New Delhi: Ahead of presenting the Union Budget in Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met President Droupadi Murmu in the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Tuesday.
The President fed her ‘dahi-cheeni’, a ritual performed by elders in Indian families to bestow good luck before undertaking important tasks.
This year’s Budget is the seventh consecutive Budget for Finance Minister Sitharaman and the Modi government’s 13th straight Budget since 2014. She also makes history as the first finance minister to present seven consecutive Budget speeches, surpassing former Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s record of six consecutive Budgets between 1959-64.
Earlier in the day, FM Sitharaman and her team posed for a traditional picture outside the Finance Ministry. She wore an off-white colour saree with a magenta border and displayed the red ‘bahi-khata’ tablet with the national emblem.
In 2019, FM Sitharaman broke the long-standing tradition of a Budget briefcase with a ‘bahi khata, ‘ a red-coloured Indian accounting ledger. In 2021, the Finance Minister presented the Budget in a paperless format, using a ‘Made in India’ tablet.
The Budget Session began on July 22 and, according to schedule, will end on August 12.
On Monday, the Finance Minister presented the Economic Survey in Parliament. The Survey projects India’s GDP growth rate at 6.5 to 7 per cent for 2024-25 as it sees the economy on a strong wicket. However, achieving a 7 per cent GDP growth rate “is doable” for India despite the global environment has become more challenging since the beginning of the year, according to Chief Economic Adviser, V. Anantha Nageswaran.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee here at Bharat Mandapam during which he said that India’s vision is development as well as heritage – ‘Vikas bhi, Virasat bhi’.
Speaking on the occasion, PM Modi noted the auspicious occasion of Guru Purnima and conveyed his best wishes to all citizens.
PM Modi expressed delight that the World Heritage Committee meeting is commencing on such an auspicious day and India is hosting the event for the first time, the PMO said in a statement.
The Prime Minister extended a warm welcome to all the dignitaries and guests from around the world, especially the Director General of Unesco, Audrey Azoulay and expressed confidence that the World Heritage Committee meeting will script new records in history similar to other global meets in India, the statement noted.
Referring to the artifacts returned from abroad, PM Modi mentioned that more than 350 heritage items have been brought back in recent times.
“This return of ancient heritage artifacts is a display of global generosity and respect for history, ” the Prime Minister said. He also pointed out the growing research and tourism opportunities in the field as the technology progresses.
Applauding the World Heritage Committee, the Prime Minister said that hosting this programme is a matter of pride for India. He highlighted that Northeast’s historic Maidam has been nominated to enter Unesco’s popular World Heritage List.
“This is India’s 43rd World Heritage Site and Northeast’s first heritage to get the status of Cultural World Heritage, ” PM Modi said, expressing belief that Maidam with its unique cultural significance will become more popular and gain more traction after bagging a place in the list, the PMO statement said.
PM Modi said that the presence of experts from all around the world showcases the scope and capability of the Summit. He emphasised that the organisation is being hosted on the land which is one of the oldest living civilizations in the world.
The Prime Minister threw light on India’s ancient eras and said: “India is so ancient that every point of time in the present moment is a reflection of its glorious past.”
Referring to the national capital (Delhi), PM Modi said that it is the centre of thousands of years of heritage and one can find heritage and history at every step of the way. He gave the example of the 2, 000-year-old Iron Pillar which has been rust-resistant and gives a glimpse of India’s metallurgical prowess in the past.
“India’s heritage is not merely history, but also science, ” PM Modi said.
He also noted that India’s heritage is witness to the journey of top-notch engineering as he mentioned the 8th century Kedarnath temple situated at an altitude of 3, 500 meters which remains a challenging place for infrastructure development today due to incessant snowfall during winter.
He also touched upon Brihadeeswara Temple in the South of India built by Raja Chola and its marvelous architectural layout and idol.
The Prime Minister also mentioned Dholavira and Lothal in Gujarat. Dholavira, famed for its urban planning and water management systems as ancient as 3, 000 BC to 1, 500 BC.
PM Modi said: “India’s history and sense of history are older and more elaborate than the normal, leading to the need for new perspectives to witness the past with technological developments and new discoveries.”
He mentioned findings of Sinauli in Uttar Pradesh, where copper age findings are closer to Vedic Age rather than the Indus Valley Civilization. He talked about the discovery of a 4, 000-year-old horse-driven chariot. Such discoveries stress that in order to know India, there is a need for prejudice-free new concepts, the Prime Minister said, inviting the gathering to be part of this new stream.
