FM Nirmala Sitharaman stirs ‘Halwa’ as budget preparations enter final stage
- ByStartupStory | January 27, 2023
The annual ‘halwa’ ceremony, which heralds the Union Budget, returned after a year’s break on Thursday, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stirring a ‘kadhai’ to mark the occasion.
The ceremony is an annual ritual in which traditional dessert ‘halwa’ is prepared and served to finance ministry officials and staff members involved in Budget preparation.
Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony was shortened, and instead, sweets were distributed to the core staff. This year, the traditional ‘halwa’ ceremony, which takes place every year before the ‘lock-in’ process of Budget preparation begins, coincided with Republic Day.
On Thursday, besides Sitharaman, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Bhagwat K Karad and other senior officials including Finance Secretary TV Somanathan, Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth, DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey, and Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra were present at the ceremony. The visuals of the event shared on the official twitter handle of the Indian Government.
Chief Economic Advisor Anantha V Nageswaran, Central Board for Direct taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta, Central Board for Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Johri, Additional Secretary (Budget) Ashish Vachhani and other officers and staff of Ministry of Finance, involved in the Budget preparation and compilation process, were also present on the occasion.
Sitharaman is set to present her fifth consecutive budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1 on 1st February, 2023. Union Budget 2023-24, like the previous two, will be delivered paperless.
The finance ministry said in a statement that all 14 Union Budget documents, including the Annual Financial Statement (commonly known as Budget), Demand for Grants (DG), Finance Bill, and so on, as prescribed by the Constitution, will be available on the “Union Budget Mobile App” for easy access to Budget documents by Members of Parliament and the general public.
The app will be available on both Android and iOS platforms and is bilingual (English and Hindi). It can also be downloaded from the Union Budget Web Portal at www.indiabudget.gov.in, according to the statement.
The Budget documents will be available on the app after the completion of the Budget speech by the finance minister in Parliament on February 1, 2023, it added.
The ‘Halwa’ ceremony serves as a sort of send-off’ for finance ministry officials and staff working on the Union government’s annual financial statement.
GENLEAP bags Rs 27 Crore in pre-series A round led by Mike Holland, Sanjay, Dutt, others
GENLEAP, a DNA-based self-discovery and career life cycle management platform, has raised Rs 27 crores ($3.3 million) in a pre-Series A round led by Mike Holland, Sanjay Dutt, Neeraj Bansal, Karthikeyan Balasubramaniam, Deepak Kaul, and Manish Dhawan. New investors Vikaash Khdloya, Sunil Bajaj, Yoguen Oukabay, and Mandeep Mehta also took part in the round.
According to a press release, the Gurugram-based company will use the proceeds for marketing and expanding the company’s distribution footprint globally, including entering the US, Middle East, and European markets and establishing labs in multiple geographies.
GENLEAP previously raised Rs 60 crores ($7.4 million) in a seed round led by Arun Nanda, Kevin Donlon, and others in 2021.
GENLEAP is a DNA-based self-discovery, upskilling, and employability platform that uses artificial intelligence to make the best career choices as well as health, skincare, and relationship well-being.
The Gurugram-based company aims to make genetic testing more affordable, with plans to serve 100 million people over the next five years and build a large social network of people who are genetically related. It claims that over 100 educational institutions are currently using the platform.
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