Bharat Rakshak

Where is Suraj San? Missing his in depth analysis and commentary on budget.

rsingh: I posted about the topic in the last page, but thanks

Services PMI logs fastest growth in 3 months in January, expands to 51.7

The Indian services sector remained in expansion mode in January, registering the fastest rise in activity in three months driven by a renewed increase in new business orders, says a monthly survey.

Even though growth rates for activity and employment accelerated since December, it remained weaker than their respective long-run survey averages. The seasonally adjusted Nikkei Services Business Activity Index improved to 51.7 in January, up from 50.9 in December, signalling a faster expansion.

In November, the index stood at 48.5. “The recovery across India’s services sector continued during January, with growth in output picking up to the joint-strongest since June 2017 as underlying demand conditions improved,” said Aashna Dodhia, economist at IHS Markit and author of the report.

Rs 400 bn: The windfall govt could have made had LTCG tax come last year

The government would have made a windfall had the tax on long-term capital gains (LTCG) been introduced in last year’s Union Budget. Sharp rally in the equity markets and record mobilization through IPOs during 2017-18, could resulted into gains in excess of Rs 400 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) by certain assumptions.

India’s market capitalisation in the past one year has increased by Rs 40,646 billion (Rs 40.6 lakh crore) between January 31, 2017 and January 31, 2018. Assuming the manner of LTCG implementation would have been the same, the potential LTCG gains for the government translate into Rs 4,064 billion (Rs 4 lakh crore).

CRISIL SME TRACKER: Budget 2018's focus on MSMEs to spur job creation

The government has in Budget 2018-19 rightly focused on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as the preferred route for rapid job creation and self-employment. The MSME sector employs over 111 million people and contributes nearly 31 per cent of India’s GDP.

Sharpening the focus on the promotion of self-employment, the government has increased funding for the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme to Rs 18.01 billion in the financial year 2018-19, from Rs 11.95 billion (revised) in fiscal 2017-18.

Similarly, the target for the flagship Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana — which extends loans of up to Rs 1 million to micro-entrepreneurs — has been increased to Rs 3 trillion from Rs 2.44 trillion.

In the formal sector, the government proposes to contribute 12 per cent of the wages of new employees in the Employee Provident Fund across sectors for three years. Further, to increase the investible surplus in the hands of MSMEs in the formal sector, the reduced corporate tax slab of 25 per cent has been extended to companies with a turnover of up to Rs 2.5 billion, from Rs 500 million announced in last year’s Budget.

nam wrote:

vijayk wrote: OTOH, Govt could have changed the game by increasing minimum tax base to 5 L or even 7.5 L. Could have helped a lot of young minds. Hope they have a good tax reform plan since they set up committee.

I am really curious to know if young people earning 5lakhs find Rs 900 per month a burden? That is the max they pay.

I presume this is the lot which does not think twice before getting the latest iphone.

It doesn't. There is a general perception fed by whatsapp messages very carefully prepared by parties with help of BigData pounding the point that Govt. is screwing middle class. I see Forwards again and again and again ...

I am assuming a lot of people are falling for this based on Twitter and FB/Whatsapp conversations.

Govt. can address and reach out and communicate. I didn't see much of that.

What happened is GST was used an excuse by business folks to increase prices.
DeMo/GST hurt middle class bottom line. Both operations were implemented badly and caused a lot of discomfort

I see Govt. moving on fixing GST fast but initial perception stays unless addressed effectively with aggressive communication.

I also see every move is being made to expand tax base large enough to radically change the structure of funding.

I feel Govt. can cut some of the petrol taxes and even raise IT limit to 5L (which only costs 8000 crores) but helps perception battle.

That's my opinion.

vijayk: Can you please STOP discussing politics in this thread ? I've lost count of the number of times I have to clean up your posts. How hard is it to understand that this is the economy thread ? Hint: if you're writing about what government should do regarding the actions of another political party, you're derailing this thread.

Trikaal wrote:

Suraj wrote: As for corporate tax rate, the reality is that 99% of our companies have a turnover of Rs.250 crore or less. By raising the turnover limit for 25% rate from Rs.50 crore to Rs.250 crore, they added essentially the entire MSME sector to this bracket. These also constitute the overwhelming contributors of job creation. Lowering corporate tax rate, together with GST, helps them run more efficiently and generate more jobs, while the government has the benefit of having them in the tax net through voluntary compliance.

Yes, 99% companies are below 250 crore. But what you conveniently ignored is that the remaining 1% generate 75% of the total corporate tax. So govt hasnt done as much as the optics show. At a time when US has reduced corporate tax to 21%, japan and france are planning to reduce theirs, india is quickly becoming an unattractive venue for investments. This will lead to outflow of funds and jobs. So no, this decision has the potential to lower jobs and investments rather than raise it. US and other countries will give too stiff a competition.

Clarifications for Trikaal - direct from the mouth of FM...
FM : ' corporate tax rate can be brought down to the promised 25% only after all the exemptions given to the industry have ended '

Speaking at a post-budget meeting, organised by industry body Ficci, he said he had in 2015 promised to cut corporate tax rate to 25%, from 30%, in four years. Jaitley added however that he had also set a condition—all exemptions would have to go. It would not be proper to end exemptions midway as some industries may have been set up based on them, he said. And therefore, the opportunity to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25% will arise when all the exemptions end in the due course, he said.

In the Union Budget 2018-19, presented last week, Jaitley provided for lower tax rate for corporates with turnover of up to Rs250 crore. For the remaining 7,000-odd companies, the average effective tax rate after considering the exemptions comes to about 22%, he said.

Hmm .. So it seems these 7000 companies reporting more than 250 Cr INR annual revenues seem to be getting taxed on an average at less than 25% already due to the exemptions given to them by CG and SGs. !

More info from FM on this specific topic here in a Financial Express article

The below is for this member by name 'Arjun' with respect to his fears about how GoI is sleeping on AI front.

Arjun wrote: The fact that AI is going to completely change the face of global industry has been evident for more than two years now - leave alone China, every other two-bit western nation has publicly articulated a policy of wanting to emerge as leader in the space. India's statements on the space have been confined to Gadkari saying that self-driving cars (which are obviously totally a byproduct of deep learning technologies) will never be allowed on Indian roads and some perfunctory statements from other Indian ministers that India will work on AI as long as it is relevant to Indian problems!!

Don't get me wrong...the alternative political parties in India's are Naxalites in sophisticated garb (referring to Congress & AAP) - and cowherds from the BJP are preferable to Naxals. But these cowherd types are still not what we want for looking into the future and coming out with a strategy to dominate the emerging industries.

This deeply anti-intellectual bias of the government seems not be a just a Congress claim, but very much a reality. Even in the space of Hindutva - I don't see any effort to rope in intellectuals of the calibre of Rajiv Malhotra or anyone close, to justify any of their actions. There is no daily press conference as in the US - where some articulate personality can convey the stance and viewpoints of the government. And - coming to fast moving industries of the future, this government seems absolutely clueless and worse perhaps does not even understand the implications of why they are important !

