Accepting that the government has missed its disinvestment target over the last few years, Sitharaman said pandemic affected its plans in FY20, while a slowing economy and lack of appetite hit in FY19.

Stock Market News Updates Today: ONGC, SBI, Power Grid, RIL, NTPC, ITC, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, RIL, TCS and IndusInd Bank were among the top gainers. On the other hand, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank, HUL, HDFC, Airtel and L&T were among the top losers today

Stock Market Updates Today: Sun Pharma, ITC, HDFC were trading among the top losers today while RIL, L&T, Maruti were among the top gainers

Stock Market News Updates Today: RIL, Bajaj twins, Airtel were among the top gainers while, Nestle, TCS, Axis Bank, L&T traded as the top losers

India Stock Market News Updates Today: Sensex scaled record high of 51,073.27 while the Nifty hit record high of 15,014.65 level in early trade. SBI, Kotak Bank, IndusInd Bank, HDFC, ONGC and Axis Bank were top gainers in the Sensex pack

Experts say the likelihood of a tax hike for tobacco products and cigarettes was low in this year's budget because it was hiked sharply in Budget 2020

While the government has reduced customs duty on gold and silver, gold and silver dore bar, among others, it has proposed an Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess (AIDC) on them.

Subsequent to imposing the cess, the basic customs duty on imported alcoholic beverages has been reduced to 50 per cent \"so that overall consumer does not bear additional burden on most of the items\"

\"Gold and silver presently attract a basic customs duty of 12.5 per cent. Since the duty was raised from 10 per cent in July 2019, prices of precious metals have risen sharply. To bring it closer to previous levels, we are rationalising custom duty on gold and silver,\" she said.

Budget 2021 expectations: Industry believes that a GST rate cut could go a long way in encouraging learners to take up online education. Educational institutions and courses are taxed 18 per cent which the industry wants to reduce to 5 per cent

Sensex, Nifty Highlights on Budget day, February 1: Almost all the sectors closed in green territory today, rising in the range of 3-6%, except for pharma index

Union Budget 2021 Highlights: Congress leader P. Chidambaram said that the government had only marginally raised health funding, which when adjusted to inflation becomes nil

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman says preparation of this Budget was taken under circumstances like never before

Budget 2021: The automobile and automotive component sectors have been braving low demand for the better part of three years due to a host of reasons  -  the absence of consumer confidence due to slowdown blues and liquidity crunch resulting from malaise in the NBFC sector to name a few

Expectations from the upcoming budget are huge in terms of giving relief to the current economy, increasing ease of doing business, and recovering from a negative GDP

The Union Budget 2021 should reflect concrete and enthused government efforts to boost both consumption and demand for an overall push to the economy

Local Self Government Department Minister Shanti Dhariwal gave the suggestion in a pre-budget consultation meeting with Nirmala Sitharaman, who discussed the budget for the next financial year with the finance ministers of various states

Under the new norms, members of an investment committee of an AIF will no longer be responsible for investment decisions

The index consists of 20 stocks and is designed to reflect the behaviour and performance of the Indian financial market, which includes banks, financial institutions, housing finance, insurance companies and other financial services companies

On Sensex , Infosys, HCL Tech, ITC, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, HUL and TCS were among the top gainers. On the other hand, Axis Bank, Maruti, ONGC, Bajaj Finance and Reliance Industries were among the laggards