Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while defending her onion comment, on Thursday condemned the opposition in Rajya Sabha for accusing her of being an elitist. On Wednesday when asked by an MP if she ate onions, Sitharaman had said, "I belong to a family which does not eat onion and garlic."

Speaking at a press conference later, Chidambaram said that his comments on the finance minister was not "sarcastic".

The Minister also told MPs the government has also decided to import to procure from the open market of countries with a surplus and from onion-growing regions. She further added steps are being taken for distribution of the onion through open mandis auction .

Bharat Bond ETF will provide additional money for CPSUs, CPSEs & other government organizations. The ETF will be a basket of bonds issued by CPSE/CPSU/CPFI or any govt organisations and will be tradable on stock exchanges. Each unit will be priced at ₹1,000. The Bharat Bond ETF will loosely resemble a fixed maturity plan.

The minister referred to Chowdhury's earlier remarks against the Prime Minister and the Home Minister in which he had called them "infiltrators" on the issue of National Register of Citizen (NRC).

​Asserting that corporate tax reduction is aimed at attracting fresh investment and generating jobs, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said "green shoots" are already visible with several foreign as well as domestic firms showing interest to invest.  

​Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has yet again stoked controversy with an objectionable statement -- this time in the Parliament. Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Chowdhury referred to the finance minister as "Nirbala Sitharaman."

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday that several significant steps in structural reforms have been taken in the past few months and responses/interventions addressing the needs of the economy will continue, indicating more relief measures could be on the anvil, if so needed.

"Every step being taken is in the interest of the country... looking at the economy with discerning view, you see that the growth may have come down, but its not a recession yet or it won't be recession ever," finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

Sitharaman said if a financial institution in the present situation has a name ending with 'Bank' doubts are raised on the functioning of it and heaped praise that City Union Bank has been functioning steadily for the last 115 years.

The government was making efforts to ensure more regulatory mechanism in the banking sector to benefit bank account-holders, she said in the context of the PMC Bank and IL&FS issues.

Addressing the media after the Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that while the Centre will strategically disinvest Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and Container Corporation of India (CONCOR), it will sell its entire stake in THDC India Ltd and North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) to another state-run power major, NTPC.

The Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to the Food Ministry's recent decision to import 1.2 lakh tonnes of onions in a bid to improve the domestic availability of the key kitchen staple and check prices.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved strategic disinvestment in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) along with transfer of management control, excluding stake in Numaligarh Refinery. The decision was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said the government would be moving forward on the merger of the three state-run general insurance companies as announced in the previous Budget.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday held meeting with chartered accountants, traders and other stakeholders as part of efforts to further simplify Goods and Services Tax (GST) forms and make the filling process more user friendly.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman on Friday said the government will bring legislations on raising insurance cover on bank deposits from the current Rs 1 lakh and regulating multi-state cooperative banks.

She said it has come at a time when questions are being asked about the nature of the slowdown, which is affecting the global economy and bogging it down and indeed questioning if India is actually in a slowdown.

The event was attended by the officers passing out as the 69th batch of IRS (Customs and Central Excise), along with their family members. The proceedings began and a few children in the audience were heard crying, while some talked on, even as the parents tried hard to calm them

The 21st meeting of FSDC comes against the backdrop of the economy hitting a six-year low growth rate of 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019-20. Even some of the macroeconomic data for the second quarter does not portray an encouraging picture of the economy.