Typically, Budget announcements should have dominated news cycles today, but two embattled companies, Byju's and Paytm, made headlines for different reasons. 

• While Paytm's stock tanked 20% following the Reserve Bank of India's decision to impose restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, Byju's investors are seeking to oust the company's  founder from management. More on that later

We have a special edition today recapping all the tech and startup-focused announcements from India's Union Budget 2024. 

In the last budget before the 2024 general elections, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered one of the shortest budget speeches ever—just under an hour, lasting 58 minutes. The speech had 5,246 words.

Although the budget lacked significant surprises, it offered positive aspects, including a substantial boost for research and innovation in the tech sector.

• Fillip to deeptech research: A corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore will be established for loans at low or nil interest rates to encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation in sunrise sectors, FM Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Budget speech. Further, a new scheme will be set up for deeptech innovation in the defence sector. Read more
  
  
• The finance minister announced an extension of tax benefits to startups, some investments made by sovereign wealth funds, and an exemption for businesses housed in the International Financial Services Centre in GIFT City for another year till March 31, 2025. The extension of such benefits by a year has become a customary feature of the last several Union Budgets.  Read more
  
  
• In the interim Budget, the government has increased the allocation for a scheme to support semiconductor and display manufacturing by 130% to Rs 6,903 crore, although it is expected to fall behind last year's projection of Rs 3,000 crore in the current financial year. Read more
  
  
• Last year, 27 companies, including Dell, HP, Foxconn, and Lenovo, were approved for the PLI scheme for IT hardware, which aims at boosting electronic manufacturing in the country. In line with realising that vision, the government has increased the outlay for the PLI scheme for IT Hardware from Rs 4,560 crore in 2023-2024 to Rs 6,200 crore in 2024-2025. Go deeper
  
  
• India has long been regarded as a significant player in the space sector, but it was Chandrayaan-3 that etched the country's name in the pages of history. The Department of Space, under which ISRO functions, received an 18% increase in its budget estimate, bringing its allocation for the year to Rs 13,042 crore. Find out more
  
  
• Budget disappoints early-stage startups: Major schemes under ‘Startup India’ initiative, including SIDBI operated Fund of Funds and Credit Guarantee Fund, witnessed budget cuts by 18% and 54%, respectively. The outlay for the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme was up by a mere 9%, dampening entrepreneurs' hopes. More on that here
  
  
• As the country promotes the Make In India initiatives in the electronics and semiconductor ecosystem, the role of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology  (MeitY) as the nodal ministry for these programs is of utmost importance. In this context, the significance of the ministry has led to a substantial increase in the government's allocation by 50%, amounting to Rs 21,385 crore. Find out more
  
  
• Cyber attacks on citizens, private entities and government bodies are now an everyday occurrence. Ransomware attacks, like in the case of AIIMS, have crippled entire systems and such attacks pose a huge threat to critical infrastructure such as telecom, banking etc. In a bid to tackle this threat, the government has increased the allocation of cybersecurity projects under MeitY from Rs 400 crore to Rs 759 crore. Find out more
  
  
• The interim Budget 2024-25 slashed funds for the promotion of digital payments, allocating Rs 1,441 crore for RuPay debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions, a 42% dip from last year's revised outlay. More on that here
  
  
• IT/ITeS gets a boost in India's interim budget. The finance minister increased the allocation to IT/ITeS industries by 8% to Rs 130 crore in Budget 2024-25, revised from Rs 120 crore for 2023-24. Find out more
  
  
• India's electric vehicle push may hit a speed bump as the government slashes FAME scheme budget by nearly 44% for FY25. The revised budget allocation of Rs 2,671 crore falls considerably short of the FY24 revised estimate of Rs 4,807 crore, casting a shadow on the country's clean mobility ambitions. Read more
  
  
• Startups become rozgardata: Startup credit guarantees and the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) fund of funds scheme launched by the government are helping generate employment opportunities for the country's youth, said Sitharaman. Read more
  
  
• India's agritech industry applauded the government’s push on public-private partnerships for post-harvest innovation in the interim budget. “The new proposals of PPP Projects in post harvest management will help unlock entrepreneurship and value in the supply chain,” said Waycool’s Karthik Jayaraman. While many significant expectations remained unfulfilled on Agriculture Accelerator Fund and DPI for agriculture, founders believe more progress on these fronts can be expected post elections, if the current government returns to power. Read more
  
  
• The impact of India's digital public infrastructure (DPI) on the country's economy is widely known. This influence has been so profound that other nations have also begun adopting DPIs, such as Aadhaar and the United Payments Interface. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today emphasised the crucial role that DPI has played in the formalisation of the Indian economy. Go deeper
  
  
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman omitted any updates on cryptocurrency in her 2024 budget speech, likely due to the government's collaboration with G20 nations on a common global framework. While the crypto industry wasn't expecting a mention in this interim budget, given its proximity to elections, it did submit recommendations to the finance ministry. These recommendations follow recent positive actions by the government to address offshore exchanges that operate without registration with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND). Find out more
  
  
• The Indian government’s National Quantum Mission (NQM) was allocated Rs 477 crore in the budget for 2024-25. This was a massive increase from Rs 5 crore earmarked in the previous year’s budget. NQM is aimed at nurturing and scaling quantum computing-related industrial research and development in the country. Find out more

• Byju’s investors are seeking to oust the top brass of the company led by Byju Raveendran, saying they are 'deeply concerned' about future stability under the current leadership.

• Paytm to pause lending operations for a couple of weeks. Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said they are also in talks with some of its banking partners to transfer the business of Paytm Payments Bank.

• India is well-positioned to help shape the future of artificial intelligence, due to a large pool of technical talent, Google's artificial intelligence head Jeff Dean told us.

• IPO-bound Swiggy has appointed Ashwath Swaminathan as its Chief Growth and Marketing Officer.

• Peak XV Partners-backed unicorn BharatPe has roped in Rohan Khara, the former managing director of loan app FairMoney, as its Chief Product Officer.
  
  
• US senators grilled leaders of the biggest social media companies and said Congress must quickly pass legislation, as one lawmaker accused the companies of having "blood on their hands" for failing to protect children from escalating threats of sexual predation on their platforms.
  
  
• Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to families at a US Senate hearing about the impact that social media has on children.