India will organise the first ever international summit on big cats this year, Union Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman announced while tabling the Union Budget 2026 in Parliament on February 1, 2026. “This year the International Big Cat Alliance will organise the first-ever Big Cat summit, where Heads of States and ministers from 95 range…
Gross GST collections rose 6.2% to over ₹1.93 lakh crore in January, mainly on higher revenues from imports. Total refunds declined 3.1% to ₹22,665 crore. Net Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues, however, grew 7.6% to about ₹1.71 lakh crore in January. Cess collection (from tobacco products) in January stood at ₹5,768 crore. This compares…
The annual Union Budget presents a critical opportunity to realign India’s energy transition by redirecting existing energy subsidies toward a coherent clean energy roadmap. Previous budgets have enabled large-scale renewable energy (RE) deployment through incentives for domestic manufacturing and financial support across clean energy value chains. However, clean energy adoption in rural India has remained…
As finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman prepares to present the Union Budget for FY 2026-27 on February 1, the exercise also draws attention to how India’s most important economic document has evolved – from a colonial-era English text to a more accessible public instrument. Colonial origins of the Budget India’s first Union Budget was presented on…