A Conversation about Friendship, Failure, and the Future - Bill Gates

By Bill Gates 

Last week, I was in New York for a conversation with Warren Buffett at Columbia University. The event, moderated by Charlie Rose, combined two of my favorite things: meeting with college students and talking with my close friend, Warren.

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to speak with thousands of students at campuses across the country. Their youthful energy, passion, and curiosity are infectious and help fuel my optimism about our world. Likewise, Warren’s wit and wisdom are a national treasure. Just as he has done for the last 25 years of our friendship, he kept everyone in the room (and one million more on Facebook) learning and laughing.

Warren and I fielded a wide range of thoughtful questions touching on global health, fear of failure, education, innovation, business, our friendship, and books. If there was one underlying theme, it was our shared belief that despite what we may read in the headlines from day to day, the world is getting better and our best days are still to come.

Many thanks to Warren, Charlie, Columbia University, its students, Facebook, and thousands of people who watched the conversation online.

I encourage you to watch the entire conversation online. But here are a few of my favorite questions and excerpts of our answers.

Question:

What surprises you most about each other?

Warren:  

That’s an interesting question. I guess what really surprised me initially is that we just found so many things to connect on. Bill did try to sell me a computer. That’s probably the only sale he didn’t make, although the computer changed my life for the better in a big way subsequently. But, he just had the same curiosity.

Bill:  

I was so amazed that Warren comes to investing with this broad model of the world. So one of the first questions he asked me was, hey, Microsoft is a small company, IBM is this huge company, why can you do better? Why can’t they beat you at the software game that you’re playing? And I always—every day I was thinking about, okay, what advantage do we have, what do we do? But nobody ever asked me that question.

And we talked about the economics of software, which is a very different and special thing and he could relate it to things that he’d seen. And I didn’t understand banking, why some get ahead and some don’t. And so he was able to put that in very clear terms. And so I found somebody whose model was rich enough that it helped me understand things that I really wanted to know and we could laugh about things that were a surprise to us.

I’d say his humility and his sense of humor really stood out in this incredible way. I mean, he enjoys what he does and he shares that with other people. And even when I ask questions that are pretty naive, that he’s probably been asked 50 times, he’s very nice about it. 

Question:

What are you both most hopeful and worried about in this new political environment?

Warren: 

America will move ahead. When you look at what’s happened in this country over 240 years it’s an absolute miracle. I say the luckiest person in the history of the world is a baby being born today in this country. I bought my first stock when I was 11 in April of 1942. The DOW was 100. If you haven’t looked it’s 20,000. Something good must have happened between then and it’s going to keep happening, folks.

Bill:  

Well, the optimism is partly that I think American innovation is strong, support for research is by and large bipartisan, and so whether it’s health breakthroughs or even energy breakthroughs, I think every year that goes by we’re going to have more of those things.

Now this Administration is new enough, we don’t know how their budget priorities will come out. There are things like foreign aid, which is a small part of the budget, about $30 billion a year, but that means the U.S. is the biggest, that every time there’s new leadership, we have to go in and articulate the benefits, it’s well spent, it’s not the image that people have in the past. And so right now, I think there’s a lot of intensity to make sure we get that message out and get, both in terms of the Executive Branch and the Congress to maintain amazing things like the President’s Malaria Initiative or PEPFAR, which is an HIV thing. These things started under President Bush. And so our Foundation has had a great working relationship with Democratic and Republican Administrations.

Question: 

How did you both overcome your fear of failure?

Bill: 

Well, I think I was very lucky that when I was in high school the computer was brought in there and I developed a fascination for it and became kind of fanatical about it so that I didn't view it as risky, I viewed it as this kind of hobby. But I think it’s great to be risk taking, particularly when you’re young, trying out different things, fields that aren’t very popular that you might enjoy. 

Warren: 

Don’t fear failure. I got turned down by Harvard. It was the best thing that ever happened. There are some good things that happened that didn’t seem good at the time. Don’t worry about it. And don’t let it eat at you by looking back. Just keep going, because you’re going to have some things and forget them. Go forward.

Question:

If you were to do it all over again what industry would that be in? Where would you start your own business today?

