In his Budget speech, Jaitley said this year, the focus is on strengthening agriculture sector and besides 'ease of doing business', the government is also focusing on 'ease of living' now.

The countdown is over as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will unveil the Union Budget 2018 today – the fifth and arguably most crucial one of the Modi government.

For a better understanding of the Finance Minister's documents and terminologies, it is very important to decipher them.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to unveil provisions to make things move fast in positive direction and to continue the momentum to energise the lenders.

The issue of job crisis has the potential to harm the electoral prospects of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the crucial upcoming elections.

At the age of 22, Arun Jaitley was put behind bars by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975 after the imposition of the Emergency in the country.

The pre-budget survey further said policy priorities over the short term focused on reviving investments by mobilising savings and encouraging the conversion of gold into financial savings.

The Survey preliminary analysis of data shows GST registrants rose mainly on account of large increase in voluntary registrations, especially by small enterprises that buy from large enterprises and want to avail themselves of input tax credits.

The survey for 2017-18 was tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament today. He is scheduled to present the last full budget of the current Narendra Modi-led NDA government on February 1.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will present the Budget 2018 on February 1, enlisting government’s income and expenditure presenting an elaborate account before the Parliament.

The GST collection for the month of July was over Rs 95,000 crore while for August, it was more than Rs 91,000 crore.

Agriculture sector is expected to grow at 2.12% in the current fiscal against 4.1% in the preceding year, according to Central Statistics Office.

"The main objective of this flows from the Government's responsibility to keep public sector banks in good health," FM Jaitley told media at a press conference in New Delhi.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that India stood as an exception in a world where most countries had started to increasingly look inwards.

While tabling the Budget, the Finance Minister tells the country about government’s revenues and expenditures, besides showing how the government plans to use public resources to meet policy goals.

In this year's budget, the top most expectation continues to be income tax benefit. In the current fiscal, the taxpayers are expecting more tax advantage under section 80D.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today leave for Davos, Switzerland, to attend the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Traditionally, the sweet dish is cooked in large quantity and the Finance Minister serves it to the officials in the ministry, who remain incommunicado and stay in the North Block.

I hope that the Finance Minister will give more priority to agri and infrastructure investments in the forthcoming budget, Nitin Gadkari said.