There was a huge uproar in the House when Rahul Gandhi took out his mobile phone to play a purported recorded conversation of Goa minister Vishwajit Rane.

Rafale debate in Parliament: Rahul Gandhi's 'AA' jibes were met with Arun Jaitley's 'Q' taunt as Congress party's paper planes crash landed on the house floor due to Eurofighter remark.

Jaitley hit back to accuse Rahul Gandhi of having a 'legacy of lying' and 'repeating falsehood'

"Once awareness of the scheme increases, it is anticipated that in the next few years, almost 1 crore plus families will benefit each year," Jaitley said in a Facebook post titled '100 days of Ayushman Bharat'.

Jaitley also said the grand old party needs "serious introspection".

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that stringent action including dismissal, compulsory retirement and demotion, was taken against these officials in connection with the bad loans.

The NIA on Wednesday busted an ISIS-inspired terror group and arrested 10 suspects, who it said were planning suicide attacks and serial blasts targeting politicians and government installations in Delhi and other parts of north India.

Making it clear that only auto parts and cement are items of common use which remain in 28 per cent slab, Jaitley said the next priority will be to transfer cement into a lower slab.

The annual revenue implication of the rate cuts would be Rs 5,500 crore, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

Chattisgarh and Rajasthan, where the Congress came to power earlier this month, sent only officers to attend the GST Council meeting, Madhya Pradesh did not send any representative, PTI reported quoting sources.  

The study would include the underlying reasons for deviation from revenue collection targets vis-a-vis original assumptions discussed during the design of the GST system, its implementation and related structural issues, he said.  

Talking to media persons, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that six items have been removed from the 28 per cent tax bracket under the GST regime.

The new GST rates will be effective from 1st January 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently announced that 99 per cent of items in the GST regime will be brought under the 18 per cent or lower tax slabs.

“On December 20, the same order of authorisation was repeated that was existing since 2009,” Jaitley told the Upper House.

An hour-long meeting between top BJP leaders, including its president Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan and his son Chirag remained inconclusive, sources indicated. 

Taking a jibe at Congress president, Jaitley said luxury and sin items can’t be taxed at the same rate as the common man’s item.

"Today we have asked for the parliamentary sanction for (issuing) additional recapitalisation bonds of Rs 41,000 crore... As of today, of the Rs 65,000 crore recapitalisation plan for 2018-19, Rs 42,000 crore is still remaining. 

The finance minister’s remark was in apparent reference to the Congress-led opposition which has been pressurising the government for waiving loans of farmers.

Jaitley asserted that the government does not want any money from the bank’s reserves to fix its fiscal deficit and claimed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s economic capital was never the main issue between the government and the RBI.