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'Accommodative Stance Must To Revive Sentiment' Market players and economists may be betting on 25-basis-point (100bps 1 percentage point) rate cut by the RBI next week, but an influential section within the government believes that nothing less than a 50-bps reduc tion with an “accommodative“ stance will revive investment. Differences between the RBI and the government over the extent of an interest rate cut have come out in the open in the past few months with the chief economic adviser in the finance ministry Arvind Subramanian expressing disappointment with the central bank's move not to cut rate as well as the monetary policy committee's (MPC) reading of the inflation situation. Several private sector economists have also criticised MPC's inflation estimates. While efforts have been made to play down the differences, a wide gap in views between the central bank and the finance ministry over the direction of interest rates remains. Multiple sources i...

The new tax regime addresses the issues of multiplicity of taxes, higher compliance costs, and improving the overall investment climate Billed as India's biggest reform independence taxsince in 1947, GST replaced more than a dozen federal and state levies and was initiated with an intention to unify the country into a single market. However, nearly a month on, many are finding that doing business is quite complicated now. For the man on the street, the impact will be seen in the form of slightly higher fees for banking transactions like funds transfer and ATM transactions as these have been put under the 18 per cent tax bracket in the new GST regime, from the earlier 15 per cent.Nevertheless, it is expected that GST will have a positive impact on India's growth and would reduce the prices in the medium and long term. A MONTH AFTER IMPLEMENTATION It is almost a month since GST was rolled out. Broadly speaking, it is going to impact in the following way: Unified tax...

The government is formulating a medical benefit scheme for all pensioners who are members of Employees' Provident Fund (EPF).The government will also constitute a high-level committee to revamp the Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS). “In association with the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), we are going to formulate a medical benefit scheme for all pensioners who are EPF members,“ labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya told Lok Sabha on Friday . He added that this would be a contributory medical benefit scheme and details were being worked out. “I have directed that a complete valuation of EPS 1995 be done... Whatever gaps are there will be plugged,“ the minister said. Dattatreya was responding to a resolution moved by RSP member N K Premachandran on steps to ensure welfare of 59 lakh pensioners under EPS. Premachandran also demanded increase in minimum pension to Rs 3,000 from Rs 1,000 per month under the EPS scheme. He also pitched for implementation of w...