Underlining the significance of heritage, PM Modi said: “Heritage is not only history. Rather a shared consciousness of humanity. Whenever we look at historical sites, it lifts our mind from the current geo-political factors.”
The Prime Minister also encouraged people to use this potential of heritage for the betterment of the world, using them to connect hearts.
“It is India’s clarion call to the world to come together to promote each others’ heritage and amplify the spirit of human welfare, encourage tourism and create more job opportunities through the 46th World Heritage Committee meeting, ” PM Modi added.
Recalling a time when heritage was ignored in the pursuit of development, the Prime Minister said that “today, India’s vision is development as well as heritage – Vikas bhi Virasat bhi”.
Elaborating on the pride in heritage pledge during the last 10 years, the Prime Minister mentioned unprecedented steps such as Kashi Viswanath Corridor, Ram Mandir, Modern Campus of ancient Nalanda University.
“This resolve of India regarding heritage is linked with the feeling of serving the entire humanity. Indian culture talks about us, not just about self, ” PM Modi added.
The Prime Minister reiterated that India considers the preservation of global heritage as its responsibility.
New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will release the Economic Survey 2023-24 on Monday, the first day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
The document has been prepared by the Economic Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance and formulated under the supervision of the Chief Economic Adviser.
It is a report card on the economy and presents the growth outlook. The survey gives a detailed account of the state of the economy, prospects and policy challenges.
The Economic Survey provides statistical information and analysis on various sectors of the economy as well as data on employment, GDP growth, inflation, and the budget deficit.
The Ministry of Finance said in a post on X on Sunday that Chief Economic Adviser Dr V. Anantha Nageswaran will address the media in the afternoon after the Economic Survey 2023-24 is presented in the Lok Sabha.
The survey usually comes out on January 31, a day before the Finance Minister presents the Union Budget. As per the norm laid out in the Constitution, in election years, the government presents a shorter report titled ‘The Indian Economy – A Review’ and tables an interim budget in February.
This year’s Budget will be keenly watched as several major economies in the world have been struggling. India, on the other hand, has retained its tag as the fastest-growing economy/.
The Economic Survey will be presented at a time when the IMF has just raised its economic growth forecast for the country for FY25 to 7 per cent from 6.8 per cent projected in April. In June, the Reserve Bank of India revised the growth forecast to 7.2 from 7 per cent. According to RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, if the average growth India recorded over the three years is seen, the average comes to 8.3 per cent. In the current year, they have given a projection of 7.2 per cent growth.
The Union Budget will focus on supporting consumption via higher allocation for the rural economy, welfare schemes, and agriculture with higher allocations for schemes like PMAY and MNREGA, according to rating agencies. It expects a focus on manufacturing and capex to continue as the government is likely to retain its interim budget’s target of capex and an increase in PLI allocation to more labour-intensive sectors like textiles, leather footwear and toys to aid job creation.
Kolkata : The current NDA government at the Centre will not last long and it will get toppled very soon, claimed Samajwadi Party President and Lok Sabha MP Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday.
The current Union government is having a guest appearance. It will not last for long and get toppled very soon. West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have wiped out the BJP. There is a necessity to remain united against the communal forces, ” Yadav said while addressing the Martyrs’ Day rally organised by Trinamool Congress in Kolkata.
He also ridiculed the BJP for its dependence on allies to keep the current Union government running. “Those who are running the Government at Centre, now have to borrow martyrs. They can do whatever they feel like. But remember whenever there is mass awakening, false propagandas receive jolts. We never encourage negative politics. There will be a change soon. We have to remain united for the sake of the people. We have to bring the change, ” Yadav said.
Speaking on the occasion, he was all in praise of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and complimented her role for the spectacular results of her party in West Bengal.
“In the 2021 elections, she could not walk because of the accident. But she stood by her party workers with her plastered limb. Then I said that there is only one leader who is fighting and moving ahead. There are few leaders who risk their lives to struggle, ” Yadav said.
He claimed that if the people of West Bengal continued to support “didi”, she would be able to combat any kind of conspiracy framed against her. “The communal forces are trying to vitiate the scene. So you will have to continue with your support towards ‘didi’ to combat that, ” Yadav said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi extended their birthday wishes to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge who turned 82 on Sunday.
