Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a Rs 11.11 lakh crore spending on infrastructure and vowed to continue reforms as she resisted resorting to populist measures in Modi government's last Budget before general elections, instead choosing to stay on the path of cutting deficit while bolstering measures for focus groups.
As per the current market price, the government is expected to fetch Rs 5,300 crore (Rs 53 billion) by selling 10 per cent equity or 24.27 crore (242.7 million) shares at discounted price to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Ltd.
The national carrier, which is already struggling with its fuel payments, spends Rs 6,000-7,000 crore annually on fuel. A 10 per cent hike in crude price would mean over Rs 50-58 crore of extra costs for the airline.
Top losers in the Sensex pack included M&M, SBI, Yes Bank, Asian Paints, HDFC, Tata Steel and L&T, shedding up to 2.55 per cent. The broader NSE Nifty settled 79.80 points, or 0.72 per cent, down at 10,996.10.
Companies awarded blocks in three rounds of India's New Exploration Licencing Policy are expected to invest $3 billion in exploration, junior oil minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said on Tuesday.\n\n\n\n
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday stepped up its protest against Rahul Gandhi for his 'panauti' jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged the Election Commission to take action against the Congress leader.
The Interim Budget for 2024-25 (FY25) to be presented on February 1 is likely to assume 10-10.5 per cent nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth against 8.9 per cent estimated for FY24 by the National Statistical Office (NSO). "We were waiting for the First Advance Estimates GDP numbers for FY24. "We will finalise the nominal GDP growth assumption for FY25 Interim Budget in a couple of days.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved seven multi-tracking projects of Indian Railways at an estimated cost of around Rs 32,500 crore, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said. The proposed projects, which will be fully funded by the Centre, will help increase the existing line capacity, smoothen train operations, reduce congestion and facilitate ease of travelling and transportation. The projects covering 35 districts in nine states -- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal -- will increase the existing network of Indian Railways by 2,339 km and provide employment of an estimated 7.06 crore man-days to the people of the states.
A section of residents in and around Barsu have been opposing the proposed refinery as they fear the mega project will adversely affect the fragile biodiversity of the coastal Konkan region and also hit their livelihood.
Government has put on auction the gas discovery area it snatched from Reliance Industries in KG-D6 block and the field that Cairn India is seeking to regain around its Rajasthan block.
Among the Sensex firms, Larsen & Toubro, UltraTech Cement, JSW Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Nestle were the major laggards. Maruti, Power Grid, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, NTPC, HDFC Bank, ITC and IndusInd Bank were the gainers.
The fire broke out in an area near the Visakhapatnam Container Terminal and an Indian Oil Corporation facility where fishing boats were anchored.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's top oil firm, has bought as much as 3 million barrels of crude oil that Russia had offered at steep discount to prevailing international rates, sources said. The purchase, made through a trader, is the first since Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine that brought international pressure for isolating Putin administration. Sources aware of the matter said IOC bought Urals crude for May delivery at a discount of $20-25 a barrel to dated Brent.
'Interim Budget has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit.'
Oil prices dipped on Wednesday as the market prepared for a gradual increase of Iranian exports into an already oversupplied market from 2016.
Putin said the 'policy' pursued by Modi is the main 'guarantor' of relations between the two countries.
Capital expenditure (capex) by 54 large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and five departmental arms with an annual capex target of Rs 100 crore and above has reached around 42.5 per cent of their annual target of about Rs 7.33 trillion in this financial year so far, a senior official from the Ministry of Finance told Business Standard. "The Centre is pushing the big public undertakings in the infrastructure and refinery sector to achieve 90 per cent of their target by the end of the third quarter," he said. The capex by this group of CPSEs stands at around Rs 3.1 trillion in the April-August period so far.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah about the fire and sought assistance for dousing it, an official said.
India has substantially increased its crude oil imports from the US, with the country's share in India's crude basket hitting a record 14.3 per cent in December, commerce ministry data showed.
Singh said India has intensified patrolling of the seas after the recent attacks on merchant navy ships.
Reddy directed the officials to treat the storm as a major challenge to avoid loss of life and property as the winds are expected to blow gales reaching speeds of up to 110 kilometres per hour.
'It will be important strategically and geographically because there is no port in India which is as close to the international shipping route as Vizhinjam.'
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India, which is 79 per cent dependent on imports to meet its crude oil needs, is building underground storage at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Mangalore and Padur in Karnataka.
'All but one of the previous oil shocks brought either a change of government or a political crisis.' 'Is the government braced for stormy weather?' asks T N Ninan.
As of now, tankers carry petroleum products from India to Nepal as part of an arrangement which is in place since 1973.
The public has benefited from this decline in crude oil, which has translated into lower prices of petrol and diesel.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday released its manifesto for the November 17 Madhya Pradesh elections promising MSP for wheat at Rs 2,700 per quintal and paddy at Rs 3,100 and houses for beneficiaries of the state's flagship scheme 'Ladli Bahna'.
India also went on an overdrive in expanding its military engagement with like-minded countries in its neighbourhood and beyond in the face of China's relentless attempts to become a regional hegemon and establish its primacy in South Asia.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
A six-inch pipe has been laid at the Silkyara tunnel through which nutritious food and medicines could be supplied to the 41 labourers, trapped for over a week after parts of the under-construction structure collapsed following a landslide.
EAM Jaishankar's mission is aimed at strengthening India's strategic autonomy in a complex international environment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
We should reassess what India's role in the world is and whether we are doing the right thing for ourselves, notes Aakar Patel.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
If 4,000 workers could work round the clock for the construction of the new Parliament building, then there is no reason why all infrastructure projects too cannot follow that model, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
A number of persons fainted after experiencing 'burning sensation' in their throat and chest. Many people who were asleep woke up in panic and scurried out of their homes and alerted neighbours and all of them soon reached the main roads unsure of what to do.
The prime minister was seen wearing a light blue "sadri" jacket as he sat in the Rajya Sabha in the morning.
A newspaper vendor from Neknoor in Maharashtra tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated his country's stance against an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during his meetings with key Middle Eastern leaders on Saturday, CNN reported.
Chinese stock markets suffered their biggest single-day drop since the global financial crisis.
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