The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) on Wednesday projected a 7.5-8 per cent growth for the next fiscal. It also called for phasing out of subsidies, including upward adjustment of petrol and diesel prices and deregulation of urea prices. Mincing no words in its Review of the Economy for 2011-12, the Prime Minister’s Economic...
Salaried employees earning up to Rs 5 lakh a year will not be required to file income tax returns from this year, says a Finance Ministry notification. There are about 85 lakh salaried persons in the country whose yearly income, including earnings from other sources like bank deposits, does not exceed Rs 5 lakh. To...
Brainbees Solutions, an e-commerce platform in India for kids, babycare and maternity care products, has raised $14 million in Series B funding. IDG Ventures India led the round, and was joined by return backer SAIF Partners. Pune-based Brainbees started operations in late 2010 and operates FirstCry.com, the #1 e-commerce platform in India for kids, babycare and...
Government may grant the Income Tax department powers to re-open tax returns of beyond six years in specific cases of black money where “foreign assets” are involved. The department, according to current rules, can only open I-T returns for the past six years if they need to probe hidden income and assets. The recommendation on extending...
India lowered its exposure to the US government’s debt by USD 6.3 billion (over Rs 30,000 crore) in 2011, even as a few countries like Japan, France, Brazil and the UK enhanced their holding of US treasury bonds. As per the latest foreign holding data for the US Treasury Bonds, the debt securities issued...
Mustard crop over 47,000 hectares has been damaged in south Haryana’s Mahendergarh district due to severe cold weather and frost in January. “The cold weather has adversely affected the crops. The loss, especially to mustard and vegetable crops would be accessed during the girdawari (revenue survey). As per our reports, mustard has been damaged...
India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said the government is committed to provide adequate capital to public sector banks to meet global risk norms. In 2010-11, the government provided capital support to the tune of Rs 20,157 crore to public sector banks. They included Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Oriental Bank...
Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. announced Rs 6500 Crore ($1.3 billion) of orders to build five boilers for Indian power plants, the first contracts won by a unit it acquired in the country last year. The 800-megawatt boilers will be installed at NTPC Ltd. (NTPC) facilities by 2016, Changwon, South Korea-based Doosan said in an...
Risk consultancy Maplecroft said its Global Risk Atlas, which highlights potentially destabilising factors in the world’s key growth economies, found that Brazil, Russia, India and China were no less susceptible to potential security or economic shocks than in previous years. According to the report, India and Russia are among 41 countries classified as ‘high risk’, with poor...
Authorities in North China’s resource-rich Inner Mongolia autonomous region halted 467 illegal mining projects last year in a region-wide overhaul mainly aimed to ensure work safety and environmental friendliness of the mining sector, officials said Saturday. The regional land and resources bureau checked about 9,000 mining projects in the months-long overhaul, halting 467 illegal...