The duty was announced by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the budget speech on July 5. read more

It is in India’s national interest to produce good quality data and stick to fiscal discipline and inflation targets . read more

Congress leader P Chidambaram had also said it was rare that a Budget speech did not disclose the allocations to important programmes such as MGNREGA, mid-day meal scheme, health care, and to vulnerable sections. read more

Analysts said the next trigger for the market will be corporate earnings (earnings for the first quarter of 2019-20 will start coming in this week), but a delayed monsoon and lagging consumption growth could mean that there isn’t much good news on that... read more

The two budgets also illustrate how far the economy has come from the 1970s, when India was in a semi-socialist cocoon, insulated from the rest of the world by self-imposed, Communist-style economic controls. read more

The absence of any provision to speed up processing of claims under the 2006 Forest Rights Act was also a point of concern, the activists noted. read more

Sitharaman spoke about the interchangeability of PAN and Aadhaar in her budget speech. “Mr Speaker, Sir, more than 120 crore Indians now have Aadhaar. read more

The consumers will also have to pay more for diesel and petrol. The special additional excise duty and road and infrastructure cess will be increased by one rupee a litre each. read more

The government chose to stay in its safe zone and announced no big bang expenditure in the budget. But that also meant there is no serious digression from the path of fiscal consolidation, and that came as a relief. read more

The Centre is also working on a tariff policy aimed at ushering in reforms in the power sector. read more

Indian Association of Tour Operators president Pronab Sarkar said the announcement was a repeat of what the government had said last year. read more

A key feature of the budget speech was a big emphasis on foreign investment. But by increasing protectionism, the government took a step back read more

With its historic mandate, and ambitious targets, the government could have embarked on structural reforms. But Narendra Modi has yet again opted for an incrementalist approach. read more

“This government believes we can make progress with greater woman participation,” said Nirmala Sitharaman. read more

In her maiden budget speech Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced plans to sell India’s first global sovereign bonds and ease rules for overseas investors to help revive economic growth. read more