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.
Sinha, a former finance minister, hogged the limelight and started trending high on social media on Wednesday morning, after he criticised his own government for sinking the economy, in an article he penned for The Indian Express.
Former Home Secretary R K Singh and two Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders, who recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, figure in the third list of 97 Lok Sabha poll candidates released by the party on Thursday.
Sinha said the data on economic growth put out by the Central government cannot be trusted.
Sinha said there has been an increase in terror... not only the incident in Udhampur and Gurdaspur there has been a spate of terror attacks and even today there have been terror attacks in which policemen have been killed.
In an apparent jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for neglecting party veterans, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has said the present regime has declared those above 75 as "brain dead" on assuming office.
This will be the first full-year Budget of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government since it came to power for a third consecutive term in July last year.
A day after veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani met him at Hazaribagh jail, Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday secured bail from a local court having spent a fortnight in prison following his refusal to seek relief after his arrest during a power crisis stir.
India's opposition parties have sharply criticized the Union Budget, calling it inadequate to address the country's economic woes and accusing the BJP-led government of using it to woo voters in Bihar and Delhi ahead of upcoming elections. Leaders from the Congress, TMC, DMK, SP, and CPI(M) voiced their disapproval, highlighting concerns over inflation, unemployment, and the lack of substantial measures to support the agricultural sector and the poor. They also criticized the tax cuts for the middle class as insufficient and coming too late after years of high taxes and rising prices.
To write a criticism of the finance minister's performance without having included the PM's role is deliberate. It is not difficult to see why Jaitley interpreted it as being Sinha's way of sucking up to Modi.
'The critical event signalling a new era for India was Dr Singh's 1991 Budget in which he quoted Victor Hugo to say that no power on earth could stop an idea whose time has come,' recalls T N Ninan.
Latching on to the terrorist attack in Pampore that killed eight Central Reserve Police Force personnel, Sinha also said that 'nothing' has come out, or will, of the Centre's Pakistan policy.
Referring to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and BJP veteran L K Advani, Sinha said, "Today's BJP is not like the one in the days of Atalji and Advaniji."
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha on Tuesday created ripples as he led a five-member delegation of civil society members to meet separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a bid to break the three-month impasse in Kashmir triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani.
The BJP veteran was detained on Monday evening while protesting against the state government's "apathy" towards the farmers of Vidarbha. He was taken to the district police headquarters and later released.
In their review plea, they alleged that the judgment "relied upon patently incorrect claims made by the government in an unsigned note given in a sealed cover" to the apex court.
'My one recommendation would be to first quell the violence and then encourage dialogue and build the trust among the different communities.' 'This is not easy but necessary, for violence cannot be the way forward.'
'You are not taking any interest in organisational work and election campaigning ever since the party declared Manish Jaiswal as the candidate from the Hazaribagh Lok Sabha seat. You did not even feel the need to exercise your vote. The party's image has been maligned because of your conduct.'
Sinha said that he was not invited for "any party events, rallies or organizational meetings".
With the tablet carefully kept inside a red cover with a golden-coloured national emblem embossed on it instead of the briefcase, Parliament will be her next destination after the call on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Other ministers who have presented five straight annual financial statements include Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Manmohan Singh and Morarji Desai.
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala said the Congress has insulted Murmu.
India's tactical and operational response demonstrated its ability to prosecute tri-service operations, even without a formal tri-service doctrine or the higher command structure needed to coordinate it, points out Ajai Shukla.
Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha on Thursday congratulated Droupadi Murmu on her win in the presidential polls and said every Indian hopes that as the 15th President she functions as the "custodian of the Constitution" without fear or favour.
Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination papers for the July 18 election, with a host of leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah accompanying him.
It dropped sitting MP from Guna, Krishnapal Singh Yadav, to field Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from the seat.
Raut also highlighted that the party had goodwill toward the opposition's Presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will set a record by presenting the sixth Budget in a row -- 5 annual Budgets and one interim -- a feat achieved so far only by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. With the presentation of interim Budget on February 1, Sitharaman will surpass the records of her predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who had presented five budgets in a row. Desai, as Finance Minister, had presented five annual Budgets and one interim Budget between 1959-1964. The interim Budget 2024-25 to be presented by Sitharaman on February 1, will be a vote-on-account that will give the government authority to spend certain sums of money till a new government comes to office after the April-May general elections.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
The National Democratic Alliance presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu on Thursday consolidated her lead after the second round of counting by getting nearly 72 per cent votes of the total votes of all MPs and MLAs of 10 states counted so far.
The Opposition candidate in the July 18 presidential polls, Yashwant Sinha, held his first campaign strategy meeting on Wednesday at the Nationalist Congress Party office in New Delhi and said a "rubberstamp President" will not work in the country.
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman finance minister, had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget briefcase for the traditional 'bahi-khata' to carry Union Budget papers.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her sixth straight Budget ahead of the Parliamentary elections, matching the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Sitharaman in her pre-election Budget, which technically is a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget, will seek Parliament's nod for a grant in advance to meet the central government's essential expenditure for the first four months of the new fiscal year that starts in April. A new government elected after the April/May general elections will present the full Budget, likely in July.
The Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly was asked about his decision to support Yashwant Sinha, a former Union minister, and not Murmu who is tipped to become the first tribal woman to occupy the top post.
The SBSP can impact around 10 Lok Sabha seats and 40 assembly seats in 7-8 districts in Uttar Pradesh, according to poll analysts.
Mody, the returning officer for the presidential election, said 115 nomination papers of 94 persons were received till Wednesday, of which 107 were rejected for not meeting the required criteria.
'The government is using the agencies of the government to suppress the Opposition.'
'Are we so ready to believe that in this country whose virtues we constantly shout from the rooftops, there is no single person -- other than Modi -- in a minimum of 272 elected MPs with the talent and ability to lead this country?' asks Prem Panicker.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has "erred" in calling his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani a "man of peace" as his country continues to sponsor cross-border terrorism.
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