India's crude oil imports from its top supplier Russia fell for a second straight month in January to their lowest in a year as tighter Western sanctions hit supply of light sweet Sokol grade, preliminary ship tracking data showed. The world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer boosted imports of Iraqi oil to offset the drop in Russian oil imports, according to the data.

India's benchmark equity indices closed in the red with NSE Nifty 50 down 0.13% and S&P BSE Sensex down 0.15%. Nifty Bank was up 0.42%, while media and metal stocks dragged down the indices. Broader indices also closed lower, with midcap stocks being hit the hardest. Meanwhile, bank stocks saw positive momentum. Technical analysts advise caution and focus on quality stocks.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing the government's aim to contain fiscal deficit for the financial year 2024 and pegging the figure for FY25 at 5.1 percent in the Interim Budget are big positives for debt markets and are expected to decline bond yields, say experts. Fiscal deficit for the current year came in at 5.8 percent against 5.9 percent targeted in the last budget.

The cement industry welcomes the Union Budget proposal to develop a cement corridor which would improve logistics and connectivity. Indian Railways will set up three corridors for energy, mineral, and cement and increase fund allocation for housing schemes. Top cement players such as UltraTech, JK Cement, and JSW Cement are members of the industry body CMA.

The Department of Space in India has received a 17.81% increase in budget allocation for the fiscal year 2024-2025. This is significant in light of ISRO's recent success of landing Chandrayaan-3 near the Moon's South Pole and ongoing experimental missions like Aditya L1. The majority of the increased budget is allocated to space technology, with a notable increase for IN-SPACe.

Equity benchmarks the Sensex and Nifty ended with modest losses on February 1 after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Interim Budget 2024-25 which steered clear of big-bang announcements ahead of the General Elections. She did, however, announce some sector-specific initiatives while sticking to the government’s fiscal consolidation roadmap.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted various schemes and measures rolled out by the Union government in her interim budget speech. These include the National Education Policy 2020, PM Schools for Rising India, Skill India Mission, PM Mudra Yojana, Garib Kalyan initiative, PM-SVANidhi, PM-JANMAN Yojana, PM-Vishwakarma Yojana, and others.

The government's fiscal deficit target of 5.1% for FY25 is fairly aggressive and there could be a reduction in capex spends if revenue falls short, according to market expert Shankar Sharma. In the Interim Budget 2024, FM Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to raise capital expenditure — the fourth consecutive year of upward revision — by 11.1% on-year to Rs 11.11 lakh crore, which is 3.4% of the GDP.

The Finance Minister presented the Interim Budget 2024 today. The Interim Budget laid focus on Governance, Development and Performance (GDP), giving a new meaning to the old abbreviation. Though a significant rejig in the direct tax rates and exemptions was in any case not expected, however, the salaried class was still hopeful to receive some benefit from the Interim Budget to reduce the tax.

Shares of housing finance companies jumped up to 18% following Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman’s announcement that the government will launch a scheme for middle-class families to buy a house or build one. In the last Budget speech of the Modi 2.0 government, the FM said the scheme will help deserving sections of the middle class, who are currently living in rented houses or slums.

The 2024-25 Budget was not a pre-election one according to Sonal Varma, Nomura's chief economist for India and Asia ex-Japan. "This was not a pre-election budget. While the budget speech talked a lot about the key voter constituents, it has chosen to prioritise fiscal consolidation," Varma said on February 1 following Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's speech in Parliament.

Representative ImageBELAGAVI: To counter escalating instances of fraudulent property transactions and manipulation of land records, Karnataka government has unveiled plans to digitize all old realty-related documents at taluk offices across the state. This strategic move, while ensuring transparency and efficiency in maintaining land records, will also allow easy accessibility to those records.

The interim budget turned out to be what it promised, an interim budget. It has some very interesting data about the state of the economy. Both corporate tax and income tax are showing an increase compared to the budget estimates. However, we are seeing non-tax revenues go up because of increased dividends from RBI and public sector companies.

The government’s market borrowing cost is likely to remain lower in the next financial year after the government in the Union Budget 2024 announced a lower-than-expected market borrowing and lower fiscal deficit numbers, experts said. This will be aided further by the strong demand from foreign investors after inclusion of Indian bonds in the JP Morgan bond index, they added.

Paytm is in discussion with some of its banking partners to transfer the business of Paytm Payments Bank, the company's founder and chief executive officer Vijay Shekhar Sharma said on February 1. “Many large banks have reached out to us offering support and we are overwhelmed. We will have to change our Virtual Payment Address (VPA) as we partner with other banks.