Through the Looking Glass

Financial Express Development and Progress go hand-in-hand; getting on and remaining on the ladders key to economic growth for individuals and nations As India changed and economically progressed, it brought hope. There was indeed a pathway out of the poverty that the slow growth of the many decades had foisted upon the society. There was now a way to get out of ration queues to become tax-payers – from being dependent on the State to giving back to the country. A sliver of the population would jump right off the subsistence farms and move to the cities. The pathway was to get into one the burgeoning services sectors: get into IT to bring in the moolah or become an air-hostess to serve the customer flying in and out of the country; sell the young generation a home, or the loan and insurance on it. One needs to have found the right steps on the Ladder of Development to eventually get on the Ladder of Progress. The Ladder of Development The ladder of development is basically a...

Budget 2020 cares for people’s economic aspirations, says Axis Bank’s Akhilesh Tilotia Financial Express India’s response to its dilemma will determine whether budgets of the next decade will have larger incomes to tax or larger taxes on incomes. This Budget Speech of the finance minister was one of the longest in recent history. Her previous Budget speech in July last year was around 11,000 words. This one was more than 13,000. Part A of the speech went from 8,000 words to 9,000. Part B went from 3,000 to 4,000. This depicts the relative importance attributed to the plans and schemes of the government and changing tax structures. The FM’s pictorial depiction of the bouquet of government schemes held by two caring hands of governance and financial sector reinforces the work required in building and unclogging the plumbing of the BFSI sector. There are many proposals that build on the agenda of liberalisation and privatisation such as the proposed Initial Public Offering (IP...