Taking to the microblogging site X, the PM wrote, “Birthday wishes to Congress President and the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Shri Mallikarjun Kharge Ji. Praying for his long and healthy life.”
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, in a post on X, said, “A very happy birthday, @kharge ji! Your tireless service and dedication to the people’s cause is an inspiration. Wishing you much love and good health.”
Kharge has been the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha since 2021. He has been a Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka since 2020. He was the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee in the 16th Lok Sabha from 2016 to 2019.
During the UPA 2 government, Kharge served as the Minister of Railways from 2013 to 2014 and Minister of Labour and Employment from 2009 to 2013 in the Union Cabinet. He was a Member of Parliament for Gulbarga, Karnataka from 2009 to 2019.
Chandigarh : With an aim to wean away the state farmers from the water-guzzling paddy crop to arrest the depleting groundwater as mandated by Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Punjab Agriculture and Farmers Welfare department has decided to provide incentive of Rs.17, 500 per hectare for encouraging farmers to shift to alternative crops.
Revealing this here today in a press communiqué, Punjab Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian said that in this regard an amount of Rs. 289.87 crores has been allocated for FY 2024-25.
Giving breakups of the revamped Crop Diversification Programme (CDP) for replacing paddy, he said that under this program, any farmer can avail the benefits on maximum five hectares, and the incentive amount will be directly transferred to the bank account of beneficiary farmer via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in two equal instalments.
First instalment will be transferred immediately after verification through Digital Crop Survey and Krishi Mapper app, second instalment will be transferred immediately after the crop harvest.
Gurmeet Singh Khudian further stated that Punjab played crucial role in the green revolution which helped the nation to become independent in food security.Cultivation of paddy in Punjab leads to over-dependence on tubewell irrigation which resulted into depletion of groundwater.
Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann led Punjab Government has decided to implement the revised CDP in all the Districts of Punjab and preference would be given to critical and over exploited blocks of the identified districts.
Special Chief Secretary Agriculture and Farmers Welfare KAP Sinha informed that GoI has launched a revamped Crop Diversification Programme (CDP)- to encourage farmers to diversify paddy to alternative crops during Kharif season 2024.
He said that Farmer can apply online on State portal to avail scheme benefits. For effective and smooth implementation of the program, a state and district level committees will be constituted in the state, he added.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday morning, acknowledged forthcoming citizens with regard to sharing inputs for the upcoming ‘Mann Ki Baat’ broadcast on July 28.
Taking to X, the prime Minister said: “I’ve been getting numerous inputs for this month’s #MannKiBaat, which will take place on Sunday the 28th. Happy to see several youngsters in particular highlight collective efforts aimed at transforming our society.”
Encouraging more citizens to come forward with their suggestions, PM Modi added: “You can keep sharing inputs on MyGov, the NaMo App or record your message on 1800-11-7800.”
‘Mann Ki Baat’ is PM Modi’s monthly radio address in which he discusses matters of national significance.
Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday claimed that Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, should be made the brand ambassador for population control in the country as a particular community only listens to leaders of the Congress party.
CM Sarma further asserted that Assam will become a Muslim majority state by 2041.
Addressing the press here, CM Sarma claimed, “Anybody can travel to a Muslim-dominated village and ask the people which leader’s advice they would like to listen to and the answer would be Rahul Gandhi. They will not listen to advice given by Himanta Biswa Sarma.”
“That is why I feel that the Congress party must take some extra steps for population control in the country, ” he added.
The BJP leader also said that looking at the census figures for the last few decades in Assam, the state has witnessed a huge surge in Muslim population every 10 years.
“If we compare the data of the 2001 and 2011 Census, there was around 30 per cent rise in the Muslim population in Assam. During that period, Hindu population rose just 16 per cent. Therefore, the increase in Muslim population outnumbered the Hindu population by 14-15 per cent, ” he said.
He added, “If we compute the same statistical rise in the Muslim population, Assam will become a Muslim majority state in 2041.”
CM Sarma argued that the upsurge in Muslim population has been continuing in the state for the last several decades.
“In Assam, Muslims are 40 per cent of the population as of now. In 1951, they were 12 per cent, ” he added.
