Arun Jaitley Attends Cabinet Meeting, To Chair GST Council Meet On May 4

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today attended a meeting of the Union Cabinet, the first since he was diagnosed with a kidney ailment that has kept him away from office for over three weeks now.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has helped the cause of the opposition with steps like demonetisation and very shoddy implementation of the GST regime, National Conference (NC) working president Omar Abdullah said.

The Delhi High Court has sought the response of the Centre, the RBI and the GST Council on a plea challenging a circular which prohibits banks and financial institutions from providing any service in relation to virtual currencies such as 'crypto-currencies'.

India, which has recovered from disruptions caused by the notes ban and the rollout of the GST, must fully implement the new nationwide indirect tax to avoid tax revenue under performance resulting in cuts to capital expenditures, the IMF said today.

India is expected to grow at 7.4 per cent in 2018 and 7.8 per cent in 2019, leaving its nearest rival China behind respectively at 6.6 and 6.4 per cent in the two years, the IMF said today.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has written to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asking him to make langars exempted from GST, the new national sales tax.

India's economic growth is expected to rebound to 7.3 per cent this fiscal and further to 7.6 per cent in 2019-20 with increased productivity post GST and investment revival due to banking reform, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said today.

Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Monday said it is easy to advocate one uniform GST rates for all goods, but it cannot be done ignoring political realities.

The government today said the re-introduction of the e-way bill system under GST has been "very successful" with no technical glitches.

Demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) were "massive damage" to Indian economy and left many unemployed, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said in Karnataka during an interaction with college students.

Congress MP Pratap Singh Bajwa wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding revocation of the GST on purchases made for "langar/prasad" at the Golden Temple, Durgiani Mandir and Ram Tirath temple in Punjab.

The Congress used disgraced firm Cambridge Analytica in the Gujarat election and also took its help to come up with its viral catch-phrases "Gabbar Singh Tax" and "Vikas Gone Crazy", the government implied today after Rahul Gandhi tweeted that allegations had been "invented" to deflect attention from a controversy over 39 Indians killed in Iraq.

The Indian economy hit a five-quarter high of 7.2% in the October-December period.

The parliamentarians also asked the panel to review the status of implementation of the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission.