Back from his visits to Russia and Austria, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet with leading economists on Thursday to discuss the Union Budget 2024-25, which Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present in Parliament on July 23.

This will be the first Budget of the Modi-led government in its third term.

A senior government official stated that economists, industry experts, and Niti Aayog vice-chairman Suman Bery will discuss fiscal strategies and present their views and recommendations to the PM during the meeting.

The Budget Session of Parliament is set to begin on July 22 and conclude on August 12.

BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers’ Retreat

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will host a two-day retreat starting Thursday in the national capital for his counterparts from the member countries of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

The retreat will provide an opportunity for the foreign ministers of the seven South Asian and Southeast Asian countries that are members of BIMSTEC to discuss ways to deepen cooperation in various sectors, including security, connectivity, and trade, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Besides India, BIMSTEC includes Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Myanmar’s Deputy Prime Minister U Than Swe has already arrived in Delhi for the retreat. His visit comes amid intense fighting in Myanmar between the military junta and resistance forces, which have captured several towns.

India has been striving to make BIMSTEC a vibrant forum for regional cooperation as initiatives under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have stalled for various reasons.

AICC Review Panels on LS Polls

A three-member Congress fact-finding committee will begin a three-day visit to Karnataka on Thursday to analyze the party’s performance in the Lok Sabha elections, where it won only nine out of 28 seats despite a strong showing in the Assembly polls in May 2023.

The panel, consisting of Madhusudan Mistry, Gaurav Gogoi, and Hibi Eden, was constituted by All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief Mallikarjun Kharge. They will meet state leaders to gather views on the party’s subpar performance.

Sources indicated the committee will examine whether candidate selection—16 candidates were from political families—affected the results. They will also evaluate the electoral impact of the state government’s guarantee schemes.

A similar AICC fact-finding panel, consisting of P. J. Kurien, Rakibul Hussain, and Pargat Singh, arrived in Hyderabad on Wednesday night. They will begin assessing the Lok Sabha results in Telangana on Thursday, meeting with elected MPs and defeated candidates at the party office.

The Congress won only eight of the 17 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana, despite winning the state Assembly polls convincingly in December 2023.

Maharashtra MLC Polls

Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly, Vijay Wadettiwar, has organized a dinner for his party MLAs in a Mumbai hotel on Thursday. This is part of a series of dinner meetings and hotel stays being arranged by political parties in the state to keep their MLAs together ahead of the July 12 biennial polls for the Legislative Council, where 12 candidates are vying for 11 seats.

Eleven MLCs in the state are retiring on July 27, and these high-stakes polls, where MLAs form the electoral college, are being held to fill the vacancies. The threat of cross-voting looms large over these polls.

V-P Address to Maharashtra Legislature

Meanwhile, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar will address the Maharashtra Legislature on Thursday, focusing on the “enhancement of democratic values and ethics in the country.”