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Parliament approved the the Immigration and Foreigners Bill as the Rajya Sabha gave its nod on Wednesday. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on March 28, with Home Minister Amit Shah asserting that while India welcomes individuals coming for business, education, and investment, those posing a threat to national security will face stringent action. During the debate in Lok Sabha, Shah had emphasised the bill is crucial for enhancing national security, boosting the economy, and promoting India's global standing in education. He noted that it will also help universities gain international recognition and strengthen the manufacturing and trade sectors. Shah explained that the legislation aims to ensure the country has up-to-date information on every foreigner visiting India, stating, «immigration is not an isolated subject; it is directly linked to various other issues. This bill will ensure close monitoring of everyone who visits India-why they visit and how long they stay.»

cost of living varies significantly between India and the United States, and this difference is best understood through Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). According to financial expert and CA Nitin Kaushik, an annual salary of Rs 23 lakh in India is equivalent to Rs 79 lakh in the US when considering lifestyle expenses. This staggering gap underscores the impact of PPP on real income and affordability.

Washington, here’s a piece of news that is getting far too little attention: The US is on course for fiscal breakdown. That’s the unambiguous message from the Congressional Budget Office’s newly updated long-term projections. Unless Congress changes course, there’ll be a reckoning, and it will be grim. As the CBO details, deficit spending is more out of control than ever. Both parties share the blame, as do both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. And all should remember that investors’ appetite for US government debt isn’t limitless. The federal government is currently spending roughly $7 trillion and collecting only $5 trillion in taxes annually. The resulting deficit is a little over 6% of gross domestic product, a disturbingly high number for an economy around full employment. The CBO expects public borrowing to remain at this elevated level or higher for decades. Assuming no recessions, public debt will rise to 100% of GDP this year and 118% by 2035 — and it just keeps rising from there. A responsible Congress would make deficit reduction its overriding priority. Instead, Republicans are discussing ways to borrow more — and not just a little more. New tax cuts are under consideration. And many want to extend provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which would otherwise expire at the end of this year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A POLITICIAN promised to open his poor country for foreign investment and wean it off aid, while Tony Blair nodded sagely. Standard fare for Davos—except that two months earlier the politician, Asaad al-Shaibani (pictured), was a member of a jihadist group blacklisted by the UN.

“The element of uncertainty regarding reciprocal tariffs is expected to decrease with the tariff declaration today. However, considering Trump’s flip-flops on tariffs in the past, the uncertainty is likely to persist beyond today,” says Dr. VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments.

Speaking at a Treasury Committee hearing on Tuesday (1 April), director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson said Reeves' near £10bn buffer «is not enough for confidence that [the UK] will not need adjustments over the next few fiscal events».  During her Spring Statement last week (26 March), Reeves informed fellow MPs that she had made the necessary changes to restore the government's fiscal headroom – the amount of leeway the government has within its self-imposed fiscal rules to increase spending or cut taxes – to £9.9bn.  Friday Briefing: The UK economy may be more fr...

Renuka Chowdhury on Wednesday moved suspension of Business Notice in Rajya Sabha to discuss the impact of US Tariffs on India which are slated to come in effect from today. Expressing concern over the tariff, Renuka Chowdhury moved the notice to discuss India's policy to counter the impact on economy.

«If VAT tax is included in the reciprocal tariffs, then first of all the level of the tariffs obviously is going to be much higher and the countries that will be most affected are also going to be different,» says Jahangir Aziz, JPMorgan. Big night tonight for us here in India. The Trump administration is set to unveil the reciprocal tariffs. Tell me, will US reciprocal tariffs directly match other country tariffs or will the scope be wider you think? And which countries, according to you, are likely to get impacted the most? Jahangir Aziz: So, we are looking at various variations of this. So, one of them obviously is that it just matches the reciprocal tariffs, in which case the countries that will be most affected are countries like India and Brazil, who have very large tariffs differential with the US. But at the same time, there is a sense that the reciprocal tariffs will not just be about tariffs differential, but it will also include what the US administration calls non-tariff barriers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “The golden age of America begins right now," intoned Donald Trump at the start of his inaugural address on January 20th. The business world bought the glittering talk, in anticipation of lower taxes, less red tape and buoyant American consumers.

