Though startups find 17 mentions in the Budget speech of the finance minister, and have been promised tax exemptions, the reality is that only 2 per cent of the 4,648 applications received from startups for income tax exemption had been approved as of February 2019, according to an answer to a Parliament question. As India's startup space bubbles with activity - new, young players are tapping into opportunities opening up - there are local anti-portfolio stories circulating about investors missing opportunities in 'unicorns', or companies that have reached valuation of $ 1 billion, says Vandana Gombar.
There are four things that stand out in China's strategy for electric vehicles, says Vandana Gombar.
The electric vehicle market in India needs a policy push that goes beyond targets, says Vandana Gombar.
Pollution is not merely the price to be paid for growth; it is also a drag on the same growth.
India needs to fix policy paralysis in order to reach teh top slot in solar power.
US-based Eli Lilly has planned to continue its focus on innovation-driven products, instead of opening up to opportunities in off-patent generic drugs, being tapped by its larger competitors like GSK and Pfizer.
'It might take 10 years before medicines of decent quality and price reach right down to the last village of India. Ranbaxy, with its India focus, intends to get there in five years.'
When Indian Hotels Chairman Ratan Tata told shareholders at the annual general meeting earlier this week that the hotel chain, which operates the Taj group, continues to be impacted by the slowdown, he was merely echoing what P R S Oberoi, his counterpart at the East India Hotels (EIH), had said recently.
Just for the record, the largest infrastructure project is the dedicated freight corridor project, where the last cost estimate is a whopping Rs 70,000 crore (Rs 700 billion). It is all set to breach its original completion date of 2017.
Officials say funds and land likely to be tied up by the end of this year.
What we need to know is what is being done to deliver results, what are the milestones that we should look out. That would be the real measure of any government's success, says Vandana Gombar.
The attack, worth over Rs 50,000 crore ($10 billion), has been in the works for quite some time but actually began in July last year, when the Revised Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme was approved by the Cabinet. Given the problems that were faced by the original APDRP programme, the focus this time around is on 'actual demonstrable performance in terms of sustained loss reduction'.
The challenging task for the non-expert then is to pick up the right experts to follow, and these are not necessarily the ones who make the most noise!
It seems to be the correct course for an economy which is officially slated to contract by over 2 per cent this year (though some economists are predicting a much harsher contraction of 10 per cent) with a budget deficit of 8 per cent.
There can be no serious argument for not having an independent regulator in every sector. Regulators in a sector are akin to independent directors on the board of a company who ensure that the game is played by some rules.
The heavyweights among the ministers that make up the Central government have spent their time schmoozing at the right places, wearing the right attire and, of course, making the right noises without an iota of action.
According to top sources, the government is all prepared to lower the prices of diesel, petrol and cooking gas after the polling is over for the last phase of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on December 24. As the global crude prices have dipped to $55 per barrel now, petroleum ministry officials say even a Rs 2 to Rs 3 per litre cut in diesel prices would bring down inflation 60 to 70 basis points (100 basis points is equal to one percentage point).
Indian Oil raised prices of commercial LPG, sold in 19 kg cylinders, to Rs 1,108.5 per cylinder on Nov 1, from Rs 1,095.24 per cylinder on Oct 1. Commercial LPG is not subsidised and oil companies revise their prices in line with international prices on the first of every month. "Commercial LPG prices are expected to go up in December too," said an IO official. But prices of automobile LPG have come down by around 5.34 per cent on Nov 1 compared with prices on Oct 1.
These so-called 'negative crack spreads' have huge implications for India, which imports crude oil and exports petroleum products. Brent crude oil, the international oil benchmark, was trading at $62 a barrel on Thursday.
The decision comes after Australian mining major BHP Billiton said it would not improve the terms of its bid. BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world, and new entrant GVK Oil and Gas were the sole bidders for five deepwater blocks and hence the provisional winners after the bidding closed on June 30 this year.
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