Warren:  

I’d do the same thing. For one thing, I’d be a failure at anything else probably. I had fun when I was in my 20s, my 30s, now I’m 86 and I’m having fun. So I advise students as much as possible, look for the job that you would take if you didn't need a job. I mean don’t sleepwalk through life and don’t say it’s all going to be great, I’ll do this and I’ll do that, and I’m just marking time to be older. As I’ve told people, that’s like saving up sex for your old age, it just is nuts. It is not a good idea.

Bill:  

Well, I love the hard sciences and there are some phenomenal things that people will get a chance to be part of. I’d still probably pick computer science, because the work in artificial intelligence today is at a really profound level. 

Question: 

If the current government were to ask for your advice on immigration, what would you recommend to them?

Warren: 

On immigration, this country is built on it. If you think about, we are sitting here in part because of two Jewish immigrants who in 1939 in August signed the most important letter perhaps in the history of the United States. Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein two immigrants came here directly from Germany (Szilard came from Hungary before that) and they told President Roosevelt that the Germans were likely to develop an atom bomb, which was likely to work and we'd better get to work on something fast. And the Manhattan Project came out of that. And if it hadn’t been for those two immigrants who knows whether we’d be sitting in this room. This country has been blessed by immigrants and you can take them from any country you want and they’ve come here and they’ve found something that unleashed the potential that the place where they left did not and we’re the product of it.

Question:

And your advice on healthcare reform?

Bill:  

Well, there’s no doubt that in order to provide decent healthcare the percentage of GDP devoted to it is going to go up over time. It’s already very high, and yes there’s some efficiencies to be gained in that, 18 percent or so, number. But as society ages, as we come up with new things like joint replacement, organ transplant, which are going to create lots of human benefits, we’re going to have to have more resources overall, including more government resources for healthcare.

So it’s a tough problem because you have both access problems today, and you have cost problems today. And whenever I look at a problem, I have this one simple lens, which is innovation should help here, but in this case innovation, while it will provide breakthrough drugs that will save costs, like if you can cure Alzheimer’s, which we certainly haven’t done yet, that will save on huge long-term care costs.

So we have these chronic diseases that we’ve made less progress on than some of the others, and the market mechanism to get pharma to go after those things, and the basic research funds, I am quite optimistic that we'll have some advances. But they’ll also give us some very expensive things that will mean we're spending more money against it.

And I do hope that at some point that we really are calling on the best minds to look at the incentives for the breakthroughs, the most efficient system we have here. I think there’s a lot of unhappiness in the country now that stems from the fact that the healthcare system isn’t delivering, and yet people are saying less government, more government. I don’t think they’ve been given the depth of education about why it’s so tough that over time will help them vote for the right solution.

Question:

You both have invested a great deal of money abroad, but there are pressing issues in America. There are poor people here, there are sick people here, and we should deal with that first before even tackling anything abroad. What are your thoughts on that?

Warren:  

My own personal thought is that every life is of equal value. And in many ways if you have a limited number of dollars, you actually can do more for more people outside the United States. And we do have greater resources here for our 320 million people than exists around the world for 7-plus billion people. So you can improve the lot of more people by intelligently spending a billion dollars, or any other number, in other areas of the world actually than here.

Coming from Omaha and having the money I have, people can say, well, why not spend it all in Omaha. You grew up here and Omaha has done all kinds of things for you. And I absolutely acknowledge that. But in the end, if I’ve got X dollars to spend, I can make life better for more people if I can have it intelligently allocated in other parts of the world actually than the United States. And that draws a fair amount of criticism, but I live with it because it’s what I believe.

Bill:  

In terms of helping people in other countries, the foreign aid budget of the U.S. is .8 percent of the budget. And there will be in the years ahead a discussion about is that worth doing. And in terms of stability and countries eventually being self-sufficient to be part of the world economy, there are some huge benefits to that.

So if we were talking about should we spend 20 or 30 percent overseas, okay, that would be a very interesting discussion. But what we’re trying to preserve is something that’s gotten smarter and smarter all the time, has proven benefits, all of which are things that our Foundation co-invests and invests in the same things, like polio. So I’m hopeful that in a big world that can remain a priority.

Question:

Are there any major life lessons that you two have learned about relationships through your personal experiences?

