'Pan-India consensus very soon on revival of discoms'

Piyush Goyal

I have given states an offer they can't refuse: Piyush Goyal

Piyush Goyal, who had been the Union minister for railways and coal in the first term of the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre, has been given charge of the railways and commerce &amp; industry ministries in the second term. In the previous term of the BJP government, Goyal had also donned the hat of the finance minister on a couple of occasions, standing in for then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during phases of the latter&rsquo;s ailment. Goyal was the finance minister and corporate affairs minister from January 23 to February 15, 2019). He presented the Interim Budget for 2019-20. Among the most crucial things he announced in the Interim Budget was a tax concession to the lowest bracket of the salaried class. He also announced a scheme for income transfer to farmers.&nbsp;<br />
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Previously, besides holding the independent charge of the coal ministry as a minister of state, Goyal also held the power, new &amp; renewable energy and mines portfolios from July 5, 2016, to September 3, 2017.<br />
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A member of the BJP, he has been representing Maharashtra in the Rajya Sabha since 2010.<br />
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During the first term of the Modi government, Piyush Goyal&#39;s tenure as the power minister saw the rollout of the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) and fast-tracking of electrification of nearly 18,000 unelectrified villages under the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya). He also oversaw the government&#39;s LED bulb distribution programme, known as UJALA. He was first given the temporary additional charge of the Ministry of Finance from May through August 2018, as Jaitley was undergoing medical treatment. During his second stint as the interim finance minister, Goyal&rsquo;s Interim Budget also saw the rollout of the PM-KISAN scheme, a direct cash income support scheme for small and marginal farmers. The measure, besides the income-tax rebate for middle-class taxpayers and other select announcements, were viewed as the government&#39;s bid to woo voters, especially distressed farmers, in the run-up to the 2019 elections.

OTHER NDA FINANCE MINISTERS

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Who is Piyush Goyal

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	A senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Arun Jaitley was the Union finance minister through the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government&rsquo;s first term in power at the Centre. Besides finance, Jaitley previously held the defence, corporate affairs, commerce &amp; industry and law &amp; justice Cabinet portfolios in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments. Jaitley, who has been indisposed for some time, was not able to present the Union Budget for 2018-19 and the 2019-20 Interim Budget due to his poor health. He also did not contest the Lok Sabha Elections in 2019.&nbsp;Arun Jaitley breathed his last on August 24, 2019.</div>
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	With Jaitley as the finance minister, the Modi government was able to take several key economic initiatives like demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). In Jaitley&#39;s stewardship, the Modi government merged the railway budget with the general Budget. Moreover, the decision to advance the date of the general budget to February 1 was also taken with Jaitley as the finance minister. GST went under several tax-slab revisions and Jaitley manoeuvred them efficiently. He also introduced Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to resolve the issues with companies that were turning insolvent. IBC has played a key role in the corporate sector in recent times.&nbsp;</div>
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	In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Arun Jaitley had unsuccessfully contested from Amritsar constituency, losing to the Congress party&#39;s Amarinder Singh.</div>
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	Jaitley had contributed in a major way to the BJP and the government for over two decades. He was one of the most important strategists for the party. Much before BJP president Amit Shah emerged on the national scene, Jaitley was seen as a key player in preparing the party&#39;s strategies for the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections. He was in charge of states such as Gujarat since 2002, besides Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Assam and West Bengal.</div>

Jaitley, who has been indisposed for some time, was not able to present the Union Budget for 2018-19 and the 2019-20 Interim Budget due to his poor health. He also did not contest the Lok Sabha Elections in 2019.

Things to know about Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley

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	From the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) to the Janata Party, then the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and then slipping into oblivion &mdash; Yashwant Sinha&rsquo;s professional career has been a roller-coaster ride. As a long-time member of the BJP, Sinha served in several ministries but finance was known to be his forte.&nbsp;</div>
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	Before becoming the Union finance minister in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance&rsquo;s (NDA&rsquo;s) first full term government, which took office in 1998, Sinha had held that portfolio in Chandra Shekhar&#39;s Cabinet as well (from November 1990 to June 1991). Later, he was the finance minister in the first three years of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998 to 2002).&nbsp;</div>
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	Among changes to his credit as finance minister is breaking the colonial-era tradition of presenting Union Budgets in evenings. Sinha&rsquo;s 1998-99 Budget was the first to have been presented in the morning, a practice that has been followed since. He is also credited with boosting the funding of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) through a petroleum cess. That helped push the construction of highways across India, and kick-start the ambitious Golden Quadrilateral project. During his tenure as finance minister, he deregularised the petroleum industry and helped the telecom industry expand. He was written extensively about his stint as the finance ministry in his book Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer.&nbsp;</div>
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	An ardent critic of Narendra Modi and his government&#39;s policies, Sinha quit the BJP on April 21, 2018.&nbsp;</div>
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	Yashwant Sinha had joined active politics as a member of the Janata Party after resigning from the IAS in 1984. He had been appointed the party&rsquo;s all-India general secretary in 1986 and was elected a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1988. When the Janata Dal was formed in 1989, Sinha, a founding member, was appointed the party&rsquo;s general secretary. He later joined the BJP and held important portfolios in the Vajpayee government.</div>

