India introduces 4% excise duty on Silver produced from Zinc

India introduced a 4 percent excise duty on silver manufactured from smelting zinc or lead.

India's Finance minister P. Chidambaram however didn't raise import duty non gold in his budget presentation in the country’s parliament early Thursday.

Chidambaram however introduced a 0.01 percent Commodities Transactions Tax (CTT) for commodity futures in a limited way from next fiscal year.He exempted agri commodities from the CTT.

The Finance Minister also introduced a string of reforms,opening India to wider foreign investment and cutting deficit-ballooning spending and subsidies to avert a damaging credit rating downgrade and boost corporate spending.

India's share market regulator SEBI will simplify procedures for entry of foreign portfolio investors to invest in India.

All public sector banks to have ATM's by the end of this year. A new women's bank to be set up for lending to women's entrepreuners, and allots rs 1000 crores in the budget. The bank is also to have a majority of women employees

India Raises Spending, Taxes the Rich

                          India's finance minister Thursday tried to balance political compulsions with repeated promises of financial discipline, saying he will raise spending but that he will stick to a fiscal roadmap and increase taxes for the rich.

The 16.6 trillion rupee ($307 billion) budget for the fiscal year starting April 1 aims to increase spending by 16%, underscoring the pressure on the government to continue to spend on development plans in the education, health and other social sectors, with an eye on improving its prospects at state elections this year and federal polls in 2014.

P. Chidambaram, while presenting the federal budget in parliament, projected that the country's fiscal deficit will be 4.8% of gross domestic product in the next fiscal year starting April 1, narrower than this year's 5.2% deficit, which betters its own previous projection of 5.3%.

The government hopes to reduce the deficit to 3% by March 2017.

New Delhi is banking on revenue from higher taxes on the rich and corporates and from stake sales in state-run companies and the auction of

Crude Oil and Natural Gas Stronger As US Dollar Eases

Crude oil futures opened marginally higher tracking sharp gains in the Asia equities with investors keying into comments from the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve emphasizing an ongoing commitment to monetary stimulus. Asia stocks climbed Thursday, the last day of the month with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index trading up 0.9%, while the Shanghai Composite Index up 0.4%. Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose 2%, South Korea’s Kospi advanced 1.1%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index moved up 0.7%.

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WTI crude oil tumbled Wednesday after stockpiles of crude rose in top consumer the United States, pressuring an already well supplied market. Inventories of crude oil rose by 1.13 million barrels in the week to Feb. 22, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a weekly report. Distillate stocks, including heating oil and diesel, rose 557,000 barrels. Meanwhile, prices drew support from indications the U.S. economy is improving.

The National Association of Realtors said earlier that its pending home sales index rose by 4.5% in January, beating expectations for a 1.5% gain. Year-on-year, pending home sales rose at annualized rate of 10.4% last month, above expectations for an 8.2% increase. Separately, the U.S. Commerce Department said that total