Budget 2018-19

  PM calls fintech a ‘revolution that helps to achieve financial empowerment of every single citizen of the country’. Indians have shown “immense trust” in financial technology and it is the sector’s responsibility to respect them, said Prime Minister Modi on Friday as his government prepares to table before Parliament a Bill that will regulate digital currencies. “The history of currency shows tremendous evolution. As humans evolved, so did the form of our transactions,” said Modi about financial technology (fintech). He called fintech a “revolution that helps to achieve financial empowerment of every single citizen of the country”. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on November 30 the government will introduce a bill on cryptocurrencies in the Parliament after Cabinet’s approval. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official  Digital Currency Bill , 2021, seeks to “prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the ...

  One of the reasons for the success of India’s Covid-19 inoculation campaign was the trust that people developed in the vaccine and the process followed, writes Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India completed vaccination of 100 crore (one billion) doses on October 21, 2021, in just about nine months since starting vaccination. This has been a tremendous journey in dealing with Covid-19, especially when we recall how things stood in early 2020. Humanity was dealing with such a pandemic after 100 years and no one knew much about the virus. We remember how unpredictable the situation appeared then, as we were faced by an unknown and invisible enemy mutating rapidly. The journey from anxiety to assurance has happened and our nation has emerged stronger, thanks to the world’s largest vaccination drive. It has been a truly ‘bhagirath’ effort involving multiple sections of society. To get a sense of the scale, assume that each vaccination took just two minutes for a healthcare worker. At t...

  The PM said the V Narayanasamy-led dispensation in Puducherry had ‘different priorities’ than public welfare Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked the Congress and its erstwhile government in Puducherry, saying the V Narayanasamy led dispensation had ‘different priorities’ than public welfare and flayed party leader Rahul Gandhi over his recent ‘north-south’ remarks. Hitting out at the “Congress culture,” at a public meeting in the poll-bound union territory, he said people were witness to it in the last five years. “Our colonial rulers had the policy of divide and rule. Congress has a policy of divide, lie and rule. Sometimes their leaders put region against region… community against community,” he said in an apparent reference to Gandhi’s recent ‘north-south’ remarks which the  BJP  opposed strongly. During his Kerala visit on Tuesday, Gandhi had said he was used to a “different type of politics” in north India and coming to the southern state was “very re...