An ardent critic of Narendra Modi and his government's policies, Sinha quit the BJP on April 21, 2018

Things to know about Yashwant Sinha

Yashwant Sinha

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	A veteran member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Jaswant Singh served in several central ministries for the first National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. He was the Union finance minister for the last two years in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government (from 2002 to 2004). During his tenure as the finance minister, Singh introduced the state Value Added Tax (VAT), which helped states generate more revenue. Jaswant Singh also slashed the custom duties.&nbsp;</div>
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	Having previously served in the Indian Army, Singh joined active politics later in life and was among the founding members of the BJP. He was a member of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at different times for several terms. He was elected to Rajya Sabha five times and Lok Sabha four times.&nbsp;</div>
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	As the Union external affairs minister in the Vajpayee government, Singh was the points person for negotiations during the infamous Kandahar hijacking case, when terrorists held fliers on board Indian Airlines&rsquo; IC-814 flight hostage on December 24, 1999, and demanded the release of several terrorists jailed in India. It was through Singh&rsquo;s negotiations that the hijackers curtailed their demands and India had to release only three terrorists &mdash; Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mulana Masood Azhar.&nbsp;</div>
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	Singh was also instrumental in mending ties with the United States of America after the latter imposed sanctions on India following the nuclear tests of 1998. He also dealt with Pakistan with a strong hand after the 1999 Kargil war.&nbsp;</div>
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	In 2012, he was BJP&#39;s nominee for Vice-President&#39;s post. Singh got the support of AIADMK but lost to the United Progressive Alliance&#39;s candidate Hamid Ansari.&nbsp;</div>
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	Among the controversies he courted, Jaswant Singh was criticised for praising Pakistan&rsquo;s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in his book Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence. Later, he was also expelled from the party.&nbsp;</div>
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	In 2010, the BJP took Singh back in the party but refused to give him a ticket in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. When the party fielded Col Sonaram Choudhary from his home constituency of Barmer, Singh quit the BJP again and fought contested the election independently. Singh, however, lost the election and suffered head injuries later that year. Has been in a coma since.</div>

Having previously served in the Indian Army, Singh joined active politics later in life and was among the founding members of the BJP. He was a member of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at different times for several terms

Things to know about Jaswant Singh

Jaswant Singh

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	Nirmala Sitharaman holds two important portfolios &mdash; the finance ministry and the corporate affairs ministry &mdash; in the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in its second term at the Centre. She is the first full-time woman finance minister of the country. Earlier, Indira Gandhi had held finance as an additional portfolio for a short duration when she was the prime minister of India. Sitharaman presented this government&rsquo;s maiden Budget on July 5. Tax relief offered by Piyush Goyal to the salaried class in the Interim Budget was a key thing looked at in her Budget. She made no change to the taxation waiver offered by Goyal those earning up to Rs 5 lakh annually. She, however, increased the surcharge for those with an annual taxable income of over Rs 2 crore.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
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	<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/about/when-is-union-budget-2019" target="_blank"><strong>Read all about Budget 2019, presented by Sitharaman on July 5</strong></a></div>
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	A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and a trusted lieutenant of PM Modi&#39;s, Sitharaman headed the Union defence ministry during the first stint of the Modi government. Initially, she had been made a Minister of State in 2014 and given the portfolio of commerce &amp; industry with independent charge.&nbsp;</div>
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	A member of the Rajya Sabha, Sitharaman did not contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.</div>
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	Before taking to active politics, Sitharaman worked in the corporate sector after getting a masters degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Subsequently, she moved to London with her husband and joined the British Broadcasting Corporation. She returned to India in the 1990s and became an educationist. Later, she founded the Pranava school in Hyderabad.&nbsp;</div>
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	She was nominated to the National Commission for Women during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime under Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Sitharaman joined the BJP in 2008 and was made a spokesperson for the party the next year. In 2014, she became a member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha as a BJP candidate.</div>
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	During her term as defence minister, Sitharaman had to defend the Narendra Modi government against allegations of corruption by the Opposition in the Rafale aircraft deal signed between India and France. Sitharaman&#39;s firefighting, in public and Parliament, were significant since the Opposition had been using alleged corruption in the Rafale deal as a poll plank in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections 2019. Sitharaman was also a member of the committee tasked with preparing the BJP&#39;s manifesto for the elections.<br />
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Before taking to active politics, Sitharaman worked in the corporate sector after getting a masters degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru University

Page 41 - Latest Updates on Piyush Goyal

India to have 100% electrical vehicles by 2030: Piyush Goyal

Coal, power situation good: Piyush Goyal