As the finance minister rises in the House to present the Budget, some interesting facts about the annual financial plan for the country.
The government has chosen to profiteer off people's misery and suffering, Gandhi said.
Amid an outcry over record high petrol and diesel prices, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the Centre and state governments will have to together work out a mechanism to bring retail rates to reasonable levels.
In the Union budget, Rs 65,011.8 crore has been allocated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, up from Rs 62,659.12 crore in 2019-20.
Outlay for infra is also expected to see a significant increase in view of the government's Rs 111-trillion investment plan under the national infrastructure pipeline to develop social and economic infrastructure over five years.
The All India Bank Officers' Confederation has condemned the purported "unsavoury attack" on SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during a banking event last month in Guwahati. The association claimed that an audio clip has gone viral on social media that revealed the finance minister coming down heavily on the SBI chief, accusing him of poor credit uptick, during an outreach programme in late February.
"The emphasis is on making every rule, law, policy people-centric, and public-friendly. This is the use of the new governance model and the country is getting its results," Prime Minister Modi said while speaking at the launch of a platform for 'Transparent Taxation -- Honoring the Honest'.
The Indian State does not believe in the rule of law. It does not even recognise the need to follow treaties that it itself signed. And so it is refusing to shell out to Cairn; and, as a consequence, has brought on the Paris humiliation, notes Mihir S Sharma.
The minister said demonetisation has increased the tax return filings and also increased the revenue of the states and the Centre immensely.
The veteran Congress leader said people asked him why only he had been arrested, but he had no answer.
While the exact figures of the total number of taxpayers who will be honoured is not known, officials said these numbers would be few lakhs.
'Since the NDA took office in 2014, and aggressively since 2019, the Union government seems hell bent on centralising all power and resources, only to fail spectacularly.'
"His (Chidambaram) arrest is good news. He is now cornered from all sides," Indrani Mukerjea told reporters in a sessions court where she was produced to attend trial in the case of killing of her daughter Sheena Bora.
While the tax-to-GDP ratio of 9.88 per cent has been assumed for FY21, the same as last year, when it touched a decadal low, for FY22 a ratio of 10.7 per cent has been assumed, an average of the last five years.
He said there was a tradition in the country to speak in one voice on issues such as external affairs and national security but there has been a departure from it in the last few years.
On Monday, Chidambaram was brought to RML Hospital in the morning and later referred to AIIMS after he complained of stomach ache and illness. He was discharged in the night.
Prominent among the wish list include updating India-US bilateral tax treaty, emanation of double taxation on software revenue, 15 year tax holiday for software technology parks and special economic zones.
This will violate the time-honoured convention that a government elected for a five-year tenure presents only five full Budgets, but the NDA government will no doubt present it as yet another initiative of Mr Modi.
The BJP's quest for dominance over the states political scene, evident from a seat-sharing deal as part of which it clinched nearly as many constituencies as the Janata Dal-United its senior partner so far- resonated during the election campaign.
A senior company executive said the company waited for seven years for the verdict and its shareholders needed to know when it would be concluded.
Jaitley, 66, has become 'very weak' as his health has deteriorated over the past few weeks, sources said, adding that he has developed some throat condition as well that prevents him from speaking for long.
'It is just an excuse to say that the Centre has run out of money.' 'Pruning these schemes would mean hard time for the people of India.'
Bank officials said police constable Ghanshyam Shyora entered the Canara Bank's Saroli branch on Monday in plain clothes and asked female employee Santoshi Kumari to print his passbook.
Industry fears waiver of interest on interest would distort credit culture, may encourage borrowers who can pay to defer repayment.
By asking Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to move the resolution authorising the Congress president to select the party's presidential nominee, Sonia Gandhi has strengthened her political position. Sheela Bhatt analyses
'I'll give it to the vaccine manufacturers without guarantees, take the payment in advance and give me the supplies.' 'The moment you give me one lot of supply, I'll give you more.'
'In the real economy, the scars of the pandemic will continue to define 2021.' 'It is still hard to tell the effect on unemployment, migrant workers, poverty, and the informal sector of the lockdown and of the pandemic,' observes Mihir S Sharma.
Sources in the Rural Development Ministry said the actual expenditure incurred in 2020-21 will be higher than the allocated funds and it will at least be at par with this year's total estimated expenditure of MGNREGS.
The apex court was hearing two separate petitions filed by Chidambaram challenging the Delhi high court August 20 verdict by which his anticipatory bail was dismissed in the cases registered by both the agencies-- CBI and ED.
'It's the court, not the government that decides where to put the people who indulge in corruption'
Experts warn of over-interpreting the numbers and said their sustainability needed to be watched beyond November, says Indivjal Dhasmana.
'The finance ministry's decision to accept the deficit target of 4.5 per cent in 2025-2026 appears to have emanated from its endorsement of the Finance Commission's view that the Indian economy will continue to remain impacted by the pandemic, adversely undermining its growth potential,' notes A K Bhattacharya.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the federal economic snoop agency under the Union finance ministry, sent 289 legal requests to its counterparts across the globe during 2018-19 as compared to 177 in 2017-18 and 138 in 2016-17.
'... the government provides adequate cash and kind support for the poorest of the poor for survival... ...conditional cash and skilling support for the economically poor to raise their incomes to adequate levels... ...and make functional arrangements for providing unemployment allowance to the vulnerable poor during disasters like the present one.'
Wipro CFO Suresh C Senapaty on Thursday said there is hope of corporate sector sentiments improving after P Chidambaram assumed charge as Union Finance Minister and wanted the Centre to convert it into policy action.
'If the Union Budget can provide incentives for animal spirits to come as well as induce demand stimulus and consumption, the Budget would have done a wonderful job.'
The move to resume work in ministries comes nearly a month after the government issued work from home protocols in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
"The government is wrong. It is wrong because it is clueless," Chidambaram said. "It is unable to look for the obvious clues because it is stubborn and mulish in defending its catastrophic mistakes like demonetisation, flawed GST, tax terrorism, regulatory overkill, protectionism, and centralised control of decision-making in the Prime Minister's Office."
"They are calling us dramabaaz. What happened yesterday by stopping migrants and interacting with them on the road and wasting their time? Aren't they dramabaaz?," she quipped.
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