I would love to be proved wrong (believe me, I really really do) ....but that seems to be the unfortunate reality at this time. We do need to quickly upgrade to some real intellectual depth as part of the government and we need to see a gameplan for the future.

As can be seen from the above quoted post ... Arjun is pushed to angst by the "Deeply Anti-intellectual bias of the Government ". Makes me wonder if he is yet another member of this forum indulging in Intellectual terrorism & deliberately resorting to pure rhetoric alone ..when so much info is available to assuage his worries about this so called ' deeply anti-intellectual GoI ' ?. Has this person had a look at the education qualifications & real world experience of folks like Sithraman, Suresh Prabhu, Piyush Goyal, Jayant Sinha and etc ministerial folks ?.


* August-2017 : Ministry of Commerce, India - sets up a task force on artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure “India’s economic transformation”.

Commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman has constituted a task force on artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure “India’s economic transformation”.

The task force will be headed by V. Kamakoti, a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Speaking to Mint, Kamakoti said the task force will submit its first report within four months. The committee will focus on a wide spectrum of areas including agriculture and transportation. “We will concentrate on the types of tools, interoperability, standardization and skill sets needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning,” he added.

“With rapid development in the fields of information technology and hardware, the world is about to witness a fourth industrial revolution. Driven by the power of big data, high computing capacity, artificial intelligence and analytics, Industry 4.0 aims to digitise the manufacturing sector,” Sitharaman said in a statement.

The task force will submit concrete and implementable recommendations for government, industry and research institutions.

The panel will comprise 18 experts, academics, researchers and industry leaders and will explore possibilities to leverage AI for development across various fields.

In addition to regular members, officials from Niti Aayog, ministry of electronics and information technology, department of science and technology, Unique Identification Authority of India and Defence Research and Development Organisation will also participate in the task force’s meetings.

* Website of the ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TASK FORCE - Constituted By Ministry Of Commerce And Industry, Government Of India
* Read here about the members & experts panel of the AI Task Force : https://www.aitf.org.in/members

* Do You Want to Provide your thoughts, ideas on how the GoI should adopt AI across ?
The GoI is requesting the Indian public's opinion on how to take up AI in India across various fields and has provided space for uploading their opinion in this link here.


* October-2017 : India Forms Policy Group To Study And Monitor Artificial Intelligence: Nasscom

According to reports, Viswanathan confirmed that the “policy group” has been created by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology with representation from the academia, which has done a lot of research on the subject, and Nasscom for the industry’s perspective.

The policy group will focus on aspects like skilling the workforce, privacy, security and fixing responsibility if anything goes wrong, he added.

“We have to create a thought leadership on what is this programme all about, what is the likely impact. Create a thought leadership when AI becomes a reality, what are the elements and sub-elements which need to be taken care of, how do we take care of that,” he said according to PTI.

A few other organizations started by GoI who are also in to AI and allied technology areas.
* Indian Unit for Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence

* Coming to a Fast Moving Industry ... Lithium Ion battery based energy source & its applications
* Jan 2018 : Commercialise use of ISRO's Li-ion battery for Electric Vehicles: Government panel

A panel headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha has recommended commercial use of ISRO's lithium-ion battery technology under the 'Make In India' initiative for electric vehicles, official sources said.

The Committee of Secretaries also recommended that the power ministry should initiate "requisite power tariff and access policies" for enabling development of charging infrastructure, in consultation with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and others concerned.

The panel, they said, has advised that "ISRO may consider transferring" its lithium-ion battery technology used in electric vehicles to interested parties on a "non- discriminatory basis for commercialisation with Make in India condition", after obtaining approval of the Space Commission and other authorities.

In October last year, Niti Aayog member V K Saraswat had said that India has to set up large lithium-ion batteries manufacturing plants to become a global player in electric vehicles (EVs) technology market.

At present, lithium-ion battery is not manufactured in India on commercial basis and the country has to depend on imports from Japan or China

The meeting of the Committee held on January 8 to discuss the "strategy to scale up transformative mobility for uptake of zero emission vehicles and ancillary technologies" was attended by secretaries from nine departments, Niti Aayog CEO, representatives from the Department of Space and Cabinet Secretariat, sources said.

The panel also made a case for an empowered mission under Niti Aayog for overall policy formulation and for driving the programme to boost uptake of zero emission vehicles, the sources said. However, individual initiatives may continue to be driven by ministries/departments
concerned.

In its wide ranging recommendations, the panel has also said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas may examine the possibility of leveraging the existing retail network of oil marketing companies for scaling up public charging infrastructure. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways may consider issuing an advisory to states for ensuring that registration of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) is facilitated, recommended
the panel. The Committee suggested that steps may be taken in regard to the monitoring structure proposed by Niti Aayog for "providing leadership and inter-ministerial coordination". Further, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy may pursue the development and promotion of energy storage technologies with focus on grid scale operations, recommended the panel.

SaraLax wrote:

Trikaal wrote:
Yes, 99% companies are below 250 crore. But what you conveniently ignored is that the remaining 1% generate 75% of the total corporate tax. So govt hasnt done as much as the optics show. At a time when US has reduced corporate tax to 21%, japan and france are planning to reduce theirs, india is quickly becoming an unattractive venue for investments. This will lead to outflow of funds and jobs. So no, this decision has the potential to lower jobs and investments rather than raise it. US and other countries will give too stiff a competition.

Clarifications for Trikaal - direct from the mouth of FM...
FM : ' corporate tax rate can be brought down to the promised 25% only after all the exemptions given to the industry have ended '

Speaking at a post-budget meeting, organised by industry body Ficci, he said he had in 2015 promised to cut corporate tax rate to 25%, from 30%, in four years. Jaitley added however that he had also set a condition—all exemptions would have to go. It would not be proper to end exemptions midway as some industries may have been set up based on them, he said. And therefore, the opportunity to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25% will arise when all the exemptions end in the due course, he said.

In the Union Budget 2018-19, presented last week, Jaitley provided for lower tax rate for corporates with turnover of up to Rs250 crore. For the remaining 7,000-odd companies, the average effective tax rate after considering the exemptions comes to about 22%, he said.

Hmm .. So it seems these 7000 companies reporting more than 250 Cr INR annual revenues seem to be getting taxed on an average at less than 25% already due to the exemptions given to them by CG and SGs. !

More info from FM on this specific topic here in a Financial Express article

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. The budget note does say that average ETR(effective tax rate) for companies above Rs500 crore revenue is 23.94%. It was 25.9% last year. It seems that exemptions have only increased instead of decreasing. In this scenario, govt wont reduce tax rates which is fair. Perhaps they should refocus on ending exemptions as a flat rate reduction makes for better optics than effective rates. Makes for better advertising too!!!

