So how do you rate the NDA government's election-year budget? Does it meet your expectations? Or do you feel let down?
Political parties and individuals cannot be prevented from making poll promises aimed at fulfilling the constitutional mandate and the term 'freebie' should not be confused with genuine welfare measures, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
Much of the rural recovery story is based on the premise of agriculture doing well. Even if it clocks a growth of 2.5-3 per cent this year, it is still just around 15 per cent of the overall GDP. The non-farm sector, which constitutes a bigger portion of the overall rural economy, is now hampered by disruptions and lockdowns.
Here are the key highlights of the Interim Budget 2019-20 presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal in the Lok Sabha on Friday.
While India's GDP growth slowed to five-year low of 5.8% in Q4, China grew at 6.4%.
Prices have continued to move up in Delhi's markets, wholesale and retail, on supply worries and spoilage due to record cold weather.
The two bills -- Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 -- were passed by Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Govt mulls gradual switchover to the January-December financial year
The Congress leader said a 'storm' was brewing on the economic front that will cause damage and hurt many.
Veteran Congress leader and former Union minister Sukh Ram has died, his grandson said on Wednesday. He was 94.
Automobile retail sales in India increased by 37 per cent in April on a low base of COVID-hit April last year, automobile dealers' body FADA said on Thursday. Total sales across categories rose to 16,27,975 units in April, as compared to 11,87,771 units in the year-ago period. On a year-on-year basis, all vehicle categories including passenger vehicles and two-wheelers were up as compared with April last year.
"Though we reiterate our commitment to peace, our defence forces -- the army, the air force and the navy -- are adequately mobilised in a well-coordinated move to thwart any attempt to undermine our security. Our national interest will be protected at all costs. We have also ensured a widespread understanding in the international community of India's firm and principled stand," the President said. India and China are locked in a nearly nine-month long military standoff in eastern Ladakh.
'I hope the anger that Gujarat farmers have demonstrated is also reflected in other parts of the country in ensuing elections.' 'Only then will the ruling parties accept that something is terribly going wrong in the hinterland.'
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
'I would want people to have food on their tables and their wages to rise.' 'Will that happen or not is the question that we need to ask and answer.'
Ahead of the general elections, a slew of states and also the Centre had doled out sops to the marginalised sections, including the farmers and the poor.
On reforms in pipeline, she said the government is for universal right to minimum wages and wants to remove regional disparity through a national floor wage.
Telangana govt currently provides the state's 5.83 million farmers an income support of Rs 4,000 per acre per season, irrespective of the size of their land holding
Three days before the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday, April 8, released its manifesto with a focus on development and national security.
The RJD leader, who is the Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial face, said that if voted to power, providing jobs to unemployed youth would be his topmost priority.
A series of bypoll losses has pushed the Modi government into panic mode. Uncharacteristically, it's letting events dictate its actions, says Shekhar Gupta.
"The space for dissent and debate is shrinking. People are jailed without trial through arbitrarily imposed charge of sedition," the Nobel laureate alleged.
This survey also shows how things have moved forward since the last large-scale sample survey conducted by NSSO in 2012-13
The Congress won 77 seats or 42% of seats in the 2017 polls. How then can Gujarat be called a BJP bastion, asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
The protests brought home the fact that the Sri Lankan public is in no mood for halfway measures, as voices against Rajapaksa 'family rule' and 'securitisation' of the civilian administration began sidestepping the more critical economic crisis, affecting the nation and afflicting the individual, observes Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
In fact, the Taliban apparently collects about 10 per cent as cultivation tax from opium farmers and 15 per cent as heroin tax from laboratories and smugglers that smuggle narcotics into Pakistan. This, by itself, is a revenue stream estimated at USD 250-300 million.
NITI Aayog has been working on an action plan to relieve rural distress and energise the agricultural sector
From Dabur to HUL, here are 10 stocks with significant rural exposure in the auto, agri-chemical and fast moving consumer goods sectors, which should see an uptick in sales growth.
Slamming the critics who 'started questioning his work' even when he had not seen his office properly, Modi said his government's programmes are mostly for the benefit of farmers and poor people, besides ending the role of middlemen, including in jobs.
Rejecting criticism of jobless growth, he said if state after state is creating good number of jobs, how can the Centre be creating joblessness?
The budget will empower the poor, give a boost to the farmer and an impetus to the economic growth, the PM said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
The campaign's main theme song 'Main hi toh Hindustan hoon' has been penned by Javed Akhtar.
He said the NDA's work culture was different from that of the previous governments.
ITC has extensively reset its strategy and will explore opportunities to craft disruptive business models to set up structural drivers helmed by digital and sustainability for its next horizon of growth and make the company future-ready, chairman Sanjiv Puri said on Wednesday. The company is pursuing an accelerated journey to build a dynamic utureTech' enterprise by investing in cutting-edge digital technologies to shape a new paradigm of competitiveness, create innovative business models and tap newer opportunities, he said while addressing shareholders at ITC's virtual annual general meeting. As part of the next horizon vision, the company is "proactively exploring inorganic opportunities" even as it has shrunk "business segments that were incongruent to our growth aspirations, such as the Lifestyle Retailing Business" while the existing growth platforms comprising megabrands will be scaled up and fortified.
The authorities had sought explanation from these 18 lakh entities through SMS and emails
Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday took charge as the Congress' first non-Gandhi president in 24 years, citing Rahul Gandhi's slogan 'daro mat' to energise workers and declaring that the party will demolish the government's 'system of lies, treachery and hatred'.
'The current crisis is one of incomes, driven by poor job growth, agrarian distress and poor investment sentiment,' notes Harsh Pati Singhania, director, JK Organisation.
The incoming government will have to encourage private investments, bring down cost of capital
A closer look at the data reveals that a lot of the items are not part of this calculation. The notable ones include buffalo meat, marine exports, raw cotton, and plantation crops such as tea, coffee, rubber, etc.
