Engaging India is an online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world. Engaging India appears on Thursday mornings exclusively on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India, and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times' South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.
The Bombay Stock Exchange could list on its own market this year either through an initial public offering or a direct listing, Rajnikant Patel, the group's chief executive, said. The move, part of efforts to reform India's second largest equities market after its demutualisation in 2005, comes as it seeks to raise its international profile.
India is expected to ask domestic iron ore producers to lower prices on Tuesday as part of a range of emergency measures aimed at stemming an alarming jump in inflation. The government is already considering reducing import duties and scrapping some export incentives for steel producers in response to rising inflation, which hit a 13-month high of 6.68 per cent in the week ending March 15.
One thing that has never been a hard sell in Mumbai over the past few years is property. But last week, for the first time in 13 years, Mumbai's metropolitan authorities failed to sell government land in an auction in India's financial capital.
Staff at India's second largest winemaker are preparing for their 10th annual harvest party in mid-March at a new amphitheatre in the vineyard, which lies in the some of the richest agricultural lands of the western state of Maharashtra.
Low earners, who only months ago were being courted aggressively by private banks and finance companies, have begun returning to him for small loans. The problem of rural debt in India was highlighted last month when the government used the budget to grant a $15bn waiver to indebted farmers. But bankers say the debt troubles in agricultural areas are being matched by rising defaults among urban lower earners.
India is beginning to experience its own version of the subprime crisis as banks tighten lending procedures to curb rising delinquencies, particularly in small unsecured personal loans. India's financial system has so far been spared much of the pain of the global subprime crisis because of the relatively small size of its banks and their conservative investment focus overseas.
A landmark court challenge by Vodafone against Indian tax authorities, which want it to pay an estimated $2bn in taxes on its acquisition of Hutchison Essar, has been adjourned for three months. The Bombay high court delayed the hearing until June 23. It is a case that has potential implications for mergers and acquisitions of Indian assets by foreign companies. The court said it wanted to allow time for changes to tax laws to come into force.
Unlike biofuels made from crops such as soybeans and maize, jatropha is inedible, grows on non-arable land and needs little water or care.
Takeover deals involving Indian companies were valued at a total of $8.3bn and numbered 153 in the first 10 weeks of this year, second only in non-Japan Asia to China, with $11.5bn deals numbering 372, according to figures from Thomson Financial. Even as the global credit crunch has damped the appetite among US groups for deals, cash-rich Indian groups have been able to continue their hunt.
In the case, which will begin on Tuesday and last for five days, Indian tax authorities will argue that Vodafone, the UK-based mobile phone group headed by Arun Sarin, is liable for an estimated $2bn in taxes on its $11bn acquisition of local operator, Hutchison Essar, last year.
In India, it is par for the course. A visitor cannot set foot in the country without seeing on every television channel or city billboard the monarchs of the country's movie industry, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, backing almost any product willing to pay their fees. That trend is extending ever more strongly to the country's other national passion, cricket. The launch of a new competition based on a popular short form of the game.
India's Tata Motors could sign a deal with Ford to buy the US carmaker's Jaguar and Land Rover marques as early as next Wednesday or Thursday, people familiar with the deal said on Tuesday.
India is at risk of sustained food price inflation as domestic production of key staples such as wheat and edible oil fails to keep pace with rising demand, according to the country's top official on commodities trading.
Mysterious text messages have begun circulating in Mumbai praising Anil Ambani, the Indian businessman.
Reliance Communications, India's second-largest wireless operator, will launch phone services in Uganda by year-end, marking its first foray into international mobile phone markets.
The outsourcing industry, which provides services ranging from developing software for overseas clients to managing back office processing of mortgages, has risen to become one of India's main export earners.
India needs to grow by a sustained 10 per cent if it is to increase its per capita income
Indian engineering and maritime groups have lined up an estimated Rs180bn
Japan's veneration for order has been fully transplanted to this TVS factory in the city of Hosur.
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