Suraj wrote:vijayk: Can you please STOP discussing politics in this thread ? I've lost count of the number of times I have to clean up your posts. How hard is it to understand that this is the economy thread ? Hint: if you're writing about what government should do regarding the actions of another political party, you're derailing this thread.

Suraj - THis is discussion on economy and how people are viewing the financial policies. It is about people and how they perceive policies. Is it a forum to only discuss Newspaper articles on financial policies? Social media a major force where people express their opinions. That feedback needs to taken into account by any Govt. and need to appropriately make their policies.

I am not advocating how the Govt. should fight other parties. How do you take people into confidence when major financial policies are changing?

If this is inappropriate for this forum, I won't post.

SaraLax wrote:The below is for this member by name 'Arjun' with respect to his fears about how GoI is sleeping on AI front.

SaraLax, we live in a competitive world and while these measures are good, the question is are they good enough? I go solely by the results achieved and not by what little effort the government is putting in...fact is today increasingly India is not counted among the top nations in the AI space globally (US, China, UK, Japan, Canada, Israel are names that are regarded as being ahead of India). For a country that was regarded as a leader in the Analytics space to not being able to effectively package and market the talent base and strengths in AI is pretty pathetic! If there had been a minister totally on the ball as to how events and positioning in the AI space were shifting very rapidly over the last 2 years - some steps could have been taken to get the word out, such that India could have been counted in the top league today. But that has obviously not happened!

More than the government, I also blame Nasscom - the Industry body that should have been far more proactive ! The failure on the part of NASSCOM, which was considered an exemplary industry body, is truly tragic.

As far as electric vehicles goes - it seems to me that there the government has indeed been far more proactive than in the AI case. Modi seems to have a strong 'green' streak which has ensured some very ambitious targets on the connected industry fronts and I give him full credit for it. However, again here - pls remember that the key to how the battle plays out will depend on who controls the EV battery industry as also lithium supplies. The news about ISRO commercializing the technology that they currently have is certainly good....keep in mind however that we are talking about POTENTIAL here (the ISRO capability which we have no visibility into) as opposed to actual on the ground market dominance by Chinese EV battery firms (two of whom are public and command massive valuations in the market) and who have already scoured the globe and bought up scarce lithium sources.

The final proof of pudding will be in ensuring that this move from IC engines to EV does not result in India moving from dependence on the Gulf to dependence on China.

Only financial analcysts will say ‘Lithium is new oil’ with a straight face.

Lithium is one of the most abundant metal on earth. You may run out of oxygen before you run out of lithium!!

vijayk: of course it’s inappropriate ! That’s why I’ve been editing out your posts so often - you’ve been ignoring mod advice all this while !

disha wrote: Lithium is one of the most abundant metal on earth. You may run out of oxygen before you run out of lithium!!

At 0.05 - 1 ppm in seawater, ~20 ppm in rocks, "abundant"? May be, but prohibitively expensive to separate or mine. There are few commercial deposits around the world.

Oxygen is ~46% of the earth crust and so nearly 25,000 times more abundant than Lithium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium

According to the Handbook of Lithium and Natural Calcium, "Lithium is a comparatively rare element, although it is found in many rocks and some brines, but always in very low concentrations. There are a fairly large number of both lithium mineral and brine deposits but only comparatively few of them are of actual or potential commercial value. Many are very small, others are too low in grade."[49]

x-post from mil and history forum:

Ministry of Commerce & Industry
27-December, 2017 17:54 IST
Progress under 'Make In India' scheme
Significant achievements have been made under the Make in India initiative since its launch on 25th September, 2014.



‘Make in India’ initiative was launched on September 25, 2014 with the objective of facilitating investment, fostering innovation, building best in class manufacturing infrastructure, making it easy to do business and enhancing skill development. Action Plans for 21 key sectors were identified for specific actions under (i) Policy Initiatives (ii) Fiscal incentives (iii) Infrastructure Creation (iv) Ease of Doing Business (v) Innovation and R&D (vi) Skill Development areas.


Details of achievements under the ‘Make in India’ initiatives in the focus sectors are as follows :


1. Foreign Direct Investment


The total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow was USD 160.79 billion between April 2014 and March 2017 – representing 33% of the cumulative FDI in India since April 2000. In 2015-16, FDI inflow crossed the USD 50 billion mark in one fiscal year, for the first time ever. In 2016-17, FDI inflow stood at a record of USD 60 billion, highest ever recorded for a fiscal year ever. According to IMF World Economic Outlook (April 2017) and UN World Economic Situation Prospects 2017, India is the fastest growing major economy in the world, and is projected to remain so in 2017 and 2018. FDI policy and procedure have been simplified and liberalized progressively. Key sectors that have been opened up for FDI include Defence Manufacturing, Food Processing, Telecommunications, Agriculture, Pharmaceuticals, Civil Aviation, Space, Private Security Agencies, Railways, Insurance and Pensions and Medical Devices.


2. Ease of Doing Business


Steps taken to improve ease of doing business include simplification and rationalisation of existing rules. As a result of the measures taken to improve the country’s investment climate, India jumped a massive 30 places to 100th in World Bank's ease of doing business rankings as per World Bank Group’s ‘Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs’ report. This is driven by reforms in the areas of Starting a Business, Construction Permits, Getting Credit, Protecting Minority Investors, Paying Taxes, Trading across Borders, Enforcing Contracts, and Resolving Insolvency.


3. Sector specific achievements
During Make in India’s three-year journey, significant achievements have been witnessed across different domains. Some of key achievements across focus sectors under Make in India are as below:


(i) Aerospace & Defence



Indigenous defence products unveiled - Akash Surface to Air Missile System, Dhanush Artillery Gun system and Light Combat Aircraft
Exports increased to INR 2059.18 crore (2015-16) from INR 1153.35 crore (2013-14)
The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) - 2013 amended to introduce Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)
Defence offset policy streamlined:
100% Offset claims filed during 2014-16 against 64% during 2008-2013

· Industrial licensing streamlined:

o 119 licenses issued during 2014-16 against 217 during 2001-14


(ii) Aviation


< million (2011-14) to $519 million (2014-17)

Passengers carried by domestic airlines increased by 29%

148 Million (2012-14) to 191 Million (2014-16).

National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) to boost regional air connectivity, establish an integrated ecosystem to promote tourism and generate employment

160 airports being revived & operationalized

6 greenfield airports approved

16 Common User Domestic Cargo Terminals (CUDCT) operationalized

The GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation system (GAGAN) launched


(iii)Basic Metals and Cement


· FDI grew 5.9 times in Mining sector- from $213 million (2011-14) to $1261 million (2014-17)

India’s largest blast furnace, Kalyani commissioned at SAIL, Burnpur
First project to generate power through green technology commissioned at Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL)
Expansion of RINL capacity enhancement from 3 MTPA to 6.3 MTPA
Modernisation of IISCO Steel Plant (ISP), Burnpur : three fold increase in the hot metal production capacity
Modernisation of Rourkela steel plant: capacity enhancement from 2 MTPA to 4.5 MTPA.


