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Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled the Union Budget 2026 on February 1, setting out a clear roadmap for individual taxpayers. While personal income tax rates and the broader structure of taxation stays untouched, the Budget introduced a range of reforms to further simplify the process for taxpayers. The measures focus on easing return-filing timelines, reducing…
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…
The Union Budget 2026, presented on Sunday, brought focus on where India’s real estate growth is headed, with data suggesting a gradual shift beyond the country’s biggest metropolitan markets. While Mumbai and Delhi continue to make headlines for Rs 100-crore-plus home sales, industry data shows that the best returns on property investment, on average, are…
Trump H-1B Visa Overhaul: Impact on Indian Professionals and US Tech Sector A once-strategic partnership between the United States and India, long built on mutual economic benefit, innovation and people-to-people ties, is now straining under sweeping immigration and trade policies implemented under former President Donald Trump’s administration. Policies such as the drastic H-1B visa fee…
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…
Government aims at raising Rs 80,000 crore from divestment and asset monetisation in 2026-27, a sharp increase from the revised estimate of nearly Rs 34,000 crore.While govt has moved away from mentioning a specific target for asset sales in state-run firms, the realisations from divestment are mentioned under what is called the miscellaneous capital receipts.Economic…
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…
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…
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…
The budget has announced a major overhaul in the taxation of share buybacks, shifting them from dividend taxation to the capital gains framework, while imposing a higher effective tax on promoters to curb misuse of the route. Once legislated, it will apply to buy backs after April 1.The silver linings: Many shareholders could end up…