Donald Trump on Wednesday is set to announce the most expansive US trade restrictions in a century, at a stroke upending the postwar global trading system and posing difficult-to-predict economic risks. The administration’s plans to impose what Trump calls reciprocal tariffs have left investors, executives, government officials and consumers around the world guessing what lays ahead when he takes the podium at the 4 p.m. White House Rose Garden event. Deliberations are coming down to the wire, with the size and scope of new levies still being discussed Tuesday. Also Read: As tariff clock counts down, Trump is still up for 'a good negotiation' The lack of details so far on the structure, size and targets of the levies have left the world “flying blind” heading into the big announcement day, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. chief economist Rob Subbaraman. “The Trump administration’s proposed reciprocal tariffs mean different things to different people,” he wrote in a recent note to clients. While a direct approach means the US matching the levies that other nations impose on US goods, “we suspect the criteria for US reciprocal tariffs will be much broader than that, and indeed more difficult to quantify.”

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has proposed a revolutionary solution: the tokenisation of land. He suggests digitising land titles and making them tradable on a blockchain ledger, like stocks or bonds. This could transform dormant assets into active resources, making it easier for landowners to access capital for business ventures or loans. However, Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho Corporation, has raised a critical counterpoint. In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Vembu expressed his concerns about the potential dangers of turning land into a liquid asset. While Nilekani envisions a future where landowners can unlock the value of their property, Vembu fears that increased liquidity could lead to exploitation, especially among vulnerable individuals.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As US President Donald Trump sends shockwaves through global markets, one asset class that stands gleaming is gold. On Tuesday, its price reached a new record high of nearly $3,150 per ounce in the international market amid concerns over the global economy taking a big hit once Trump’s reciprocal tariffs come into force from 2 April in the US.

President Donald Trump says that tariffs will make the U.S. "rich." But those riches will likely be far less than the White House expects, economists said.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Tuesday that its manufacturing PMI dropped to 49.0 last month from 50.3 in February. A PMI reading below 50 indicates contraction in the manufacturing sector, which accounts for 10.2% of the economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PMI slipping to 49.5. Manufacturing started turning around at the beginning of the year after a lengthy recession triggered by the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 to tame inflation. But the nascent recovery appears to have been snuffed out by President Donald Trump's barrage of tariffs. Trump, since returning to the White House in January, has announced and delayed tariffs on Canada and Mexico for what he alleges is their role in allowing the opioid fentanyl into the U.S., set import taxes on goods from China for the same reason, launched hefty duties on imports of steel and aluminum and slapped a 25% levy on imported cars and light trucks. Trump promised to announce global reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, which he has dubbed «Liberation Day.» He sees tariffs as a tool to raise revenue to offset his promised tax cuts and to revive a long-declining U.S. industrial base.

Donald Trump has reiterated that Wednesday will be «Liberation Day» — a moment when he plans to roll out a set of tariffs that he promises will free the United States from foreign goods. The details of Trump's next round of import taxes are still sketchy. Most economic analyses say average U.S. families would have to absorb the cost of his tariffs in the form of higher prices and lower incomes. But an undeterred Trump is inviting CEOs to the White House to say they are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new projects to avoid the import taxes. It is also possible that the tariffs are short-lived if Trump feels he can cut a deal after imposing them. What exactly does Trump plan to do? He wants to announce import taxes, including 'reciprocal' tariffs that would match the rates charged by other countries and account for other subsidies. Trump has talked about taxing the European Union, South Korea, Brazil and India, among other countries.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s investment report card received a significant boost from high-cost government projects in the March-ended quarter, providing a potential last-minute push after a slow year, even as private sector appetite remained subdued. However, despite the upbeat performance in the final quarter, the momentum was not enough to shift the overall sentiment for the full year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. It is unreasonable to expect developing countries to commit to costly climate mitigation strategies when the only reason developed nations are where they are is that they used cheap polluting technologies to get there. Having said that, global warming is real, and unless all countries commit to a more climate-friendly approach, we will have no hope of fighting it.

autonomous flying taxis for commercial use, marking a significant step in its low-altitude economy. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has granted air operator certificates to EHang Holdings and Hefei Hey Airlines, allowing them to operate passenger drones for urban sightseeing tours, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

In the letter, the co-founder addressed the changing and ever demanding state of global markets and economics up top, stating that from virtually «every client, nearly every leader – nearly every person – I talk to, they are more anxious about the economy than any time in recent memory». The Big Question: How are you managing concentration risk? His words come just days before US President Donald Trump is set to enact a swathe of currently unknown tariffs, adding to the long list he has already brought out against his country's major trading rivals and allies. Th policies have swep...

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. If you are the kind who reads the inside pages of newspapers, you may have noticed a surge in fraudulent digital arrests, WhatsApp money transfer scams, online Ponzi schemes, deepfake videos of famous people recommending some fraudulent investment and investors losing money on financial derivatives. The digital system as it has evolved is at the heart of such things.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. US equity indices have been in the red for the past month as recession fears take centre-stage. Add to that the US President’s steep spending cuts and tariff hikes and it’s no wonder investors are getting jittery, preferring to shift their stock bets to other countries.