New Delhi: Cybersecurity experts on Friday said that businesses must test their infrastructure and have multiple fail safes in place, however large the company is, as a massive Microsoft Windows outage created mayhem across the world, including in India disrupting airlines, financial institutions, hospitals and more.
Millions of Windows users globally faced the ‘Blue Screen of Death’, leading to unexpected computer shutdowns.
Jake Moore, Global Security Advisor at ESET, said that it is simply impossible to simulate the size and magnitude of the issue in a safe environment without testing the actual network.
“The inconvenience caused by the loss of access to services for thousands of people serves as a reminder of our dependence on Big Tech such as Microsoft in running our daily lives and businesses, ” he said.
Another aspect of this incident relates to “diversity” in the use of large-scale IT infrastructure. This applies to critical systems like operating systems (OSes), cybersecurity products, and other globally deployed (scaled) applications.
“Where diversity is low, a single technical incident, not to mention a security issue, can lead to global-scale outages with subsequent knock-on effects, ” Moore said.
Cybersecurity platform CrowdStrike on Friday said it is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. The company said Apple Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted.
According to Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer, at cyber-security company Tenable, the outage affecting computer systems worldwide is severe.
“Because this is a security software, it requires a higher level of privileges to the underlying operating system, so a bad or faulty security update can result in a catastrophic impact, ” said Narang.
This event was unprecedented and the ramifications of it were still developing.
Siddhartha Khemka, Head-Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said the Microsoft outage impacted a lot of large organisations, airlines and stock exchanges globally. According to Alexander Liskin, Head of Threat Research, Kaspersky, to avoid such situations, information security vendors need to be highly responsible for the quality of the updates they release.
“It is also important to adhere to the principle of a granular release of updates. This means that they are not distributed globally to all customers simultaneously, but gradually, so that in case of any unforeseen failure, it is possible to localize and fix it quickly, ” he advised.
Mumbai: Setting its target for uprooting the ruling Mahayuti government, the Congress will kickstart its Assembly election campaign in Maharashtra on August 20, the 80th birth anniversary of late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, top party leaders said here on Friday.
The party will invite Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, besides other top leaders for launching the poll campaign.
Speaking to the media, AICC General Secretaries Ramesh Chennithala and KC Venugopal said that the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will make an all-out effort to dislodge the “corrupt” (Mahayuti) government in the state, and, akin to the Lok Sabha polls, the people will teach the ruling alliance a lesson even in the Assembly elections, due in October.
“This government (of Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP) was formed by deceit…It is not a natural alliance. We are committed to defeating them. The people of the state will also teach the BJP a lesson, ” declared Venugopal.
He, along with other top leaders, interacted with the media after reviewing and discussing the Assembly election preparations, poll strategy, ways to strengthen the party and the seat-sharing formula with its allies in the state.
Stressing on party discipline, Venugopal said that all Congress leaders have been directed to remain united, speak in one voice, indiscipline would not be tolerated, action would soon be taken against those MLAs who cross-voted in the recent MLC biennial polls in the state.
Chennithala urged all leaders to speak unitedly on a narrative focusing on farmers, youth, unemployment, the pride of Maharashtra, protecting democracy and the Constitution, and other burning issues, as the people of Maharashtra also want a change.
Soon, the Congress will hold discussions to finalise the seat-sharing arrangements with the MVA allies Shiv Sena (UBT)-NCP (SP) and others to ensure that they are united in the endeavour to throw out the Mahayuti regime in the Assembly elections, he added.
Venugopal pointed out that “the political atmosphere in the country has changed a lot after the Lok Sabha elections”, and in the recent bypolls for 13 Assembly seats, the BJP could bag only two, while the INDIA bloc won 11.
“After the INDIA bloc won Ayodhya (within Faizabad LS seat), we have also won Badrinath Assembly bypoll, despite the Uttarakhand police stopping voters from going to the polling stations and misuse of the government machinery, ” said Venugopal.
State Congress President Nana Patole, Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar, Congress Legislative Party Leader Balasaheb Thorat, ex-CMs Sushilkumar Shinde and Prithviraj Chavan, AICC functionaries Mukul Wasnik, Manikrao Thakre, State Working President M. Arif Naseem Khan, Mumbai Congress President Varsha Gaikwad, and other senior leaders were present at the deliberations.
Patole said that the Congress will protect the self-respect of Maharashtra and not allow it to become a slave of Gujarat, allow its resources or Mumbai to be sold out to the neighbouring state.