Warren:  

Well, it’s a very important question. You will move in the direction of the people that you associate with. So it’s important to associate with people that are better than yourself and actually the most important decision many of you will make, not all of you, will be the spouse you choose. And you really—you want to associate with people who are the kind of person you’d like to be. You’ll move in that direction. And the most important person by far in that respect is your spouse. I can’t overemphasize how important that is. And you’re right, the friends you have, they will form you as you go through life and make some good friends, keep them for the rest of your life, but have them be people that you admire as well as like.

Bill:  

Some friends do bring out the best in you and so it’s good to invest in those friendships. And some friends challenge you about things you’re doing and that level of intimacy is great. It’s really through Melinda and seeing other people I realized, okay, it’s really worth the investment to have those people, as you’re always there to help them and vice versa.

Documentary on warren buffet

Documentary on Warren Buffet. Very well made. You will have to invest 2 hrs!!😊

Happy watching!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v= ZrfcQp6vPGQ

Getting Started - IAN CASSEL

I believe God has created us with the ability to achieve our dreams. It is up to us to dream big. Everyone is born with a spirit of courage but as we age slowly develops into a spirit of fear. The quickest path to a mediocre life is to give in to your fear of failure. Do not let doubt and negative thoughts creep into your head. Do you hang out with negative people? People that are constantly complaining about their spouse, their job, their life, etc. Don’t they just suck the life and energy right out of you? Get rid of them, let them live their mediocre lives. Do you ever hear really successful people complaining? No, because they are too busy doing.The only difference between you and the people you admire is they have zero doubt where they are headed. You have to train your mind to have zero doubt. Your thoughts influence your words, and your words influence your actions. If you want to be a great investor, know that you will be one.

I get asked quite often, “I want to be a full time investor someday, how do I get started?” First and foremost, investing isn’t for everyone. If you want to be great at something, it must be your passion. Many mistake greed for passion. Greed and passion are two completely different things. Here is a little test to find out if you are passionate about investing. If you invested all your money and lost it all would you still have the same drive and desire to invest? Would you dig yourself out of that hole or would you just give up and move onto another way to make money? If it’s the former you have passion, and you are ready to succeed.

When I was in my early 20’s managing a meager sum of $10,000 my dream was to become a full time private investor. In six years I would reach my goal, and I would have my freedom. If I can do it, you can too. Every day I would wake up with an unapologetic, fierce, and unwavering passion to reach this goal. I had many naysayers try to push me towards getting a job on Wall Street to “gain experience”, and so many people just looked at me and said, “Why don’t you get a job like everyone else?” The truth is I didn’t want to live like everyone else. Remember when I said get rid of negative people from your life? I actually decided to move away to get away from all negative influences. In most cases to reach your goals you can’t think the way the world thinks.

If you ever want to become good at something you have to immerse yourself in it. If you want to learn a language, you immerse yourself in it. If you want to learn Spanish, go to Spain for a few months. If you want to be a great investor, yes you know what’s coming, immerse yourself in it. When I moved away I was living on my own far away from my friends and family. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I just started reading every investment book I could get my hands on. I wanted to find out what everyone else was doing. It took thousands of hours of reading and researching before I started putting the pieces together. It was really important for me to understand what worked in the past so I could start to develop my investment philosophy for the future.

As a small retail investor just starting out, success might seem like an insurmountable challenge. Even Charlie Munger is quoted by saying, “The first $100,000 is a bitch”. He is right, the first $100,000 – $200,000 – $500,000 is a real grind, but that is when you learn the hard lessons. The knowledge you gain in those years will give you the expertise to make $1 million – $2 million – $5 million a whole lot quicker. Investors generally overestimate what they can do in the short run but greatly underestimate what they can do over a lifetime. There is no reason you can’t make $10 million, $20 million, $50 million or more starting with a very small amount of capital. Other investors have done it, and there is no reason why you can’t either.

When I was on my own and trying to build a capital base, I watched every penny. I was a scrooge. I viewed one dollar I spent as ten dollars I wasn’t going to have in a few years. I got very efficient with eating, buying clothes, etc. My extravagance wasn’t going to the pub and spending $40 on beers and dinner, it was going to Taco Bell and spending $2.48 (yes I still remember) for two beef baja chalupas for dinner. I remember being able to make ends meet on $1,080 per month. You do what you have to do during these crucial capital building years.

