The Hindu Business Line : Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Pranab borrows big to fund handouts
New Delhi, July 6 The 2009-10 Union Budget is likely to leave more money in the hands of the aam aadmi through a massive step-up in social sector outlays and a marginal tinkering of personal income-tax ...

Market spooked
Mumbai, July 6 Equities fell like a pack of cards on Budget day, even as many analysts said the intense disappointment in the marketplace was misplaced and came from unreasonable ...

The Finance Minister, Mr ... Short-term support at 14,000 for Sensex (Latest Audio:English/Tamil)
There was a sea of red splashed across trading screens on Monday as the Sensex and Nifty nose-dived 5.8 per cent. Market participants went on a selling spree, irked at the continuation of STT, increase in MAT and lack of policy direction in ...

Day Trading Guide

What triggered the sell-off
The Indian stock market was ravaged by a sell-off even as the Finance Minister was still reading out the Union Budget for 2009-10. The Sensex ended the day 870 points or 5.8 per cent lower; the largest Budget-day decline since ...

Tax relief to women, senior citizens cost exchequer over Rs 3,000 cr
Chennai, July 6 The Government pegs the tax concession granted in 2008-09, to senior citizens and women at Rs 3,184 crore, Budget documents reveal. However, the quantum of revenue foregone in 2008-09 is lower than its own estimate for 2007-08 ...

Oil India, NHPC initial public offer soon, says Finance Secy
Four more companies will be identified for disinvestment. New Delhi, July 6 State-owned Oil India Ltd and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) will tap the capital market with their initial public offering (IPOs) in August/September ...

Congress borrows, spends, wins - at our expense
The Budget for 2009-10 has ensured that almost everyone - people as well as companies - will have to pay less tax now. True, the reduction in the tax burden is not very much. But it is there. This is the good news. Also, a dog with a bone in ...

Union Budget 2009-2010 — No tactics to curb fiscal deficit
The Budget presented by the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has left the equity market cold. In fact, the Sensex tanked by 953 points, intra-day. This was perhaps the result of unjustified euphoria generated by the vision presented by the ...

Fertiliser sector gives thumbs up to change in subsidy regime
Proposal to disburse subsidy money to farmers directly. New Delhi, July 6 The fertiliser industry has cautiously welcomed the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget proposal to move from a ‘product-based’ to a ...

Aam aadmi fobbed off
The aam aadmi, by whom the UPA Government swears, has every reason and justification to feel let down by the Budget 2009 proposals, especially in the context of improvement in the lot of the khas aadmi. ...

Road transport sector not to get any direct benefit
Most of the budget proposals which appear to be related to the road transport sector are impact neutral, according to sources close to the sector. There is nothing in the budget to offset the impact of recent diesel price hike slapping burden ...

Takeout financing yet to take-off
IIFC to evolve scheme to enhance infrastructure lending. Bangalore, July 6 In a bid to kick-start infrastructure lending, the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has revisited the idea of takeout financing in the Union ...

Railway falls in service tax net; details on abatement, exemption awaited
Road transporters get 75%; abatement of 70% for container trains. New Delhi, July 6 Rail transportation may become more expensive for some of its freight users with the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, suggesting levy of service tax on the ...

7-year tax holiday extended to gas producers
Expert group to advise on petro products pricing. New Delhi, July 6 The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has offered some respite to hydrocarbon companies involved in exploration and pipeline networks but left questions of oil retailers ...

Get ready for higher interest rates
Chennai, July 6 A keenly watched item by bankers and others in the debt market is the quantum of government borrowings that are announced in the ...

Infrastructure — Road to rapid growth
If there is any sector that can boast of walking away with most goodies from the Budget 2009-10, it is infrastructure. Be it the allocation for highways or irrigation programmes, rural development or accelerated power reforms, the ...

Banking — No new account
Disappointment over the limited progress on the much-hyped “financial sector reforms” and the soaring fiscal deficit made the BSE Bankex the biggest sectoral loser among the BSE indices on Budget day. Measures such as FDI for ...

Consumer Cos — Rural stimulus
Investors may once again have to go back to defensive consumer companies that have a substantial stake in rural India. That seems to be the key implication from Budget 2009’s continued focus on rural spending and agricultural credit, ...

IT — Positive clicks
Mid- and small-sized IT companies can breathe easier with the extension of the sunset clause for tax benefits under the software technology parks scheme by another ...

Rs 800-1,000 cr revenue from gold customs duty
Mumbai, July 6 For the Finance Minister who has found himself in an unenviable position of having to raise substantial revenue to fund social development programmes, the decision to hike customs duty on gold imports must have come without ...

O tempora, O mores!
New Delhi, July 6 It is not often that a Finance Minister reverses a tax imposed by his predecessor in the first year. But that is exactly what Mr Pranab Mukherjee has done. The casualty is the Commodity Transactions Tax ...

Market frowns, but does that matter?
The BSE Sensex tanked by 869 points after the presentation of the Union Budget and a plethora of television channels lined up stock market and other industry experts to explain how equity investors had expected much more “positive ...

Land-based ‘low’ to spearhead rains into central parts
Thiruvananthapuram, July 6 A land-based low-pressure area has formed over Jharkhand on Monday, and this would be the pivot around which a reinvigorated monsoon entrenches itself over central India during the rest of the ...