(iv)Biotechnology


First indigenously developed and manufactured Rotavirus vaccine, 'Rotavac', launched
Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) Plant inaugurated at CSIR-IIIM, Jammu for the manufacture of phyto-pharmaceuticals.
India’s first cellulosic ethanol technology, demonstration, plant developed through indigenous technology
30 bioincubators and Biotech Parks supported
A virtual centre launched across five Indian Institutes of Technology to develop advance technologies in the area of biofuels.
Asia’s largest MedTech Zone (AMTZ) being set up in Andhra Pradesh to host around 200 independent manufacturing units.


(v) Capital Goods & Automotive


· FDI grew 1.7 times in Automobile and Auto Components - from $3.98 billion (2011-14) to $6.86 billion (2014-17)

15% growth in turnover of Auto components sector during 2014-16
22% growth in exports of Auto components during 2014-16
16% growth in exports of passenger vehicles in 2016-17
Major Investments by Global Players- ISUZU Motors, FORD Motor, Mercedes-Benz, Suzuki Motor, Magneti Marelli
2.9 lakh people trained by Automotive Skill Council during 2014-16

(vi) Chemical and Petrochemicals


· Assam Gas Cracker Project commissioned, expected to produce about 2.8 Lakh MT (Metric Tonne) polymers per annum and generate 1 lakh jobs

· 0.44 Million MT Per Annum Polypropylene Plant commissioned at Mangalore

· Polypropylene Unit of Dahej project commissioned - capacity of 1.1 Million MT per annum of ethylene and 0.4 Million MT per annum of Propylene

· ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Ltd.’s aromatics complex commissioned – capacity of 914 Kilo Tonne Per Annum (KTPA) of Paraxylene and 283 KTPA of Benzene

· Four plastic parks approved in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Assam and Tamil Nadu.


(vii) Food Processing


7 Mega Food Parks operationalized creating more than 36,000 jobs during 2014-17
100 Cold Chain Projects operationalized, 3.69 lakh tonnes food processing capacity created
4 Abattoirs projects completed
Creation of quality testing food labs:
27 labs accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL)
20 laboratories notified by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)


(viii) Gems and Jewelry


FDI grew 3.5 times - from $131 million (2011-14) to $463 million (2014-17)
The world's largest diamond bourse – Bharat Diamond Bourse, Mumbai notified as a Special Notified Zone (SNZ):
36 viewing sessions (259 days) organized
41,01,828 carats of rough diamonds worth USD 688.045 Million displayed
Jewelry Park being developed at Mumbai to boost exports and encourage local workers to use world-class infrastructure.
Four Common Facility Centres (CFCs) approved in Ahmedabad, Amreli, Visnagar and Palanpur approved
0.91 lakh people trained


(ix) ICTE Manufacturing


FDI grew 4.4 times in Electronics & IT sector- from $2.77 billion (2011-14) to $12.24 billion (2014-17)
1.9 lakh crore of electronics products manufactured indigenously in 2014-15
95 proposals worth INR 20,185 crore approved under M-SIPS
INR 374 crore committed for 8 Daughter Funds under Electronic Development Fund
42 new Mobile manufacturing units setup employing 47,800 people
3 CoE Setup for Internal security, Large Area Flexible Electronics, IoT
5 patents filed


(x) Leather & Leather Products


Two new branches of FDDI built in Punjab and Gujarat.
Mega Leather Clusters approved at Nellore , Andhra Pradesh, to generate 20,000 jobs
INR 765 lakh sanctioned for Market Access Initiative scheme in 2016-17
INR 297.93 lakh sanctioned for Marketing Development Assistance scheme in 2016-17
4.28 lakh people trained



(xi) Media and Entertainment


FDI grew 1.9 times in Information & Broadcasting - from $1.5 billion (2011-14) to $2.8 billion (2014-17)
Print Media Advertisement Policy 2016, to promote transparency and accountability
Policy Guidelines for empanelment of Private FM radio stations
National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) launched at INR 597.41 crore
Single window clearances for film shootings for foreign film makers in India
Film and Television Institute approved in Arunachal Pradesh.
INR 1,000 Million allocated for community radio stations.



(xii) MSME


· Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP): 1.5 lakh units setup, employment to 11 lakh persons

INR 135.07 crore approved for clusters, employment to 58,904 artisans
MSMEs allowed to participate for ‘Make’ projects and granted relaxation in the registration and profitability criteria
Incubation Cell ‘Knowledge for Innovation in Trade & Technology for Entrepreneurial Start-ups’ (KITTES) set up at IIFT Delhi
‘MyMSME’ launched to submit and track applications for schemes
5.6 lakh people trained by Tool Rooms & Technology Centres



(xiii) New and Renewable Energy


Highest ever wind power capacity addition of 3,300 MW in 2015-16.
140% increase in solar power capacity addition during 2014-16 as compared to 2012-14
34 solar parks of aggregate capacity of 20,000 MW sanctioned for 21 states
Wind Atlas 2015, a Geographic Information System (GIS) launched
31,472 solar water pumps installed in 2015-16, highest ever since 1991
6653 Surya Mitras trained
Renewable energy sector re-classified as ‘white category’ sector



(xiv) Oil & Gas


· Crude oil strategic storage of 5.33 Million Metric Tonne (MMT) commissioned at Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur

· IOCL refinery with a capacity of 15 Million Metric Tonnes per annum (MMTPA) commissioned at Paradip, Odisha

· 726 MW gas based thermal power project of ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC) commissioned at Palatana, Tripura

· Hydrocarbon and Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) notified

· INDMAX (lndane Maximisation) technology developed to maximize light distillates from refinery residue

· INR 100 crore “ONGC Startup fund” announced


(xv) Pharmaceuticals


Pharmaceutical industry grew by 29% in 2015-16
Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL), Gurgaon modernized for mass production of drugs for diabetes, oncology, nephrology and cardiology
1143 Jan Aushadi stores are operationalized
Coronary Stents price reduced by 85%
‘Pharma Data Bank’ launched to facilitate online filing of mandatory returns
Pharma Jan Samadhan & Pharma Sahi Daam launched
11 National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education & Research (NIPERs) approved


(xvi) Ports & Shipping


FDI grew 6.8 times in Sea Transport and Ports- from $0.22 billion (2011-14) to $1.5 billion (2014-17)
Highest ever capacity addition of 100.37 million tonnes in FY 2016-17,
Total turnaround time reduced by 14% and operating margin of the major ports increased by 13%
56 new projects worth INR 9,490.15 crore awarded in 2016-17, capacity addition of 103.52 Million tonnes per annum (MTPA)
Sagarmala Project: 173 projects at an investment of INR 4 lakh crore initiated; Six new mega ports and 26 port-rail connectivity projects identified
37 National Waterways identified for development


