Jaitley to present interim budget on Feb 1

Thursday 17th January 2019 01:24 EST
 

India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will present the interim budget on February 1, while the full-fledged budget will be presented by the new government, sources said. The Budget Session of the Parliament will be held from January 31 to February 13, which was decided in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA), sources said. This will be the last Budget of the current BJP-led NDA government before the general elections. As per the standard practice, a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in an election year and a full-fledged budget is presented by the new government. If the budget date falls few months ahead of polls, then an Interim Budget is presented.

Nilekani to head RBI’s panel on e-payments

Nandan Nilekani, the brains behind Aadhaar, has been appointed by the RBI to head a panel on deepening digital payments. The central bank also announced norms that will allow third-party service providers like Apple Pay and Google Pay to store payment card data and allow customers to make cardless payments in shops using their phones. An earlier panel on digital payments appointed by the government, which was headed by former finance secretary Ratan Wattal, had recommended Aadhaar for eKYC and extensive use of Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AEPS). However, leveraging Aadhaar in digital payments received a setback with the Supreme Court restricting its use. Besides Nilekani, the panel will have former RBI deputy governor H R Khan, former Vijaya Bank CEO Kishore Sansi, former IT ministry secretary Aruna Sharma, and Sanjay Jain, who is the chief innovation officer at IIM-Ahmedabad’s centre for innovation, incubation and entrepreneurship. The panel will identify measures to strengthen the safety and security of digital payments and providing a road map for increasing customer confidence and trust in digital channels.

India's industrial output growth plunges

India's industrial output growth plunged to a 17-month low in November dragged down by a contraction in manufacturing, capital and consumer goods sectors, prompting economists to say that the sharp slowdown during the month could be a blip. Data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed industrial output growth slipped to 0.5% in November, lower than October’s upwardly revised 8.4% growth and 8.5% expansion recorded in November 2017. The manufacturing sector, which accounts for a bulk of the IIP, contracted 0.4% compared with a growth of 10.4% in the same month last year. The capital goods sector, which is seen as a gauge of economic activity, declined 3.4% compared with a growth of 5.7% in November 2017.

Infosys achieves double-digit growth in Q3

Infosys surprised investors and analysts with double-digit revenue growth in the quarter ended December. It was the first time in 11 quarters that the company touched double-digit growth. The performance - which was helped by large deal wins, especially in the banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI) sector in North America - encouraged the company to sharply revise upwards its revenue guidance for the full year to 8.5-9%, from 6-8%, on a constant currency basis. For the third quarter ended December 31, the company grew 10.1%, compared to 5.8% in the same period a year earlier. Constant currency discounts the effect of currency volatility over which companies have no control. Rival TCS, which also announced third quarter results, had seen its revenue grow by 12.1%, its highest in 14 quarters.


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