New investors like to use the excuse of lack of resources for not getting started. They say, “I don’t have enough money, I don’t have 6 trading screens, I don’t have the right screening software, I don’t have the right technology, I don’t, I don’t”.First, stop using words like Can’t, Don’t, and Won’t. Losers use these words.The truth is you will learn far more without these resources because it will force you to be resourceful. The only resource you need is between your ears.

Be patient. You can’t become a great investor overnight because the most important lessons can’t be taught. They have to be experienced. You are going to make mistakes and lose money. You might lose most of your money a couple of times, like I did, but that is how you learn. Every time I took a loss I never doubted I was going to make it back. In most cases you need to fail so you know what will work the next time. Failure is often the first step toward success. Some of my best investment decisions were right after a big loss. I found that the loss (failure) often times refocused me on what was important and it honed my skills.

“There are two ways to receive wisdom: mistakes and mentors” – Mike Murdock

Mentors are very important in business and personal development. Don’t take advice from someone who has never done what you are about to do. I had a mentor early in my investment career, and it rapidly increased my learning. Mentors are rarely your best friend because they only care about your success, not your comfort. I learned how to effectively communicate with management teams from my mentor. It was irreplaceable.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” – Proverbs 27:17

Turn off the mainstream financial media outlets. All they do is alert lemmings to investment opportunities that are in their last leg. A great investor and friend of mine Paul Andreola tweeted the other day: “It’s no coincidence that my portfolio returns improved dramatically when I stopped listening to mainstream financial media”. He is 100% correct. Nothing new that is actionable is ever going to come from the mainstream. If the opinions of the herd make zero impact on you, then you are ready to make money.

So now we are at the conclusion. Conclusion? I didn’t even tell you how to invest or what to invest in. The truth is I have no right to do so. You might be a value investor, growth investor, GARP, heck maybe it’s not even stocks. It isn’t for me to decide. Your investment philosophy will be shaped by your experiences. You have to create your own path, your own success story. I’m just here to tell you everything that you dream is possible. Now get started.

ICICI, Axis and HDFC Bank are in for a rude shock and it’s not due to note ban

HDFC Bank is perhaps the best placed to weather competition as it does as much credit-card business as three of its nearest rivals put together.

Indian bank investors are in for a rude shock, and one that’s got little to do with the chaos unleashed by demonetisation.

The fault lies in shareholders’ own expectations, which, in Morgan Stanley’s words, are driven by “institutional memory”. The top three Indian private-sector lenders by assets — ICICI Bank Ltd., HDFC Bank Ltd. and Axis Bank Ltd. — have such a stellar record of boosting their net interest margins (what they earn on assets minus what they pay for liabilities, divided by interest-earning assets) that it’s almost unthinkable the profit gear could now be in reverse.

But in reverse it might well be.

Corporate loans have all but stalled, and with banks piling into retail lending, yields on personal advances are down 250 basis points over the past 12 to 18 months while loans against property have become 300 basis points cheaper.

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On the deposit side, customer loyalty has turned fickle. A Bernstein survey shows that 84% of people are willing to open a new account to get more juice out of their savings. New banks like Equitas Small Finance Bank Ltd. and RBL Bank Ltd., as well as older but smaller lenders such as Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. and Yes Bank Ltd., are offering more lucrative rates than the big three. Digital wallets like Paytm, meanwhile, are looking to expand into wealth management.

People willing to open a new account for a better rate

The private sector lenders, which disrupted the state’s stranglehold on banking, are now staring at disruption themselves, according to Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani, who estimates that HDFC Bank, ICICI and Axis will expand their combined pre-provision operating profit by just 32% over the next three years as they sacrifice margins to gain market share.

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After a sixfold increase in operating earnings over the past decade, this would be a significant slowdown.

Among the trio, HDFC Bank is perhaps the best placed to weather competition: It does as much credit-card business as three of its nearest rivals put together. Even then, its exceptional track record of 29% annual average earnings growth over nearly two decades is perhaps now for the history books. This week, HDFC disclosed that it had let go of 4,500 employees in the December quarter, the most in any three-month period, according to the Economic Times.

