Who were the last 5 NDA's Finance Ministers?

The Last 5 National Democratic Alliance Finance Ministers.

Budget 2019 Live : Today Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her first Union budget in Parliament at 11 am. This is also the first Budget of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government in its second term.

Here is the list of last 5 NDA’s Finance Ministers who presented Union Budget for the people of India:

1. Yashwant Sinha (19 March 1998 – 1 July 2002)

2. Jaswant Singh (1 July 2002 – 22 May 2004)

3. Arun Jaitley (26 May 2014 – 14 May 2018)

4. Piyush Goyal (14 May 2018 – 22 August 2018 & 23 Jan 2019 – 15 Feb 2019)

5. Nirmala Sitharaman (31 May 2019 – Incumbent)

If you want to catch the live updates on today’s union budget 2019 than please follow the link → Budget 2019

Budget 2019 LIVE : Nirmala Sitharam to present her first budget in Parliament today at 11 am

The annual Union Budget 2019-2019 will be tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam today.

Budget 2019: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam will present her first Union Budget in Parliament today at 11 am. This is also the first Budget of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government in its second term.

Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget will be keenly watched, as it comes at the back of record unemployment, farm distress, a sagging investment ecosystem and contracting service sector. Macroeconomic cues are not encouraging either, with the rise of protectionism trade disputes (specifically the US-China trade war) emanating around the world.

Nirmala Sitharaman will become the second woman to present the Budget in the Indian parliament. In 1970-71, the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi took the portfolio of the Finance Minister after Moraji Desai resigned. But Sitharaman does hold the distinction of being the first independent female finance minister of India as Indira Gandhi was also the prime minister of the country at the time she handled the finance portfolio.

Budget 2019 is expected to lay down the Modi 2.0 government’s road map for the economy and the nation for the next five years. It might look to boost spending at the cost of short-term slippage in fiscal deficit targets.

Catch LIVE Updates here → Budget 2019 Live

As India's quality of schooling plummets, here's how Budget 2019 can help

The school education system in India is facing a shortage of trained teachers and a lack of proper infrastructure.

 

Interim Budget 2019: India stepped up its spending on school education by 9.35% from 2014-15 (Rs 45,722.41 crore) to 2018-19 (Rs 50,000 crore). But education’s share in the total union budget fell from 2.55% to 2.05% in this period, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of budgetary data.

On February 1, 2019, when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) presents its last budget before general elections, it will have to address a critical issue in India’s school education: Its quality compares poorly with many south Asian and BRICS nations even though India spends a higher percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education.

In rural India, almost half of grade V students cannot read a grade II text and more than 70% them cannot do division, said the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018. These numbers indicate a fall in standards over the last 10 years.

Twin problems of school funding: low allocation and underutilisation

Till April 2018, school education in India was mostly covered by three centrally-sponsored schemes:

• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA or education for all) that aims to provide universal education to all children between the ages of 6 to 14 years.
• Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA or national middle education mission) which facilitates secondary education.
• Teacher Education which aims to create sound institutional infrastructure for pre-service and in-service training of elementary and secondary school teachers.

Read full News → Budget 2019 Expectations

Govt's intent to present 'regular budget' serious, grave: Congress

Tewari said the NDA-BJP government does not have the electoral mandate and it does not have the electoral legitimacy to present six full budgets in five years.

 

 

Interim Budget 2019: The Congress on Thursday said it will strongly oppose both inside and outside Parliament the presentation of a "full budget" by the BJP-led NDA government as it has "no electoral legitimacy" and the step will go against set precedents and Parliamentary traditions.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari termed as "serious and grave" reports claiming that the BJP-led Government was planning to present a "regular budget" and demanded that it should follow constitutional propriety and only presents a vote-on-account on February 1, 2019 ahead of general elections.

BJP sources have indicated that the Modi government is likely to present a full-fledged budget with a slew of announcements on welfare measures relating to farmers, youth and women.

"A budget is budget. The government is likely present a full-fledged budget. There is no such rule that the government before elections should not present a budget for the entire year. The new government may make changes after the polls if it so wishes," a sources in BJP said.

Tewari said if the reports in public space are correct then it would be "a flagrant violation" of all parliamentary conventions, procedures and traditions that have been followed over the past seven decades since the Constitution of India came into effect.

Read full News → Budget 2019 Expectations 

What 2019 Budget can do to help India clean its air, reduce coal addiction

Addressing policy issues are important if India is to fulfill its commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement 2015 to install 175 giga watt (GW).

 

Interim Budget 2019: India has one of the world’s largest programmes to expand renewables--a doubling of capacity over the next four years--but India’s ambitious 2022 target of generating enough non-coal energy to replace the equivalent of 175 coal-powered plants is veering off track

On February 1, 2019, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a chance to get things back on track, help India reduce its addiction to coal, help clean the country’s air and meet the global climate-change commitments of the world’s fourth-fastest growing carbon polluter

After record growth in the installed capacity of renewables over the four years to 2017, capacity addition slowed down in 2018. The main reasons: an anti-dumping duty imposed by the government on imported solar modules to aid domestic manufacturing, higher rates of taxation under the goods and service tax (GST) and unclear policy.

So, the last budget before 2019 general elections is of particular significance to the renewables sector, which comprises electricity from solar, wind, hydro and bio power.

The upcoming budget can help remove policy uncertainties from the sector and provide “long-term indications”, Daanish Verma, executive vice president, sustainable investment banking, YES Bank, told IndiaSpend.

Read full News → Budget 2019 Expectations 

Explainer: What is an interim budget? What FM Jaitley can and cannot do

This will be the last Budget of the current BJP-led NDA government before the 2019 General Elections.

Interim Budget 2019: With just a few months left before the Narendra Modi government formally completes its tenure, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will present NDA regime's first interim budget on February 1, 2019.

As this will be the ruling BJP government’s last budget before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, here's an explanation of what an interim budget actually means.

What is an interim budget?

An interim budget is presented by a government which is going through a transition period or is in its last year in office ahead of the general elections. Traditionally, an incumbent government cannot present a full-fledged Union Budget in the election year. Instead, the Finance Minister presents an interim budget during the joint sitting of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha in the Parliament, the livemint reported.

With an interim budget, the incumbent government seeks a vote of approval from the Parliament to draw money from the Consolidated Fund of India to meet its budget expenses before the end of the financial year, i.e; March 31st, 2019. It is a traditional practice which takes place in the run-up to every general election, according to an India Today report.

The full-fledged Union Budget is presented by the newly-elected government after Lok Sabha polls. In recent times, interim budgets have been instrumental for the incumbent governments to list out their achievements to draw voters' support.

Read full news here → Union Budget 2019

To bridge fiscal deficit, RBI likely to pay govt $5.8 bn interim dividend

The dividend could help Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration bridge a widening budget deficit following a drop in tax collections.

Interim Budget 2019: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), having changed management last month following a clash with the government, is likely to transfer an interim dividend of Rs 300-400 billion ($4.32 billion-$5.8 billion) to the government by March, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The dividend could help Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration bridge a widening budget deficit following a drop in tax collections, and would come after the government pushed the RBI for the additional funds ahead of a national election due by May.

Former finance ministry official Shaktikanta Das was appointed as the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), following resignation of Urjit Patel last month amid tensions over the dividend payout and other issues.

The government and RBI have now appointed a panel to look into the issue around the sharing of the RBI's reserves.

"We are absolutely sure that an interim dividend of more than 300 billion rupees would be paid before March end," one of the sources told Reuters.

Read the full news here → Union Budget 2019