(xvii)Power


Electricity generation grew by 5.8% to 1,241.79 Million Units (MUs) in 2016-2017
Lowest ever energy deficit of 0.7% in 2016-17
Private capacity generation has increased to 135.38 GW in FY 2016-2017: 42.4% of the total power generated in the country
60,752.62 MW generation capacity added in the sector since April 2014
2,10,219 MVA sub-station capacity added during 2014-17
99.3% villages electrified under Power for All



(xviii) Railways


· First semi-high speed train- Gatimaan Express launched: top speed 160 km/hr

· JV agreements worth INR 40,000 crore signed with M/s Alstom and M/s GE

· 2,828 km of Broad Gauge lines commissioned in FY 2015-16 against an average of 1,528 km during 2009-14

· Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail project sanctioned at INR 97,636 crore

· Investment of INR 15,000 crore through PPP projects during 2015-16


(xix) Skill Development


17.93 lakh people trained under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)
Apprenticeship Act modified: Employers to engage 10% of total workforce as apprentices
33 Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKK) set up
Number of ITIs increased: from 10,750 in May 2014 to 13,105 in May 2016
Five new Regional Vocational Training Institutes (RVTI) for women in skill development established
10 lakh people trained under the Craftsmen Training Scheme in 2015-16


(xx) Textiles and Apparel


FDI grew 2.2 times - from $467 million (2011-14) to $1047 million (2014-17)
8 Apparel and garment manufacturing centres set up North Eastern Region
Integrated Textile Office Complex set up at the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) in Varanasi
India Handloom Brand launched
Special Textile Package of INR 6000 crore approved, to attract investment of USD 11 billion and create one crore jobs
200 new production units have come up in existing textile parks in the last two years generating jobs for 11,000 persons
9.5 lakh people trained


(xxi) Tourism


e-Visa scheme extended to 161 countries, 2.5 times increase in e-visa arrivals in 2015-16
26.2% growth in Foreign exchange Earnings: from INR 2.3 Trillion (2012-14) to INR 2.9 trillion (2014-16)
Swadesh Darshan launched -13 theme tourist circuits identified, 5 pan- India mega circuits identified, 56 projects worth INR 4823.91 crore underway
PRASAD launched - 25 cities identified, 18 projects worth INR 488.45 crore underway
12 Institutes of Hospitality Management has been sanctioned for North East, 4 institutes operationalized; Indian Culinary Institute setup at Tirupati
1.85 lakh people trained under ‘Hunar se Rozgar Tak’ scheme


The Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Shri C.R.Chaudhary gave this information in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

Lithium, as well as minerals such as cobalt, nickel and graphite, play an essential role in manufacturing batteries. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has downplayed that role, comparing lithium to “the salt on the salad.” He added that lithium represents only about 2% of the material in Tesla battery cells.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/why-su ... gy/433657/

And lithium is technically recyclable. So once imported, it is not burnt like oil, but it simply remains inside the country - like Gold. There is lithium in laptop/phone batteries too. But nobody bothers to recycle them as there is abundant supply.

guru.shetty wrote:

Lithium, as well as minerals such as cobalt, nickel and graphite, play an essential role in manufacturing batteries. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has downplayed that role, comparing lithium to “the salt on the salad.” He added that lithium represents only about 2% of the material in Tesla battery cells.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/why-su ... gy/433657/

And lithium is technically recyclable. So once imported, it is not burnt like oil, but it simply remains inside the country - like Gold. There is lithium in laptop/phone batteries too. But nobody bothers to recycle them as there is abundant supply.

Recycling Lithium from used battery is commercially non-viable, but abundant Lithium is certainly not. Checkout the Wiki link I posted above.

World yearly production of Lithium is only 32,000 tons and world total commercial reserve of lithium is only 14 million tons.

The only summary of Union Budget 2018-2019 you need to read

The only summary of Union Budget 2018-2019 you need to read

By Aashish Chandorkar,

February 1, 2018

Let’s say you are a salaried employee. Consider this possibility for 2018-19 – You open a small firm in your senior citizen father’s name, which starts providing professional consulting service to your employer doing through you doing exactly what you do today. You then become an underpaid employee in this firm and claim the ₹5 lakh a year medical insurance benefit from the government, while your father pays tax as a notional imputed tax as a small business firm, after covering your expenses as legitimate business expenses. This is perhaps the only scenario in which you will be paying less tax than the current year.

In every other case, the salaried employee is going to be worse off in 2018-19 than today. While the salaried urban voter perhaps considers savings, cash-in-hand, and such economic metrics as one of the key inputs to her vote, it remains to be seen if the budget translates in sufficient personal gains for the non-salaried voters to retain or convert them as voters. The government is betting on this trade off via a budget which was widely expected to be political in nature.

The budget is still very much political except for the traditional voters and vocal supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on social media. Many of the nearly 2 crore salaried individuals – translating to about 8 crore household members – will likely not vote out of habit or may continue to support the party irrespective of personal disappointments. Specifically, there are two disappointments – the personal income tax structure remains unchanged, with standard deduction now higher, but subsuming transport and medical allowances. Secondly, the securities markets taxes – the 10% long term capital gains (LTCG) tax over ₹1 lakh and the tax on dividend distribution by equity mutual funds – seem harsh.

These provisions have three problems. First, the standard deduction limit raise will mean an extra saving of about ₹6,000 a year. Although the LTCGs have been grandfathered, the future trade off point will be ₹60,000 of LTCG per year, at which a salaried person investing in securities markets will start paying more taxes. Second, the taxes come in just as the financialization in the Indian markets was increasing at a record pace – some of it may potentially slow down. And lastly, the initial estimates suggest an upside of ₹20,000 crores from these LTCG measures – that’s not a very big amount for the government to create such poor optics for its most vocal support base.

The disappointment of the pro-BJP meme-making class aside, the budget does four important things.

First, there is a big focus on education, health, and social indicators. An increase of almost ₹15,000 crores over the previous year, the 2018-19 budget of ₹153,000 crores is a big jump. By 2022, the government wants to create an Eklavya Vidyalaya in every block which has a minimum 50% population from scheduled tribes. Providing Ph.D. scholarships to 1,000 students at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a great idea to promote research and development. The 150,000 centers for health and wellness to be created under Ayushman Bharat program are again a step in the right direction. These centers will provide the primary and parts of secondary healthcare focusing on non-communicable diseases, maternity benefits, diagnostics, and deliver cheap medicines. And the biggest step of them all is the new Modicare – ₹5 lakh insurance cover per family, a significant increase from the current ₹30,000 cover under the Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojana. Currently proposed for 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, leading to more than 40 crore potential beneficiaries, this will be the largest healthcare program in the world! The government has also made the intention of providing universal healthcare clear – so we are moving in the direction of a single payer model over time for basic healthcare delivery. There’s also a provision to create 24 new medical colleges and hospitals.