As for ICICI and Axis, the jam could be a lot sticker. It might be time for investors to stop waiting for a clean up of nonperforming assets on their corporate loan books and start worrying about the upcoming erosion of margins.

Morgan Stanley this week pared allocations to HDFC Bank and Axis in its model Asia banking portfolio, and raised the weight of Hong Kong lenders. While asset quality is still an issue in India, compression of net interest margins is the bigger theme, the investment bank said.

The cornucopia of bank deposits since the 8 November ban on high-value currencies may be masking the challenge, but a new kind of ugly is coming. In India, the better lenders may have it the worst. Bloomberg

Trump makes sense to a Grocery store owner: Nassim Taleb interviewed by the Hindu

Economist-mathematician Nassim Nicholas Taleb contends that there is a global riot against pseudo-experts

After predicting the 2008 economic crisis, the Brexit vote, the U.S. presidential election and other events correctly, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the Incerto series on global uncertainties, which includes The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, is seen as something of a maverick and an oracle. Equally, the economist-mathematician has been criticised for advocating a “dumbing down” of the economic system, and his reasoning for U.S. President Donald Trump and global populist movements. In an interview in Jaipur, Taleb explains why he thinks the world is seeing a “global riot against pseudo-experts”.

I’d like to start by asking about your next book,Skin in the Game, the fifth of the Incerto series. You do something unusual with your books: before you launch, you put chapters out on your website. Why is that?

Putting my work online motivates me to go deeper into a subject. I put it online and it gives some structure to my thought. The only way to judge a book is by something called the Lindy effect, and that is its survival. My books have survived. I noticed that The Black Swan did well because it was picked up early online, long before the launch. I also prefer social media to interviews in the mainstream media as many journalists don’t do their research, and ‘zeitgeist’ updates [Top Ten lists] pass for journalism.

The media is not one organisation or a monolithic entity.

Well, I’m talking about the United States where I get more credible news from the social media than the mainstream media. But I am very impressed with the Indian media that seems to present both sides of the story. In the U.S., you only get either the official, bureaucratic or the academic side of the story.

In Skin in the Game, you seem to build on theories from The Black Swan that give a sense of foreboding about the world economy. Do you see another crisis coming?

Oh, absolutely! The last crisis [2008] hasn’t ended yet because they just delayed it. [Barack] Obama is an actor. He looks good, he raises good children, he is respectable. But he didn’t fix the economic system, he put novocaine [local anaesthetic] in the system. He delayed the problem by working with the bankers whom he should have prosecuted. And now we have double the deficit, adjusted for GDP, to create six million jobs, with a massive debt and the system isn’t cured. We retained zero interest rates, and that hasn’t helped. Basically we shifted the problem from the private corporates to the government in the U.S. So, the system remains very fragile.

You say Obama put novocaine in the system. How will the Trump administration be able to address this?

Of course. The whole mandate he got was because he understood the economic problems. People don’t realise that Obama created inequalities when he distorted the system. You can only get rich if you have assets. What Trump is doing is put some kind of business sense in the system. You don’t have to be a genius to see what’s wrong. Instead of Trump being elected, if you went to the local souk [bazaar] in Aleppo and brought one of the retail shop owners, he would do the same thing Trump is doing. Like making a call to Boeing and asking why are we paying so much.

You’re seen as something of an oracle, given that you saw the 2008 economic crash coming, you predicted the Brexit vote, the outcome of the Syrian crisis. You said the Islamic State would benefit if Bashar al-Assad was pushed out and you predicted Trump’s win. How do you explain it?

Not the Islamic State, but al-Qaeda at the time, and I said the U.S. administration was helping fund them. See, you have to have courage to say things others don’t. I was lucky financially in life, that I didn’t need to work for a living and can spend all my time thinking. When Trump was running for election, I said what he says makes sense to a grocery store owner. Because the grocery guy can say Trump is wrong because he can see where he is wrong. But with Obama, he can’t understand what he’s saying, so the grocery man doesn’t know where he is wrong.

Is it a choice between dumbing down versus over-intellectualisation, then?

