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.

In a much-awaited relief for distressed homebuyers awaiting possession of their flats, the Centre committed up to Rs 10,000 crore for completing housing projects stuck for years.

Since August, the government has been taking various steps to revive the market and consumption demand. Recently, the government cut the corporate tax rate to 22 per cent, which involved an outgo of Rs 1.45 lakh crore, Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

Addressing the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, Sitharaman said a task force has been constituted in the finance ministry that will draw up a national infrastructure pipeline for the next five years.  

As part of its goal to become a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024, India plans to spend USD 1.4 trillion on its infrastructure in the next five years, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.

The minister listed out the investment possibilities Jammu and Kashmir carries in different sectors like tourism, fine arts, handicrafts, woodwork, carpets, silk, production of saffron and apple.

"It (India) is one of the fastest growing (economies) even today. It has the best skilled manpower and a government that is continuously doing what is required in the name of reforms, above all democracy and rule of law," Sitharaman said on Wednesday.

Lashing out at Raghuram Rajan, Sitharaman said, "Rather too democratic leadership, which probably will have the approval quite a lot of liberals, I am afraid left behind such a nasty stink of corruption which we are cleaning up even today."

The meeting is expected to review fund flow to stressed NBFC and MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sectors, sources said.

The bank was put under "directions" by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last month due to weak financial health, wherein the central bank has capped the deposit withdrawals at Rs 25,000.

Conceding that GST may have some flaws in its present form, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked tax professionals not to curse it and sought their help to make it better.

CPI general secretary D Raja on Friday wrote to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urging her to reconsider the 18 per cent GST on the annual Group Health Insurance Policy of retired bank employees.

PMC is in bad health allegedly due to its exposure to the near-bankrupt realty player HDIL, to which it has loaned over 70 per cent of its Rs 9,000 crore in advances.

The revenue department said the scheme will bring in a "paradigm shift" in taxation by eliminating human interface in the income tax assessment system.