What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
The "weaponisation" of economic activity - through tariffs and sanctions - is now a reality, with countries leveraging these tools strategically, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said at the Raisina Dialogue recently.
'During his stint as prime minister, he got 270 million people out of poverty.' 'This, according to the World Bank, is the fastest compression of poverty anywhere in the world.' Arvind Mayaram, the former finance secretary, recalls his encounters with Dr Manmohan Singh.
DEA official writes to DIPP suggesting that govt needs to understand what has been left out, and why, in the revised application of the retailer.
Seasoned bureaucrat and a stickler for rules Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey will be at the helm of capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for three years. The 1987-batch Odisha-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Pandey, would replace Madhabi Puri Buch, whose three-year term ends on Friday.
Cooking gas or Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) price has been raised by Rs 50 per cylinder by distribution companies, Union Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday.
Dream11, Baazi Games, Zupee and WinZO among others are invited for the discussion with the anti-money laundering watchdog.
It will be the second Budget of the Modi 3.0 government and eighth straight Budget for Nirmala Sitharaman, rare in Indian polity.
Interview with the Governor of Reserve Bank of India.
Car restoration service provider Super Car Club Garage (SCCG), backed by Raymond chairman and managing director Gautam Singhania, has sought the Centre's green light for a licence to import foreign vehicles for restoration and subsequent re-export.
Following the lacklustre growth numbers in the second quarter (Q2FY25), economists believe the upcoming Union Budget for 2025-26 should focus on reforms that will stimulate consumption, manufacturing and spur employment. India's growth unexpectedly slowed to 5.4 per cent in the second quarter, due to low capital formation, weak consumption, besides adverse weather impact.
The global financial crisis has empowered fiscal conservatives in India.
Days before Diwali, the monthly economic review by the finance ministry has highlighted moderation in urban demand, softening consumer sentiments and limited footfall as areas that need to be watched. In its review, released on Monday, the ministry also noted the early signs of artificial intelligence displacing workers, as described in anecdotal reports. The commentary from several large consumer goods companies, including Nestl India, Hindustan Unilever, and ITC, in their recent quarterly earnings, has been around a sluggish urban demand. Rural consumption, however, has mostly seen a revival, the companies pointed out.
The department believes dividend from CPSUs is a return on investment made by the government.
Exit polls show the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is set to form the government after votes are counted on Friday.
Gursharan Kaur and daughter Daman Singh pay their respects to Dr Singh's mortal remains at the AICC HQ in New Delhi.
The appointment, expected shortly, will come in the backdrop of tax expert Parthasarathy Shome recently resigning from the post of adviser to Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
The newly appointed Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee took charge of his new office in north block, returning to it after a gap of 24 years. The Finance Ministry office, which has been sealed off to outsiders and particularly prying journalists with the vote-on-account preparations in full swing, was on Thursday opened up at 4 p.m. when the media was invited in to cover the taking over ceremony.
The telecom ministry has referred the matter of number of 3G spectrum slots in each circle to the Finance Ministry.
Journalist and author Chitra Subramaniam has demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) make public its findings from the "box of evidence" received from Switzerland regarding the Bofors payoffs. Subramaniam, author of 'Boforsgate: A Journalist's Pursuit of Truth', expressed concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the evidence, questioning who opened the box, when it was opened, and what it contained. She also raised doubts about the official narrative regarding the alleged bribe in the Bofors case, suggesting the sum of Rs 64 crore may not reflect the full extent of the corruption. Subramaniam also alleged that the CBI planted stories about Hindi film actor Amitabh Bachchan to derail the investigation and launched a political vendetta against the Bachchans. She recalled that Bachchan had come to her home and asked if she had seen his name. The CBI has recently requested assistance from the United States in the case, seeking information from private investigator Michael Hershman, who claims to have crucial details about the scandal. The Bofors scandal, a major bribery case involving the Indian government and the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors in the 1980s, pertains to allegations of a Rs 64-crore bribe in a Rs 1,437-crore deal for the supply of 400 155mm field Howitzers.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar acknowledged that some ministers are unhappy with the portfolios assigned to them in the new cabinet, which includes a high number of ministers. Pawar said that the work on pending projects will begin soon after the ministers take charge of their respective ministries. The budget session of the Maharashtra legislature will commence on March 3.
Central bank unhappy with North Block's EMI diktat to banks, asks for more provisioning.
People giving me unasked for advice of discipline and restraint don't realise that if I disregard discipline there would be a bloodbath.
The Union Finance Ministry on Tuesday said that aggregate business of public sector banks (PSBs) has shown strong growth of 11 per cent in the first half of the financial year 2024-25 (H1FY25) to touch Rs 236 trillion. The operating and net profit were also robust. At Rs 1.5 trillion, operating profit grew by 14.4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) while the net profit saw an impressive 25.6 per cent jump at Rs 85,520 crore in the first half of FY25.
Eases regulatory hurdles for Bharti-MTN deal.
Here are some facts related to the Budget presentation in independent India.
The truck operators, who are on strike since Saturday to protest a new service tax, are likely to meet finance ministry officials on Thursday in a bid to end their agitation that has disrupted movement of goods and pushed up prices.\n\n\n\n
The controversial note, made by the finance ministry and sent to the Prime Minister's office on March 25, 2011, involved two Cabinet ministers -- finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P Chidambaram, who was the finance minister at the time of the 2G scam in 2007-08.
Dr Manmohan Singh first embossed himself on the national consciousness when as India's finance minister he flagged off economic reforms which changed this nation forever.
India's economic growth rate is estimated to slip to a four-year low of 6.4 per cent in 2024-25, mainly on account of poor showing by the manufacturing and services sector, according to government data released on Tuesday. The gross domestic product (GDP) rate of 6.4 per cent will be the lowest since the Covid year (2020-21) when the country witnessed a negative growth of 5.8 per cent.
The government hopes to use this data to assess the extent of financial support needed to recover from the pandemic.
'While intensification of fuel prices and broad-based domestic cost pass-through pressures is a downside risk, core inflation is expected to strengthen further as demand recovers to pre-Covid levels,' the ministry said on Friday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 will present a record eighth consecutive budget that is expected to contain measures to shore up weakening economic growth and ease the burden on the middle class struggling with high prices and stagnant wage growth while being fiscally prudent.
The Finance Ministry is evaluating options of conducting a special audit of scam-tainted IT firm Satyam Computer's accounts to ascertain the company's tax liability.
Under the RFQ, companies had to initially participate in technical bids based on certain minimum criteria such as net worth, experience and so on. Only five or six companies that scored the highest on this basis were then permitted to put in financial bids.
Two years after his dismissive stance on India's AI potential raised eyebrows here, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday gave a ringing endorsement to Artificial Intelligence momentum in the country -- and billed India as an important market not just for the new-age technology itself but for the ChatGPT creator as well. In New Delhi on Wednesday, Altman -- while sharing dais with Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw -- said India is the second biggest market for the company and that Open AI had tripled its users here in the last year.
The stress of dealing with the crisis, often with potentially conflicting objectives in front of them, appears to have brought the differences between the finance ministry and the RBI back to the surface.
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