Exactly. Trump never ran for archbishop, so you never saw anything in his behaviour that was saintly, and that was fine. Whereas Obama behaved like the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was going to do good but people didn’t feel their lives were better. As I said, if it was a shopkeeper from Aleppo, or a grocery store owner in Mumbai, people would have liked them as much as Trump. What he says makes common sense, asking why are we paying so much for this rubbish or why do we need these complex taxes, or why do we want lobbyists. You can call Trump’s plain-speaking what you like. But the way intellectuals treat people who don’t agree with them isn’t good either. I remember I had an academic friend who supported Brexit, and he said he knew what it meant to be a leper in the U.K. It was the same with supporting Trump in the U.S.

But there were valid reasons for people to be worried about Trump too.

Well, if you’re a businessman, for example, what Trump said didn’t bother you. The intellectual class of no more than 2,00,000 people in the U.S. don’t represent everyone upset with Trump. The real problem is the ‘faux-expert problem’, one who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and assumes he knows what people think. An electrician doesn’t have that problem.

Is the election of Trump part of a global phenomena? You have commented on the similarity to the election of Narendra Modi in India.

Well, with Trump, Modi, Brexit, and now France, there are some similar problems in those countries. What you are hearing is people getting fed up with the ruling class. This is not fascism. It has nothing to do with fascism. It has to do with the faux-experts problem and a world with too many experts. If we had a different elite, we may not see the same problem.

There are other similarities, to quote from studies of populist movements worldwide: these leaders are majoritarian, they build on resentment, they use social media for direct access to their voters, and they can take radical decisions.

I often say that a mathematician thinks in numbers, a lawyer in laws, and an idiot thinks in words. These words don’t amount to anything. I think you have to draw the conclusion that there is a global riot against pseudo-experts. I saw it with Brexit, and Nigel Farage [leader of the U.K. Independence Party], who was a trader for 15 years, said the problem with the government was that none of them had ever had a proper job. Being a bureaucrat is not a proper job.

As a businessperson, you have a point about experts and pseudo-experts who you say are ‘left-wing’. How do you explain the other parts to the phenomenon that aren’t economic: the xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, etc.?

I don’t understand how a left-wing person can defend Salafism, or religious extremism. In a democracy, you can allow people to have any view, but they can’t come with a message to destroy democracy. Why should people who come to the West come with a message to finish the West? This is where the discourse goes haywire. So in Yemen, the [Saudi] intervention is good, but the intervention [by Russia] in Aleppo shouldn’t be allowed. I don’t think Trump was racist when he said Mexican criminals shouldn’t be allowed into the U.S.; he was targeting criminals. If you are Naziphobic, you are not against Germans. If I oppose Salafism, I am not an Islamophobe. Obama also deported Mexicans and refused to accept immigrants.

Is anti-globalisation a part of this sentiment?

I am not anti-globalisation, but I am against big global corporations. One of the reasons is what they cost. Today, every project sees cost overruns because these projects have to factor in global risks as well. In nature there is an ‘island effect’. The number of species on an island drops significantly when you go to the mainland. Similarly, when you open up your small economies, you lose some of your ethnicity or diversity. Artisans are being killed by globalisation. Think of the effect on so many artists who have been put out of work while people are buying wrinkle-free shirts and cheap mobile phones. I’m a localist. The problem is globalisation comes through large global corporates that are predatory, and so we want to counter its ill-effects.

Where do you see the world moving now? Further right, or will it revert to the centre?

I don’t think it will go left or right, and I don’t know about the short term. But I think in the long term, the world can only survive if it lives like nature does. Many smaller units of governance, and a collection of super islands with some separation, quick decision-making, and visible implementation. Lots of Switzerlands, that’s what we need. What we need is not leaders, we don’t need them. We just need someone at the top who doesn’t mess the system up.

Highlights of Budget 2017-18

Following are the highlights of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's 2017 Budget speech.

The Union Budget 2017 was broadly focused on 10 broad themes — farmers, rural population, youth, poor and health care for the underprivileged; infrastructure; financial sector for stronger institutions; speedy accountability; public services; prudent fiscal management; tax administration for the honest.

