A possible reason for the 'low' impact of organised retail is that organised retail in the country itself hasn't quite got its act together -- how many organised retailers do you hear of that can help cut, on a sustained basis, household budgets by 15-20 per cent more than kiranas can?
Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Chairman Deepak Parekh on Tuesday said that interest rates may rise owing to higher inflation, but lending rates are unlikely to change in the next one month.
Adversity often brings out the best in companies, even state-owned ones. Faced with a bloated fuel bill, companies are busy devising new ways to control costs. These range from cut in travel to shift to cheaper fuels and even reduced recruitment. Power equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has a brand new strategy in place -- it will set up onsite fabrication units rather than transport equipment over long distances.
According to Jagdish Shettigar, chairman of BJP's economic cell and former member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, infrastructure, especially road building, will be a priority. It is now also certain that work on the controversial 111-km Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise connecting Bnagalore and Mysore will be accelerated. "We have always supported NICE," said a BJP leader.
A fresh study by the IMF's India office, however, suggests the battle against inflation may already have been won as far back as last month. Official inflation is measured by the change in the price index (Wholesale or Consumer) over that a month ago (year-on-year). What the IMF has done is to measure the monthly change in this index, and then removed the impact of the change that takes place due to seasonal factors such as the crop coming in.
Move to ensure deals do not hit govt licence fees, revenue share.
Aviation Minister Praful Patel's outburst against Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia is perhaps not difficult to understand since most people think it was actually Patel who should have been keeping an eye on the delays at the Delhi airport.
Big retail is fine tuning its strategy to win over critics and corporate social responsibility drives are providing it with the means.ITC and Reliance have already launched projects to recruit street hawkers, the main adversaries of big retail. And now Bharti Mittal has opened a retail innings of its chain, Easy Day, in Ludhiana with something similar.
The rise in raw material costs has caused a 10 per cent increase in the retail prices of fast-moving consumer goods as companies are passing on the rise in costs.
Datacom Solutions, promoted by consumer electronic goods maker Videocon Industries, is close to roping in South African telecom major MTN group as a partner for its GSM foray in the country. According to sources, Datacom, which was scouting for a partner to bring in investments and technology, has short-listed MTN. Discussions with the South African company are in the final stage and a deal is expected to be signed soon.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Tuesday the government has received a proposal from the Prime Minister's Council on Trade & Industry for setting up a $5 billion sovereign wealth fund. The council consists of industry captains. "The council has suggested that there is a need to create a sovereign fund of $5 billon to begin with for financing acquisition of companies abroad," Chidambaram told the Rajya Sabha.
India's tennis ace Sania Mirza would undergo surgery on her troublesome right wrist in Miami on Thursday which would put her out of action for at least four weeks. The injury had also forced Sania to pull out of the Sony Ericsson Open last month.
M&S may hold a majority stake in the venture and the final contours of the partnership are being finalised. India allows 51 per cent foreign direct investment in single-brand retail and 100 per cent in cash-and-carry operations. Multi-brand retail is barred for foreign companies and investors. M&S may hold a majority stake in the venture and the final contours of the partnership are being finalised.
We've witnessed the first phase of the mess in the country's public sector-driven aviation sector. In the absence of properly-thought-out rules, the next, a privately-driven one, awaits us.
According to unconfirmed reports, North India has seen a Rs 3 hike. A Delhi-based dealer said the companies had told him that the price would go up by Rs 5 a bag in a day or two. "The companies raised wholesale prices and we passed on the burden to consumers," said a Mumbai-based dealer who did not want to be named. The present retail price in Mumbai is Rs 274 per bag. Market sources said Chennai had seen a hike of Rs 3.
The Rs 200,000 plus perks hike for regulators proposed in the Sixth Pay Commission is likely to attract good talent. It would be sufficient incentive for both private sector executives and serving bureaucrats to join as watchdogs. The Commission has recommended that the remuneration of chairpersons of regulatory agencies like the Sebi, Irda, Trai, CERC as well as the Competition Commission of India be hiked to Rs 300,000 if they do not avail of perks like cars and housing.
Arun Shourie had legitimised Reliance Communications' CDMA-mobile phone offerings on its fixed line licence in 2002 and Telecom Minister A Raja decided to treat its CDMA-licence as a GSM-mobile one to award it GSM spectrum. With such things falling in place for RCom, the firm asked the ministry to allow it to use the 880-890 MHz band. Such incidents indicate that favourable spectrum allotment for RCom & its smooth sailing in the current spectrum issue is not mere coincidence.
The fourth quarter of financial year ending March 31, 2008, may hold a mixed bag of results for Indian information technology (IT) companies. On the one hand, IT firms - which hedged themselves taking the view that the Indian rupee would continue rising against the US dollar - will have to bear a negative impact on the portfolio that has been hedged so far. On the other, their top line as well as operating margins (EBIDTA) will get a boost since the rupee has depreciated.
The amount of loans to small and marginal farmers that commercial banks, cooperatives and regional rural banks have been asked to waive is likely to be slightly over Rs 23,000 crore (Rs 230 billion), less than half that estimated by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech. The share of this due to commercial banks is probably around Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) the total overdue from all farmers to commercial banks is around Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion).
PricewaterhouseCoopers Executive Director Shyamal Mukherjee tells Business Standard that the real changes in the Budget, from the taxation point of view, will be evident in the new tax code the finance minister is developing.
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