On August 15 last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that the Indian Railways would launch 75 Vande Bharat Express trains by August 2023. Later, in her 2022 Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 400 Vande Bharat trains will be manufactured in the next three years, which are expected to cost between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 50,000 crore. Those upbeat announcements come after a series of cancelled tenders, vigilance actions against officials and interdepartmental rivalry that delayed the addition of these iconic trains developed entirely indigenously by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.
China's debt is dangerously high at close to three times its GDP, with the ratio having nearly doubled in recent years, observes T N Ninan.
Bajaj Finance was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging around 9 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, L&T, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, ONGC and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Infosys, Nestle India, Sun Pharma and TCS closed in the red.
An internship at EY is a dream come true for finance graduates, MBA, CA, and commerce students, says Sarvesh Agrawal.
Klopp said the upcoming transfer window was likely to be more subdued than in previous years due to the impact of COVID-19 on clubs' finances.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal's mining group Vedanta on Monday said it has withdrawn cases in the Delhi high court as well as before an international arbitration tribunal to settle a Rs 20,495 crore retrospective tax dispute with the government. Post slapping of a Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on UK's Cairn Energy Plc for alleged capital gains made on a 2016 internal reorganisation prior to the listing of its India business, the Income Tax Department had sought Rs 20,495 crore in taxes (including penalty) from Cairn India for failing to deduct tax on capital gains made by its British parent. Cairn India was in 2011 bought by Agarwal's group and subsequently, the firm was merged with Vedanta Ltd.
As stringent sanctions imposed by the European Union and US are crippling business and trade, desperate Russian oil companies are offering huge discounts to India, provided a payment mechanism to bypass the SWIFT ban is quickly approved by the government. According to sources familiar with the development, Russian oil firms are offering 25-27 per cent discount to the dated Brent crude prices. State-run Rosneft is one the biggest oil companies that supply crude to India.
RBL Bank's interim chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) Rajeev Ahuja on Sunday tried to allay concerns around the health of the bank. He said events during the weekend are not linked to RBL's asset quality. The bank said Vishwavir Ahuja, its managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), had on Saturday proceeded on leave with immediate effect on medical grounds.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday announced a Rs 75,000 crore investment in new energy business over the next three years as the operator of the world's largest oil refinery pivots towards a greener and cleaner version. Reliance will build solar manufacturing units, a battery factory for energy storage, a fuel cell-making plant and an electrolyzer unit to produce green hydrogen as a part of the business, chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual general meeting with shareholders on Thursday. It will also set up 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar power generation capacity by 2030 and invest in setting up a carbon fibre plant.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said the country is at the doorstep of economic revival on the back of accommodative monetary and fiscal policies being pursued by the central bank and the government.
If there were an Olympics for bank frauds in India, Rishi Agarwal, founder and former chairman of ABG Shipyard Ltd, a nephew of the Ruia brothers of the Essar group, would bag the gold, pushing Nirav Modi to his right, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Sankar's father Subramanian encouraged him to drop out of the schooling system at an early age and pushed him to play in the upper age groups and senior circuits.
At the end of October, Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena handed over the deeds for the transfer of 116 hectares in Colombo Port City to China Harbour Engineering Company on a 99-year lease to build a financial centre.
SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off coast Florida.
Ozil called minority Uighur Muslims 'warriors who resist persecution', has not gone down well with China. China is EPL's most lucrative overseas market. Could Arsenal suffer fallout?
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
For financial sector companies setting up shop in India, as of now the go-to regulators are obviously Sebi and the RBI with carve-outs for IRDAI or possibly PFRDA. But this could change soon with the International Financial Services Centres Authority, observes Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
Strengthening the portfolios of the home minister and the finance minister is a message that should not be missed, points out A K Bhattacharya.
Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.
At the recently concluded Dubai airshow, Akasa, Rakesh Radheyshyam Jhunjhunwala's new airline, signed a $9 billion deal with American aircraft maker Boeing to buy its 737 MAX planes and a $4 billion one for engines with CFM, a joint venture between GE of the US and Safran of France. Unlike his financial doppelganger Warren Buffett, who divested billions from his airline stock portfolio at the start of the pandemic, Jhunjhunwala is wagering his billions in a brand new airline. The legendary investor bought a roughly 40 per cent stake in SNV Aviation in September, Akasa's holding company, started in March by three former Jet Airways colleagues. With aviation still to recover from its pandemic slump, the big question around his foray into domestic aviation, due to take off in summer 2022, is whether it is another pie in the sky.
