Nirmala Sitharaman likely to be discharged from AIIMS on Wednesday

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met Zou Jiayi, the new President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), here in the national capital, where they discussed strengthening the India-AIIB partnership.

The government's asset monetisation initiative under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) 2.0, launched by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, is expected to increase India's GDP by approximately Rs 40 lakh crore over the next 5-10 years, noted a report by NITI Aayog.

As per the detailed report released by the NITI Aayog, NMP 2.0 targets to achieve Rs 16.72 lakh crore, including private sector investment of Rs 5.8 lakh crore, from monetisation of assets belonging to 12 sectors, during the course of five years (FY26 to FY30).

Addressing a press conference at the customary post-Budget meeting, the Finance Minister said, "Gold is always an investment for households, seen seasonal spikes during festival season. We are watching it, but not seeing that prices are gone beyond certain limit." On IDBI Bank, Sitharaman stated that there is "no systemic kind of issue," adding that as a matter of policy, the government does not comment on individual companies. She further said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has adequate liquidity.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday held a meeting with Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in Oslo and discussed the operationalisation of the EFTA and TEPA agreements, while outlining key areas of collaboration between the two countries, including high-tech manufacturing, carbon capture storage, startups, semiconductors, renewable energy, and waste management, among others.