[ad_1] A strategic focus on four key drivers— agriculture, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), investment and exports—rightly identifies the policies that will best boost growth, and significant measures have been unveiled to ensure that these are accelerated effectively. Further, there has been a strong emphasis on knowledge, innovation and meeting requirements of the future….
[ad_1] The Union budget for 2025-26 is being hailed as a “thanksgiving’’ for the middle-class, while its personal income tax relief is being called “historic’’ and has hogged most of the limelight. But there a quite a few standout features other than these. First things first. The remarkable and dogged focus on fiscal consolidation really…
[ad_1] In these years, the number of tax filers has gone up from 65 million to 80 million, which is still less than 6% of the population. Of all those filers, barely 25 million pay more than zero tax. Thanks to the recent hike in the exemption ceiling, it is possible that another 8 to…
[ad_1] Also Read: Is India’s slowdown structural or cyclical? It depends on your expectations. The economic commentary at that time was about slowing consumption dragging down overall economic activity and growth. However, the consumption problem, as we know, is fundamentally one of incomes. To understand this, we must go back to the post-demonetization period (after…
[ad_1] As is usually the case, India’s Union budget for 2025-26, to be announced on 1 February, is expected to attract a lot of attention from different stakeholders in the economy, particularly with its growth momentum having sprung a significant downside surprise in 2024-25. Has the ongoing cyclical slowdown put the Centre’s fiscal consolidation agenda…
[ad_1] But high global uncertainty prevails. How long will the Gaza accord last? War is still ongoing in Ukraine, as are civil wars in Sudan and Congo. Most disruptive of all, US President Donald Trump’s inaugural address made clear that he will do much of what he had threatened—massive deportation of illegal and legal migrants;…
[ad_1] Life is normal again. Economic activity in most countries is humming, much as before. However, the costs of the global economic disruption are still evident in government finances. The massive intervention to support households, firms and national economies was inevitably costly. Global public debt is now more than $100 trillion—and still rising. This is…
[ad_1] Policymaking is all about trade-offs. The upcoming budget faces an acute policy trade-off between nurturing the fading growth and diminishing fiscal space with challenging debt dynamics. At the same time, renewed uncertainties around global markets and ensuing tighter financial conditions would also weigh on the fiscal reaction function. The role of fiscal policy becomes…
[ad_1] The government’s decision to set up the 8th Pay Commission for salary revision is hard to reconcile with its oft-vocalized stance in favour of fiscal prudence. Agreed, the period of the 7th Pay Commission, which came into effect in 2016, will end in 2026. So there was a case for setting up a new…
[ad_1] (Bloomberg Opinion) — Flush from a landslide election victory in 1997, the first act of Tony Blair’s Labour government was to grant operational independence to the Bank of England. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown followed that up by removing a generous tax credit on dividend income whose prime beneficiaries were pension funds.Neither change meant…