The most common complaint of financial consumers is cumbersome processes, complicated products, usurious charges, and mis-selling of products, which finally don't deliver what is promised or as expect, notes Debashis Basu.
Xi Jinping's recent actions in South Asia have amply demonstrated the disastrous impact of China's embrace, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and China expert.
Private equity (PE) is set to play a bigger role in banks. Of 21 recommendations accepted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) out of 31 made by its Internal Working Group (IWG), its stance on non-promoter holdings in private banks is seen with excitement, though it doesn't refer to PEs explicitly. On non-promoter holdings in these banks, the RBI said this will be capped at 10 per cent of the paid-up voting equity share capital in the case "of natural persons and non-financial institutions and entities"; and "at 15 per cent for all categories of financial institutions, entities, supranational institutions, public sector undertaking, or the government." While this is a modification of the IWG's stance for the non-promoter holding in banks at up to 15 per cent, it does open up a huge window for PEs, all the same. This is because, while the RBI has remained silent on the eligibility of industrial houses for bank licences, fresh high-quality capital in large amounts can only come from PEs.
A day after joining the OECD-G20 framework for global minimum tax, the finance ministry on Friday said some significant issues including share of profit allocation and scope of subject to tax rules are yet to be addressed and a 'consensus agreement' is expected by October after working out the technical details of the proposal. Total 130 countries on Thursday agreed to a overhaul of global tax norms to ensure that multinationals pay taxes wherever they operate and at a minimum 15 per cent rate. India is in favour of a consensus solution which is simple to implement and simple to comply.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop the entire rule from going into effect.
The announcement comes as a big relief to international students, including those from India.
British telecom giant Vodafone Group plc on Friday won an arbitration against the Indian government over a demand for Rs 22,100 crore in taxes using retrospective legislation.
In 2019-20, the capital expenditure of Indian Railways (IR) increased 60 per cent over 2016-17. The draft National Railways plan envisages a further increase in IR's capital expenditure, but an analysis by Business Standard shows that IR has come to depend more on borrowings and budgetary support. In 2016-17, while 11 per cent of its capital expenditure (capex) was funded by internal sources, in 2019-20 the ratio dropped to less than 1 per cent. A 2015 Committee on Restructuring Railways had flagged that over-reliance on borrowings could exacerbate the financial situation of Railways.
Blackstone, KKR, and Bain Capital, among others, are in the race for its general insurance arm, and Bandhan Bank, Bain, and Dabur Investments have shown interest for RCap's 51 per cent stake in the life insurance business.
However, financial flows to the economy remained constrained because of decline in the amount of equity finance raised from the capital markets and stress in the NBFC sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pointed out.
A senior company executive said the company waited for seven years for the verdict and its shareholders needed to know when it would be concluded.
PowerGrid was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying over 4 per cent, followed by NTPC, UltraTech Cement, Tech Mahindra, Reliance Industries and IndusInd Bank.
Though Nobel Prize nominations have been a secret for 50 years, speculation abounds over the contenders for this year's prize in economics.
Every option before the finance minister comes with a price tag, observes T N Ninan.
It is not the job of regulators to ensure that users make profits. It is not the job of regulators to prevent people from making losses. It is not the job of regulators to prevent people from doing stupid things, argues Ajay Shah.
The tax portal problem is a goof-up by both sides, and making Infosys the only villain in the story is quite unfair, argues Shyamal Majumdar.
Isn't it time to review the 'fit and proper' criteria for banking licence, particularly with reference to individuals applying for it, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay?
On February 19, India's largest private low-fare airline IndiGo announced the resignation of one of the two founders, Rakesh Gangwal, from the airline's board and his intentions of offloading his stake in the airline over the next five years. The announcement came on a Friday, giving the stock markets the weekend to absorb the news but the markets registered a tepid response on Monday's opening. In contrast, in July 2019, when the fight between the two founders and erstwhile friends first became public, the markets reacted savagely. The IndiGo scrip at the time fell 19 per cent, wiping out millions of rupees of shareholder wealth before bouncing back. For readers who may be hazy on the details of the dispute, here is the context.
These conditions are implementation of the 'One Nation, One Ration Card' scheme, ease of doing business, power sector reforms, and urban local body reforms.
These consistent performers are expected to maintain momentum.
