Muslims, "partly facilitated by weak monitoring by election observers."
The target was for banks to sell Rs 2 trillion worth of non-performing assets to NARCL, the so-called 'bad bank, by 2021-2022. Only 10 per cent of this has been executed.
The central government has given banks and credit card entities six to eight months to put in place the requisite reporting mechanism and related features to collect tax at source on international credit card transactions, a senior bureaucrat told Business Standard. According to the bureaucrat, the plan to bring overseas credit cards under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) has not been mothballed and is simply being deferred so that banks get adequate time to get the system up and running. The official expects the reporting mechanism to be ready in the given time, and the rule could be implemented in the next financial year (2024-25, or FY25).
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
Recently, Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached assets worth Rs 757.8 crore of Amway India Enterprises in connection with an alleged marketing scam. It claimed that Amway was running a multi-level marketing scam. The ED provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs 411.83 crore and bank balances of Rs 345.94 crore from 36 different accounts belonging to Amway. Data from the Department of Economic Affairs shows that in 2021-22 (until December 2021), ED had provisionally attached Rs 8,989.3 crore worth of assets.
Pant, a 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently secretary in the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways.
Kumar, a 1992-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, is currently an additional secretary in the ministry of electronics and Information Technology.
The money sent home by Indians from West Asian countries took a beating in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. On the other hand, overseas Indians in advanced nations - the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore - emerged as important sources of remittance, according to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) survey. Indians working in informal sectors in West Asia seem to have been impacted the most due to the lockdowns and subdued crude oil prices as well as slower pace of migration in recent years.
Those close to Khanna, 46, say he is keeping his options open ahead of a potential presidential run in 2028 or beyond. But others in his orbit are talking about an even more compressed timeline: running in 2024 if President Joe Biden, 80, decided not to, according to Politico, a political newspaper company based in Arlington County in the US.
The CBI, in its FIR, alleged that Mayaram, the UK-based company De La Rue International Ltd and unidentified officials of the finance ministry and RBI hatched a criminal conspiracy to extend undue favour to the firm.
China's population in 2022 -- 1.4118 billion -- fell by 850,000 from 2021, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
The finance ministry on Friday withdrew expenditure curbs on various departments and ministries imposed in June in the wake of the COVID-19 second wave, reflecting improvement in public finances and the urgency to step up growth.
The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2023-24 from October 10, in the backdrop of revival of the Indian economy and fears of recession in developed countries. The budget for the next year will have to address critical issues of high inflation, job creation, boosting demand, and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent-plus growth path. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said inflation is no longer "red-lettered" and the priority for the government now is job creation and boosting growth.
7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
Efforts of the government have been successful in reining in the growth of population, she said in a written reply.
The Indian government asked for the estimates published '10 years later'.
'When the average growth in the last three years was just 2.5%, how does that make us the fastest growing country?' 'They only tell you what has happened in the last 2 years; they are not taking into account what happened in FY21 on account of their mistakes.'
Coming Wednesday, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman will present the 2023 Union Budget - the last full Budget ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While India exited 2022 as a relatively bright spot in the global economy, the FM will endeavour to present a Budget that insulates India's economy against global headwinds and recession in advanced economies, while sticking to the path of fiscal consolidation. In this, she is being helped by her core team of trusted advisors.
As the Ukraine conflict impacts the global GDP, India is projected to grow by 6.4 per cent in 2022, slower than the last year's 8.8 per cent but still the fastest-growing major economy, with higher inflationary pressures and uneven recovery of the labour market curbing private consumption and investment, according to a UN report. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in its World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) report released on Wednesday that the war in Ukraine has upended the fragile economic recovery from the pandemic, triggering a devastating humanitarian crisis in Europe, increasing food and commodity prices and globally exacerbating inflationary pressures. The global economy is now projected to grow by only 3.1 per cent in 2022, down from the 4.0 per cent growth forecast released in January 2022.
The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.