Second, the budgetary and non-budgetary support for infrastructure spending will be up from ₹4.94 lakh crore to ₹5.97 lakh crore. There were no surprises on the infrastructure side, as most programs across roads, railways, ports, waterways, and airports are already underway. One significant announcement was the intent to link all rural habitations to a high school, a hospital, and a grameen agriculture market (GAM) under the revamped Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. There will be a provision for 3 crore more LPG connections under Ujjwala, 51 lakh rural and 37 lakh urban houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, 1.88 crore new toilets, and more than 3 lakh kms of new rural roads. The government will create 5 lakh rural wi-fi hotspots now that the BharatNet project has scaled up connecting 2.5 lakh gram panchayats. Almost ₹30,000 crores will be invested in the Mumbai and Bengaluru suburban rail networks – that’s a big commitment for urban transport. Much of the Mumbai plans were already announced earlier, but Bengaluru will be keen to know specific projects under this announcement.

Third, there is a lot of focus on job creation based on the learning from the textile sector gains made last year. The Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have practically all been brought under the 25% tax bracket. The government plans to connect the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) network, which will promote flow based credit for these enterprises. Fixed term employment, currently meant for the textile sector, is being extended to all sectors – a labour reform in disguise of the Finance Bill. The footwear and leather industries will get benefits of deduction on employee emoluments at par with the textile industry. The government will cover 12% of the EPFO contributions for new employees in small industries for a fixed period. New women employees will contribute 8% to the EPFO, while the employer contribution will remain the same. There’s also the ₹7,000 crore budget for the textile sector – the star of the second half of 2017 Indian industrial revival. And finally, the MUDRA loan refinance facility will see increased outlay, retaining the thrust on promoting small entrepreneurship.

Fourth, the government is betting big on agriculture. Starting next kharif season, the government is now promising a 1.5 times the input costs as fair remuneration for the farmers in the form of minimum support prices (MSPs). There’s also a provision for connecting 22,000 GAMs with the national agriculture market, for better market access and increased aggregation and lot size rationalization. Finance Minister Jaitley also made an interesting comment about such GAMs bypassing the local Agriculture Produce and Marketing Committees (APMCs) and ability to sell across the country. This comment should be tracked closely as it can be another big stealth reform if the hold of APMCs in the agriculture marketing is reduced. Jaitley also spoke about better import and export management, investments in agriculture logistics, and use of futures and options for agri-commodities. All of these are important measures, but the details of what and how are more critical than the announcements themselves. There are specific provisions for a host of agriculture value chain areas like organic farming, bamboo cultivation, fisheries, animal husbandry, and food processing. Jaitley mention an Operation Green dealing with commonly used perishables which will be managed better through agri-logistics investments. All in all, a significant part of the budget speech was devoted to agriculture and rural India – how the government translates these announcements into results remains to be seen.

For the international investors, the Finance Ministers made the right noises. He intends to keep the fiscal deficit at 3.3% of the GDP. He also wants the central government borrowing limited to 40% of the GDP, accepting it a key operational target. The expenditure of ₹21.57 lakh crore net of GST compensation to the states is not very high compared to the budget estimates. Overall, while the current year fiscal deficit was at 3.5%, the expectations around a revised but controlled glide path for the metric seem to have been well-managed. Jaitley also threw in announcements around consolidation and listing of government insurance firms and a commitment to complete the Air India divestment by June, enough to keep the institutional investors happy about the general reform trajectory.

Ultimately, the government will have to demonstrate how it implements the various announcements. Especially in the agriculture sector, the government has to ensure that there are no pies left hanging in the sky. Currently there are 23 crops on which the central government declares MSPs. When the government says ‘input costs’, does it intend to use the input costs of actual physical inputs, or also add the imputed costs of farmer labour, opportunity cost of not renting the land, and interest paid by the farmers? If it is indeed the latter, how will the government manage the increased food inflation in an election year? Is the government planning for better supply side logistics to address this problem and if yes, how? What happens if the market prices are below MSP – will NITI Aayog work on a price difference program (akin to the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana in Madhya Pradesh)? None of these questions were answered in the budget today. In fact, some of the issues were not even identified in the main budget speech, so there is some work to be done here.

Similar is the case for the 22,000 GAMs that Jaitley spoke about. Agriculture is a concurrent subject, so it is not clear how the central government will identify and empower these GAMs. Most states have not implemented the model APMC act, so letting GAMs bypass or compete with APMCs will run into rough political weather in most states, where APMCs are instruments of local political patronage.

Even for Modicare, what was not stated was how the government will fund the premiums. Today the Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojana has a ₹365 a year premium for coverage of ₹30,000. With near 17-fold increase in coverage, where will the cost of premiums come from? Will these be borne by the beneficiaries in some ratio? Or will the state governments be asked to cover past of these costs? The actual program design will have to be studied carefully to understand the fine print.

Finally, there are the usual irritants to deal with, which with remarkable continuity manifest themselves as duty rejig. The basic and additional excise duties on petrol and diesel have been replaced with a new road cess. This basically tells the state governments to either control their value added tax (VAT) on petroleum products or let these products flow into the GST net. The central government will no longer have much room to cut the excise duties when the petrol prices head north of ₹80 per liter. Components of mobile phones and other electronics will be costlier now with greater import duties. This is ostensibly to promote ‘Make In India’. In reality, no major factories working end to end may come up in the country in the short term, but the prices of mobile phones – the most aspirational symbol of an upwardly mobile society – will go up on April 1, 2018 pronto.

If this were 2015 or 2016, this budget would be alright. But given this is the last full budget before the Lok Sabha election, the budget comes across as neither populist nor political enough. And that’s strange going into the 2019 polls. The budget puts even more pressure on Narendra Modi, the campaigner, to work harder as the election cycle kicks off with Karnataka in a couple of months time.

Overall budget rating – Good in aspiration, poor in optics, and far too much left for the rest of the year to translate the budget into intent!

Arjun wrote:

SaraLax wrote:The below is for this member by name 'Arjun' with respect to his fears about how GoI is sleeping on AI front.

As far as electric vehicles goes - it seems to me that there the government has indeed been far more proactive than in the AI case. Modi seems to have a strong 'green' streak which has ensured some very ambitious targets on the connected industry fronts and I give him full credit for it. However, again here - pls remember that the key to how the battle plays out will depend on who controls the EV battery industry as also lithium supplies. The news about ISRO commercializing the technology that they currently have is certainly good....keep in mind however that we are talking about POTENTIAL here ([the ISRO capability which we have no visibility into) as opposed to actual on the ground market dominance by Chinese EV battery firms (two of whom are public and command massive valuations in the market) and who have already scoured the globe and bought up scarce lithium sources.

Arjun - You can easily search for info from the web and gain the latest knowledge about a certain topic. It would be great to quit mouthing rhetoric statements. Just because you either don't know or pretend to not know what sort of Lithium ion battery based solution ISRO already has & is making use of in its own products and is also working with BHEL on enhancing the same - please don't indicate that we all have no idea of ISRO's capabilities. I am going to stop posting for some time ... i have other more important family and health related work to take care off.

