There are 'troubling similarities' between US President Barack Obama's financial actions with those of policymakers during the Great Depression in 1930's, a new study has claimed, warning the country's policies might have the potential to consign it to a similar fate as Argentina.
Former Department of Economic Affairs Secretary E A S Sarma on Friday claimed that the regulatory agencies, including SEBI, had ignored his warnings about the financial irregularities committed by Satyam.
Eases regulatory hurdles for Bharti-MTN deal.
The decision to increase the minimum support price of various grades of paddy and different pulses was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. The support price for common paddy will now stand at Rs 950 a quintal, while the A-grade variety would get Rs 980 per quintal -- an increase of Rs 100 a quintal for both.
A credit agreement of $600 million equivalent, for the Second Elementary Education Project, was signed on Thursday between the government of India and the World Bank.
The new credit-linked subsidy programme, called Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme, was approved at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The financial implication of the new scheme, to be implemented over a four-year period, is estimated at Rs 4,485 crore (Rs 44.85 billion), Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters.
Though the Railways is yet to declare any five-year action plan, it is clear the government is not in a position to hand-hold it for any major expansion or upgrade. The issue, however, is how far the Railways can function within the PPP format. Recent history highlights some of the challenges.
The government has sought loan for converting 6,372-km of 1-lane highways to 2-lane out of the total 19,702 km single lane highways in the country under National Highways Development Project Phase IV.
While India's GDP growth slowed to five-year low of 5.8% in Q4, China grew at 6.4%.
The US is pressing for taxing digital economy through the 'marketing intangibles' principle and the UK through a 'user-base' principle.
The government on Friday said it is expecting to raise about Rs 8,100 crore (Rs 81 billion) from the five per cent stake sale in power PSU NTPC through a Follow-on Public Offer (FPO).
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday chaired a meeting of the Union Cabinet for the first time after he underwent a heart bypass surgery nearly two months ago. The meetings of the Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs were held at his official Race Course Road residence today, unlike the meetings which were held in South Block during his absence. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had presided over those meetings.
Giving relief to the employees of loss-making public sector units, the government on Wednesday decided to continue supporting distressed public sector units in meeting their wage bills and other statutory payments.
The first Budget of Independent India was presented by R K Shanmukham Chetty on November 26, 1947.
The chargesheet names 14 accused, including the Congress leader's son Karti Chidambaram, Peter Mukherjea and Indrani Mukerjea.
"We welcome the decision. This will provide adequate impetus to banks to lower their interest rates. Private banks will sooner or later will follow suit," Economic Affairs Secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday. On Wednesday, the RBI cut short-term lending and borrowing rates -- Repo and Reverse Repo -- by 50 basis points each, while keeping the other key tool -- Cash Reserve Ratio -- intact.
The scheme is expected to activate the measures announced for the housing construction sector under the economic stimulus packages. It will increase the stock of houses ranging from 300 sq ft to 1,200 sq ft plinth area built at affordable rates on land provided by state governments.
"We are not looking at increasing FII (investment) limit in government securities," Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters. Earlier in June, the government raised the FII investment limit in government securities to $5 billion from $3.2 billion.
the ratings agencies have been inconsistent in their treatment of China and India. Given this record -- what we call Poor Standards -- my question is: why do we take these rating analysts seriously at all?," Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian said on Thursday.
This will help bridge the revenue-expenditure gap, which has been ballooning on account of the stimulus packages and tax concessions announced to spur the economy. Economic Affairs Secretary Ashok Chawla said the government has provided a stimulus of Rs 1,50,000 crore (Rs 1,500 billion) by way of excess expenditure and about Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) by way of tax concessions to the industry to battle the economic slowdown.
With a clear eye on the coming Lok Sabha elections, the United Progressive Alliance government on Thursday showered a bonanza of projects and schemes that are impossible to be completed during its remaining life span of another 100 days, with many projects set to be achieved only by 2012 when the 11th Plan ends.
In this interview, Rakesh Mohan spoke on a range of issues about the challenges he faced during his stint at the central bank and the journey from handling the real economy sectors to monetary economics
Rs 14.5 lakh crore of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have been deposited as of 30/12.
The relaxation will apply to those sectors that have composite caps (foreign direct investment or FDI plus FII). "The move will not impact sectors like banking and insurance which are governed by Acts of Parliament. However, sectors with composite caps which see administrative control like telecommunication services, broadcast services like direct-to-home and FM radio will benefit," a Delhi based FDI policy expert told Business Standard.
Even with a clear mandate, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government is unlikely to allow foreign direct investment in sensitive sectors such as retail and may like to revisit the recently issued norms that give companies elbow room in dealing with the FDI norms.
Only Rs 10,720 crore of the junked currency notes did not return to the banking system, rest 99.9 per cent was deposited raising question mark over the government's effort of curbing black money through the demonetisation.
The additional cash will now give the Centre more headroom for stimulating the economy.
The IL&FS management is also talking to its second-largest shareholder, Orix Corporation of Japan, to infuse more funds into the company - in case any shareholder backs out during the rights issue.
As a result of the downturn in commodity prices across the world, and the easing of supply constraints on most commodities because of good domestic production, there is hardly any incentive for over-stocking by trade or bulk consumers of agri-commodities. Also, it is amply clear that the imposition of storage limits on farm goods has had little impact on their prices or the overall rate of inflation. Even the ban on futures trading has proved ineffectual.
'From the investor's point of view, a real change would happen only when business environment in all our states qualitatively improves,' says NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar.
According to sources the proposal has been scuppered by the British commerce ministry, which was not consulted, and which is the sectoral ministry for trade and investment.
The Union finance ministry on Thursday said the falling inflation rate would result in further lowering of interest rates. "The trend is clear for falling inflation and this will translate into lower interest rates," Economic Affairs Secretary in the Finance Ministry Ashok Chawla said while commenting on the inflation data.
Lord Paul, a member of the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, said he had strong reservations about the Committee's recommendation that immigration should be measured by the impact on income per head of resident population. He said other peers had doubts about the proposal but had not been in a majority. "The report does really concentrate on the benefits of immigration per capita, which I don't really agree with myself.
If India takes part in $500-billion resource raising programme of International Monetary Fund, as decided at the G-20 summit in London last week, it will cost the country up to $11 billion (Rs 55,000 crore).
Though public shareholding in Jet is already down to the mandated 25 per cent, the regulator wants its promoters to pare their stake further.
The approval to bring in the FDI is subject to compliance with RBI and SEBI guidelines, besides subjected to approval of the relevant high courts for the demerger of distribution business of Volvo India. The finance ministry had already approved the FDI proposal of Volvo to invest $30 million (Rs 123 crore) for induction of foreign equity up to 8.1 per cent by way of acquisition of shares in EML.
The government on Thursday said it will borrow an additional Rs 1,40,000 crore (Rs 1400 billion) during the first half of next fiscal to fund its increasing public expenditure.
For the first time, the government is considering the merits of a tariff policy to contain prices that could include allowing external agencies to import commodities and cultivating some essential crops overseas. An inter-departmental team from the ministries of finance, food and consumer affairs and commerce has been asked to work out a strategy to this effect.The finance ministry's department of economic affairs has submitted its views and a final paper is under preparation
The Centre's proposal to call for governance reform in the RBI could, however, take a back seat, a source privy to the development said.
Central government employees and pensioners will get an additional 6 per cent dearness allowance from next month, putting a burden of over Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) on the exchequer.
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