CURRENT AFFAIRS 11th JULY, 2014

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Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's maiden budget outlays the clear strategies, policies and reforms which will be undertaken by the new government. He presented the Budget for the year 2014-15 before the parliament on July 10 2014.

Budget highlights:

1) Tax: personal income tax exemption limit has been raised to 2.5 lakh from 2 lakh and for senior citizens it is set to 3 lakh with same tax rates. Investment upto 1.5 lakh has been exempted under 80 c of IT act. No changes has been made in retrospective taxation.

2) FDI in defence and insurance sector has been raised to 49% with the rider of full Indian management control. 5 new IITs, 5 new IIMs set up across states and Jaya Prakash Narayan centre of excellence for humanities to be set up at Madhya Pradesh.

3)Industry: Rs. 7060 crore has been allocated to develop 100 smart cities including ponneri, krishnapatnam, tumkur in the southern region. More importance has been given to augument nations road network. Rs.100 crore allocated for national industrial corridor authority.

4)Agriculture: Agriculture university in Andhra, Rajasthan and horticulture university in Telangana and Haryana. Rs. 100 crore each allotted for Agri tech infrastructure fund and National adaptation fund. Aims to create protein revolution as part of tech enabled second green revolution. Kisan vikas patra reintroduced to enable savings for farmers.

5) Social sector : New programmes like Skill India , Digital India will be launched to promote skill development and broadband connectivity respectively. Conservation of Ganges - Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission ‘Namami Ganga’; conservation of heritage structures in cities and towns -National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana; Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana Launched for effective delivery of services for women.

6) Banking: Banks are encouraged to give long term loan for infrastructure; 6 new debt tribunals to be set up; time bound Financial Inclusion Mission to concentrate on weaker sections of the society launched from 15th August; Framework for licensing small banks and differentiated banks to be created by RBI; Rs. 10,000 crore fund allocated for venture capital in the MSME sector.