* July 2017 : ISRO’s satellite battery technology now open for use in electric vehicles but there’s a catch to it

.
.
ISRO and BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) are already working on cost-effective Lithium-Ion batteries. The batteries which have been developed by ISRO's Thiruvanthanapuram based arm, VSSC (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre) is used for the launch of locally manufactured satellites such as PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) and GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle). These batteries also power the electronic components in such launch vehicles till the time a launch in initiated. In addition, the batteries used have a high recharging and charging cycle and some high capacity batteries are used in satellites to run them for up to 15 years. The recharging is primarily done via solar panels on these satellites and these panels can recharge the batteries over 1,500 times.

Dr K Sivan, Director, VSSC, said, “VSSC has developed four types of cells —1.5Ah, 5Ah, 50Ah and 100Ah. Out of the four cells, Isro has allowed Automotive Research Association of India (an industrial automobile research association) to use 50Ah and 100Ah cells for developing prototypes of an e-scooter and an e-car, respectively.” If there is a cost-effective way of bringing these batteries into electric vehicles, not only will it reduce the cost of Lithium-Ion batteries which are currently imported for electric vehicles running on them, it would also increase the popularity of electric vehicles over the conventional internal combustion engine powered vehicles. After the mandatory import duty on Lithium-Ion batteries, a 28 percent GST or Goods and Services Tax is levied on them which was earlier in the range of five percent to 15 percent, depending on the state. Even passenger vehicles that run on Lithium-Ion batteries have now seen a considerable rise in cost despite FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of hybrid and Electric vehicles) scheme incentive.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre : Lithium Ion Cells

.

I've been looking for data on a clearer breakdown of taxpayer brackets. The most recent data is five years old (2011-12 data):
Making tax data public will facilitate policymaking and administration

Now for updates to these numbers, both approx 2017 data:
24 lakh people have income above Rs 10 lakh but 25 lakh cars bought every year
More than 30,000 declared salary above Rs 1 crore; only 5 taxpayers earned over Rs 100 crore

While looking further I came across:
IT Department: Income Tax Return Statistics 2014-15
IT Department: Income Tax Return Statistics 2015-16

These IT department statistics are a gold mine. Lists everything from average salary in various ranges, to average LTCG and more.

Arjun wrote:Lithium Ion Batteries - India Needs To Be In It To Win It

I don't know why this need to push Li-ion batteries is in the economy thread?

The future is cracking methane to H2 and C to store the H2 in fuel cells. As this will lead to high energy densities and more importantly high energy to weight ratio. Li-ion batteries will in the future be as relevant as the steam engine. The steam engine had its place until the internal combustion engine became predominant due to energy to weight ratio. Similarly Li-ion batteries will be irrelevant. The future of electric surface transportation vehicles will be in fuel cells not batteries. Don't waste time on them.

Mort Walker wrote:

Arjun wrote:Lithium Ion Batteries - India Needs To Be In It To Win It

I don't know why this need to push Li-ion batteries is in the economy thread?

The future is cracking methane to H2 and C to store the H2 in fuel cells. As this will lead to high energy densities and more importantly high energy to weight ratio. Li-ion batteries will in the future be as relevant as the steam engine. The steam engine had its place until the internal combustion engine became predominant due to energy to weight ratio. Similarly Li-ion batteries will be irrelevant. The future of electric surface transportation vehicles will be in fuel cells not batteries. Don't waste time on them.

We are talking BEVs since that is what GOI is talking about...if FCEV is the way to go then the entire charging / fueling infrastructure needs to be quite different from what the government has been planning so far.

^^^FCEV is indeed the future. With better highways, trucking transportation will become huge in India within a decade. Those trucks will use diesel. Setting up BEV charging stations will be for interim use for cars, taxis and autos to clean up local air pollution. This won't happen for at least 12 years from now and by 2040 it will be FCEV. Fuel cells by the way will be handy to store energy from solar cells.

2018-2019 Demands For Grants

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (MISC.)
http://www.indiabudget.gov.in/ub2018-19/eb/dg19.pdf

DEFENCE SERVICES (REVENUE)
http://www.indiabudget.gov.in/ub2018-19/eb/dg20.pdf

CAPITAL OUTLAY ON DEFENCE SERVICES
http://www.indiabudget.gov.in/ub2018-19/eb/dg21.pdf

DEFENCE PENSIONS
http://www.indiabudget.gov.in/ub2018-19/eb/dg22.pdf

enjoy..

The Chinese news-agency Xinhua carries a positive story about the Indian economy.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-0 ... 956691.htm

India chickpea tariff jumps to 40pc; Australia’s December exports dive
By Henry and Liz Wells, 07 February 2018

The Indian Government’s announcement overnight that it has raised the tariff on chickpeas paid by importers to 40 per cent has further stymied Australia’s trade with its biggest pulse customer.

https://www.graincentral.com/cropping/p ... orts-dive/

Artificial Intelligence race with China: Panel to create road map

Panel looks promising. Looks like the government is finally starting to 'get it'....

The Economy thread is not the place to discuss everything from AI to Lithium mining. Please take those discussions to a relevant thread if it exists or create one for discussing Technologies necessary for India's future economic security or something. Further off-topic posts will be deleted.

Got on mail via HDFC

Credit Policy Review - February 2018

In line with consensus expectations, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) today voted 5-1 in favour of leaving the policy repo rate unchanged at 6%. Thus reverse repo rate stays at 5.75%, while the cash reserve ratio (CRR) also remains unchanged at 4.0%. Dr. Michael Patra voted for an increase in the policy rate of 25 bps.

Due to less than the usual moderation in food prices this winter and increase in domestic prices of petrol and diesel since January’18, RBI now estimates Q4 FY18 inflation at 5.1% instead of projection of 4.3%-4.7% for second half of FY18 made earlier. CPI Inflation for FY19 has been estimated by RBI to be in the range of 5.1%-5.6% for H1 FY19 and 4.5%-4.6% for H2 FY19 with risks tilted to the upside. The moderation of inflation in the second half of FY19 is largely due to favourable base effects, including unwinding of House Rent Allowance (HRA) revision and assumption of normal monsoon and efficient supply management by the government leading to softer food prices.

The Gross Value Added (GVA) growth estimate for FY 18 has been marginally reduced to 6.6% from 6.7% made earlier. For FY19 RBI expects overall GVA growth to improve to 7.2% (7.3%-7.4% in H1 FY19 and 7.1%-7.2% in H2 FY19) with balanced risks.

Going forward as per the MPC, inflation outlook is clouded by several uncertainties on the upside. These relate to revised mechanism for setting of MSPs for Kharif crops as proposed in budget FY19, fiscal slippage, impact of HRA increases by State Governments, fiscal and monetary policy changes by advanced economies. However, the mitigating factors are subdued capacity utilization, moderate real rural wage growth and the recent correction in crude oil prices.