On demonetisation

1. Demonetisation is expected to have a transient impact on economy.
2. We will have a great impact on the economy and lives of our people . The effects of Dem. are not expected to spill over next year.
3. Demonetisation a bold and decisive measure and will lead to higher GDP growth.
4. The effects of demonetisation will not spillover to the next fiscal.

Agriculture

1. Sowing farmers should feel secure against natural calamities.
2. Rs. 10 lakh crore as credit to farmers with 60 days interest waiver says FM
3. NABARD fund to be increased to Rs. 40,000 crore 
4. Govt will set up mini lab in Krishi Vigyan Kendras for soiling:
5. A dedicated micro irrigation fund will be set up for NABARD with Rs 5,000 cr initial corpus
6. Irrigation corpus increased from Rs 20,000 crores to Rs 40,000
7. Dairy processing infrastructure fund with be created initially with a corpus of Rs. 2000 cr
8. Issuance of Soil cards has gained momentum
9. A model law on contract farming will be prepared and shared with States

Rural sector

1. Government targets to bring 1 crore households out of poverty by 2019
2. During 2017-18, 5 lakh farm ponds to be taken up under MGNREGA
3. Over Rs 3 lakh cr spend for rural India. MGNREGA to double farmers income
4. Participation of women in mgnrega up to 55%
5. During 2017-18, 5 lakh farm ponds to be taken up under MGNREGA
6. Using space tech in a big way to plan MGNREGA works
7. We propose to complete 1 crore houses for those without homes
8. Allocating Rs. 19,000 cr for Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in 2017-18
9. We are well on our way of achieving 100% rural electrification by March 2018.
10. Swachh Bharat mission has made tremendous progress, sanitation coverage has gone up from 42% in Oct 13 to 60% now.
11. Sanitation coverage in rural areas gone up from 42% in Oct 2014 to 60% now.

For youth

1. Introduction of a system of measuring annual learning outcomes, innovation fund for secondary education.
2. There will be a focus on 3,479 educationally-backward blocks
3. Colleges will be identified based on accreditation
4. Skill India mission was launched to maximise potential.  100 India International centres across country.
5. Courses on foreign languages to be introduced.
6. Skill India Mission was launched in 2015 to maximise the potential of our youth. 100 India International Skill centres will be established across the country.
7. Steps to create 5000 PG seats per annum

For the poor; health care

1. Mahila Shakthi Kendras - Rs. 500 cr allocated.
2. Nationwide scheme for pregnant women - Rs. 6000 each will be transferred.
3. For women and Kids - Rs. 1,84,632  cr. allocation investment
4. Affordable housing to be given infrastructure status.
5. Surplus liquidity - banks have already started reducing lending rates for housing
6. Elimination of tuberculosis by 2025 targeted.
7. 1.5 lakh health sub centres to be transformed into health wellness centre.
8. Two new AIIMS in Jharkhand and Gujarat.
9. Structural transformation of regulator framework for medical education in India
10. Allocation for Scheduled Caste  - Rs. 52,393  crore
11. Aadhaar-based smartcards for senior citizens to monitor health.

Infrastructure

1. A total allocation of Rs. 39,61,354 crore
2. Total allocation for Railways — Rs. 1,31,000 crore
3. No Service charge while booked tickets with IRCTC
4. Raksha coach with a corpus of Rs. 1 lakh cr fore five years (for passenger safety)
5. Unmanned level crossings eliminated by 2020
6. 3,500 km of railway lines to be commissioned this year up from 2,800 km last year.
7. SMS based clean my coach service started
8. Coach mitra facility - to register all coach related complaints
9. 2019 - bio toilets for all trains
10. 500 stations to be made differently-abled friendly
11. Railways to partner with logistics players for front end and back end solutions for select commodities.
12. Railways will offer competitive ticket booking facility
13. 2,000 km for coastal connectivity of roads -
14. Rs. 64,000 crore allocation for highways. 
15. Allocation of high speed Internet 1,50,000 gram panchayats

Energy sector

1. A strategic policy for crude reserves will be set up
2. Rs. 1.26,000 cr for energy production-based investments received
3. Trade infra export scheme will be launched 2017-18

