Gold price today: Gold continued to trade in red on Monday, extending losses on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), triggering lower circuit limits as investors rushed to book profits. Gold prices slumped by 6%, shedding nearly Rs 9,700 per 10 grams on MCX. The decline marked the third consecutive day of losses for gold futures, … Read more
India’s factory activity picked up marginally in January after slipping to a two-year low the previous month. The sector was helped by strong inflows of new orders, even as sentiment among manufacturers weakened sharply, a monthly survey showed on Monday. The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 55.4 in January … Read more
Inactive public sector enterprises (PSEs) should be considered for immediate closure to reduce fiscal strain on central and state governments, the 16th Finance Commission has recommended in its report while calling for deep reforms in the sector.The panel also said that land and buildings owned by inactive PSEs are valuable and could be deployed to … Read more
Road out of troubled waters The Finance Commission has proposed a targeted push to accelerate and make India’s urban growth more orderly, focusing on strengthening mid-sized cities and bringing rapidly urbanising fringes of cities into municipal corporations.In its recommendations on urban local body (ULB) grants, the 16th Finance Commission has outlined two key priorities: integrating … Read more
Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday hailed India’s free trade agreement with the European Union saying that the “mother” will significantly boost New Delhi’s exports to the bloc in upcoming 5 years. The deal, often called the “mother of all deals”, is set to grant duty-free access to 99 % of Indian … Read more
It was a contrast that no previous Budget had possibly produced — a constant thrum of perfunctory desk thumping by treasury benches and a total silence from the opposition. The just short of 90-minute speech by FM Nirmala Sitharaman was a sedate affair that did not evoke emotions, even though a charged opposition had reportedly … Read more
In a major ruling on how High Courts should deal with chronic delays in delivering judgments, the Supreme Court has repeated and intensified its previous instructions on how such delays should be timely eliminated to bring about timely delivery of the reserved judgment. The Court placed special emphasis on the importance of ensuring that the … Read more
NEW DELHI: Amid trade tensions, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday sought to address a long pending demand of the commerce department by allowing the sale of goods by eligible manufacturers in special economic zones (SEZs) to domestic tariff area on payment of duty at concessional rates.Sitharaman said that only a prescribed share of … Read more
Sunday’s Budget had no allocation for Chabahar port in Iran under the ‘aid to countries and projects abroad’ outlay. This could be significant, coming amid looming threats of US sanctions over the port, which – in the absence of any direct land access – was meant to be India’s gateway to Afghanistan and central Asia.The … Read more
To ensure persons with disabilities (PwDs) get dignified livelihood opportunities and timely access to assistive devices, the govt on Sunday announced the ‘Divyangjan Kaushal Yojana’ and the ‘Divyang Sahara Yojana’.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the ‘kaushal yojana’ for livelihood and the ‘sahara yojana’ for assistive devices are “fundamental needs” for PwDs.Noting that IT, animation, visual … Read more