Conclusion and Outlook

RBI maintaining status quo on rates and its neutral policy stance was on expected lines. On the positive note, even with growth improving to 7.2% in FY19, RBI expects CPI inflation in the range of 4.5%-4.6% in H2 FY19. Also, the MPC view that “the nascent recovery needs to be nurtured and growth put on a sustainably higher path through conducive and stable macro-financial management†is noteworthy. Thus, we expect RBI to stay on hold for now.

Post the sharp rise in bond yields, while the risk reward for duration funds has improved somewhat, we prefer to maintain a cautious stance. This is due to the likely impact of upward revision in MSPs on inflation, improving economic activity, credit growth outpacing deposit growth, fiscal pressures, and rising US bond yields. Thus, we continue to recommend investment in short to medium duration debt funds.

Google fined by India antitrust watchdog

India’s antitrust watchdog on Thursday imposed a 1.36 billion rupees ($21.17 million) fine on Google for “search bias” and abuse of its dominant position, in the latest regulatory setback for the world’s most popular internet search engine.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said Google, the core unit of U.S. firm Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), was abusing its dominance in online web search and online search advertising markets.
“Google was found to be indulging in practices of search bias and by doing so, it causes harm to its competitors as well as to users,” the CCI said in a 190-page order.
“Google was leveraging its dominance in the market for online general web search, to strengthen its position in the market for online syndicate search services,” the CCI said.
However, the CCI said it did not find any contravention in respect of Google’s specialized search design, AdWords and online distribution agreements.

***? hope this is the correct thread

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rop-stress
India's Wheat Imports Seen Surging 40% on Winter Crop Stress

Direct tax collection grows 19.3% during April-January, exceeding goal

Direct tax collection for the April-January period grew by 19.3% to Rs 6.95 lakh crore against the required 18.3% growth for the full year to meet the revised estimate target of Rs 10.05 lakh crore in the current fiscal, the government said on Friday. In the Budget presented earlier this month, the government revised the direct tax collection target upwards from Rs 8.5 lakh crore. For the 10 months of the fiscal, net collections for corporate income tax (CIT) grew by 19.2% while the personal income tax (PIT) mop-up rose by 18.6%. The government said that refunds amounting to Rs 1.26 lakh crore have been issued during this period. Experts attributed collection growth to formalisation of the economy as a result of demonetisation and roll-out of the new indirect tax regime GST.

“This (demonetisation and GST) has led to the hitherto informal income coming into formal economy and thereby resulting in higher tax collection. One can expect this trend to continue,” Daksha Baxi, executive director, Khaitan & Co, said. The direct tax collection growth had slowed down to just over 14% for the April-November period but picked up in the subsequent months.

No good data on jobs available, Govt to start job growth tracking: Bibek Debroy

Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (PMEAC) member Bibek Debroy has said there is no good data available on jobs and employment, and the government may come up with one on jobs this year. ET Now quoting Bibek Debroy reported that a significant amount of self-employment is being generated in the informal sector and the survey of enterprises not comprehensive to understand employment level in India.

Last month, during a brainstorming session of 40 economists organised by NITI Aayog, it was suggested that 20% of India’s youth was unemployed and the government should be putting job creation on agenda. Following the meeting, Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar said that the government’s think -tank will “very soon” come out with a report meant to study high-frequency data on job creation.

Bibek Debroy told ET Now that the last good data available on employment is of 2011. He said that there is a need for a survey of households for data on jobs and said that self-employment will be a big generator of jobs in future.

krisna wrote:

... 1.36 billion rupees ($21.17 million) fine on Google for “search bias” and abuse of its dominant position, in the latest regulatory setback for the world’s most popular internet search engine.

21 million USD fine is Peanuts! Who knows what algorithm GOOG uses for page rank, hain? Whatever they say the rank is, is the rank we all have to accept as the correct rank. Nobody but nobody can challenge them. Competition commission of India who

is this true??

twitter

I am a Modi fan. After recent budget my son asked me what yr Modi did to our salaried class. Just i made a rough calculation of his monthly savings comparing 2013 n 2018 budgets. Now he is convinced.

twitter

Cess Vs Excise Duty on fuel -who stands to lose

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinio ... n-5057831/

Budget 2019 can best be described as one made possible by an ongoing revolution in tax collection. This revolution is beginning to make possible another revolution in income transfers to the bottom third of the population.

India is undergoing a fiscal revolution — in direct taxes (thanks to demonetisation) and indirect taxes (thanks to GST)

However, when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the FD numbers for 2017/18, expert economists and analysts found that they had reason to complain about fiscal profligacy. The FD estimate for 2017/18 was reported as 3.5 per cent of GDP, handily slipping the original target of 3.2 per cent. It is noteworthy that the consensus of FD estimates emerging from the foreign and domestic banks was very close to 3.5 per cent of GDP. The natural inclination, therefore, was for experts to give each other high-fives and say how right they were in forecasting the populism of the Modi government.

Arun Jaitley himself said the FD will be 3.5% of GDP. So where is the scope to doubt his numbers or those of the analysts? How can all of them be making the same mistake.

The 3.5 per cent FD estimate meant that, given expenditures, total revenues had slipped by about Rs 65,000 crore. Normally, indirect tax revenue collections in March are twice that of an average month (this has held true for the last 15 years). End of the year filing pressures make this happen. With GST smoothing, it is very unlikely that March 2018 GST revenue (the one not included in the revenue statement of the FY 2017/18 budget) will be twice that of the February 2018 GST revenue.

Assume March GST revenue to be close to the run-rate observed to date — around Rs 90,000 crore (actually it is a bit more, around Rs 95,000 crore but who is counting). The Centre will receive Rs 26,000 crore, and the excess fiscal deficit is almost cut in half. Now assume that the GST March 2018 revenue is Rs 1,30,000 crore — the Centre receives Rs 38,000 crore, and the FD for 2017/18 is close to 3.3 per cent of GDP.

chetak wrote:is this true??

twitter

I am a Modi fan. After recent budget my son asked me what yr Modi did to our salaried class. Just i made a rough calculation of his monthly savings comparing 2013 n 2018 budgets. Now he is convinced.

Why ask us that ? The numbers are right there for you to verify

Suraj wrote:

chetak wrote:is this true??

twitter

Why ask us that ? The numbers are right there for you to verify

I don't understand this IT stuff. That's why.

Twitter

Nilesh Shah‏ @NileshShah68

Nilesh Shah Retweeted moneycontrol

Unless we figure out how to manage the FX reserves, higher reserves will become a liability.

Swiss National Bank made USD 55 billion profit last year on its FX reserves. More than what we made in last 10 years plus.

moneycontrol‏Verified account @moneycontrolcom

India's #forex reserves surge by $4.1 billion to a new high of $421 billion

Cant the government just borrow from RBI the excessive forex at low interest and use it on infra project ?