Financial sector

1. FDI policy reforms - more than 90% of FDI inflows are now automated.
2. Shares of Railway PSE like IRCTC would be listed on stock exchanges. 
3. Bill on resolution of financial firms to be introduced in this session of parliament.
4. Decided to abolish FIPB in 2017-18.
5. Foreign Investment Promotion Board to be abolished.
6. Revised mechanism to ensure time bound listing of CPSEs
7. Computer emergency response team for financial sector to be formed.
8. Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana lending target at Rs 2.44 lakh crore for 2017-18
9. Digital India - Bhim app will unleash mobile phone revolution - two new schemes to promote the app.
10. Govt to introduce two new schemes to promote BHIM App - referral bonus for users and cash back for traders: FM.
11. Negotiable Instruments Act might be amended.
12. DBT to LPG consumers , Chandigarh is kerosene free, 84 govt schemes are on the DBT platform.
13. Head post office as the central office for rendering passport services
14. Easy online booking system for Army, defence personnel
15. For big-time offences - including economic offenders fleeing India, the govt. will introduce a legislative change or new law to confiscate the assets of these people within the country

Fiscal situation

1. Total expenditure - Rs. 21, 47,000 crore
2. Abolition on plan, non-plan expenditure, focus on capital expenditure ( Capital expenditure will be 25.4 per cent)
3. Rs. 3,000 crore under Dept of Economic Affairs for implementing Budget announcements.
4. Defence expenditure, excluding pension, at Rs 2,74,114  crore
5. Expenditure in science and technology —  Rs. 37,435 crore
6. Total resources transferred to States and UTs is Rs 4.11 lakh crore
7. Recommended 3% fiscal deficit for three years with deviation of 0.5% of GDP.
8. Revenue deficit - 1.9 %
9. Pegged fiscal deficit of 2017-18 at 3.2% of GDP and remain committed to achieving 3% in the next year.

On funding of political parties

1. Maximum amount of cash donation for political parties will be Rs 2,000 from any one source from Rs 20,000
2. Political parties will be entitled to receive donations by cheque or digital mode from donors.
3. Amendment is being proposed to RBI Act to enable issuance of electoral bonds that government will scheme. Donor can purchase these bonds from banks or post office via cheque or digital transactions. They can be redeemed only by registered political parties.

Tax proposals

1. India’s tax to GDP ratio is not favourable.
2. Out of 13.14 lakh registered companies, only 5.97 lakh companies have filed returns for 2016-17.
3. Proportion of direct tax to indirect tax is not optimal.
4. 1.95 crore individuals showed income between Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
5. Out of 76 lakh individual assessees declaring income more than Rs 5 lakh, 56 lakh are salaried.
6. Only 1.72 lakh people showed income of more than Rs 50 lakh a year.
7. Between Nov 8 to Dec 30: Deposits between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 80 lakh was made in 1.09 crore accounts.
8. Net tax revenue of 2013-14 was Rs 11.38 lakh crore.
9. Out of 76 lakh individual assessees declaring income more than Rs 5 lakh, 56 lakh are salaried.
10. 1.95 crore individuals showed income between Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
11. Rate of growth of advance tax in Personal I-T is 34.8% in last three quarters of this financial year.
12. Holding period for long term capital gain lowered to 2 years
13. Propose to have carry-forward of MAT for 15 years.
14. Capital gains tax to be exempted for persons holding land from which land was pooled for creation of state capital of Telangana.
15. Corporate tax: In order to make MSME companies more viable, propose to reduce tax for small companies of turnover of up to Rs 50 crore to 25%. About 67 lakh companies fall in this category. 96% of companies to get this benefit.
16. Propose to reduce basic customs duty for LNG to 2.5% from 5%
17. SIT on black money suggested no cash transactions of more than Rs 3 lakh. Govt has accepted this proposal.
18. Income Tax Act to be amended.  No transaction above Rs 3 lakh to be permitted in cash.
19. Limit of cash donation by charitable trust reduced to Rs 2,000 from Rs 10,000.

Personal Income Tax

1. Existing rate of tax for individuals between Rs.  2.5- Rs 5 lakh reduced to 5% from 10%
2. All other categories of tax payers in subsequent brackets will get benefit of Rs 12,500.
3. Simple one page return for people with annual income of Rs. 5 lakh other than business income.
4. Net revenue loss in direct tax could be Rs. 20,000 crore