We no longer have the ambition to rival China save through words. We are happy to be fighting ourselves and digging up disputes from centuries ago as a substitute for real development, argues Aakar Patel.
In September, JSW MG Motor India, the newly minted joint venture between SAIC Motor, which is present in 100 countries, and Indian conglomerate JSW Group, launched the Windsor, an electric car that introduced battery as a service (BaaS).
'Primary buyers are commercial taxi and fleet operators and small businessmen.' 'CNG prices have been remarkably stable unlike petrol.'
The India-Bangladesh clash will take place at the Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium in Gwalior, which is hosting an international cricket match after a gap of 14 years.
'We will have multiple engine options -- electric vehicle and internal combustion engine in diesel and petrol.'
'We are going to need more technical people in government.' 'You can't expect a generalist to understand the complicated world of financial engineering.' 'I regret to say that most of our politicians have no competence to deal with these things. Nor is there a willingness to learn.'
The GST Council might on Friday consider taxing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products under the single national GST regime, a move that may require huge compromises by both central and state governments on the revenues they collect from taxing these products. The Council, which comprises central and state finance ministers, in its meeting scheduled in Lucknow on Friday, is also likely to consider extending the time for duty relief on COVID-19 essentials, according to sources in the know of the development. GST is being thought to be a solution for the problem of near-record high petrol and diesel rates in the country, as it would end the cascading effect of tax on tax (state VAT being levied not just on the cost of production but also on the excise duty charged by the Centre on such output).
They do not make leaders like him anymore, says former Savvy editor Usha Radhakrishnan, paying tribute to publishing pioneer Nari Hira who passed into the ages on Friday. August 23, 2024..
No change in retail prices as oil marketing firms to absorb increase
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday invited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit India and the Ukrainian leader said he would be happy to travel to the 'great' country.
'At present, hybrids emit lesser carbon despite using fuel than pure play electric cars.' 'That is because EVs have to be charged and 76 per cent of the country's electricity is still coal-based and not renewables.'
Global supermajor BP Plc's exclusivity with Reliance Industries Ltd has ended but the energy giant will continue to pursue oil and gas as well as mobility ventures in India with the Mukesh Ambani firm owing to an unwritten strategic partnership, BP's outgoing India head Sashi Mukundan said. BP in 2011 spent $7.2 billion to acquire 30 per cent interest in 23 oil and gas blocks of Reliance. Eastern offshore KG-D6 block was the cornerstone of the deal that also provided for a 10-year exclusivity period which meant that BP would take up energy projects or investments in India only in partnership with Reliance.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday ruled out a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel to ease prices, which have touched an all-time high, saying payments in lieu of past subsidised fuel pose limitations. Petrol and diesel as well as cooking gas and kerosene were sold at subsidised rates during the previous Congress-led UPA government. Instead of paying for the subsidy to bring parity between the artificially suppressed retail selling price and the cost that had soared because of international rates crossing $100 per barrel, the then government issued oil bonds totalling Rs 1.34 lakh crore to the state-fuel retailers. These oil bonds and the interest thereon are being paid now.
Trends in the global energy markets are crucial if India's growth outlook is to remain healthy. Prices for the Indian crude basket were averaging around $86.2 per barrel through Q1FY25 and then moderated to $84 in July and to $78-79 in August (so far). But global crude supply may outpace weak global demand in the short term.
After Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, petrol price has crossed the Rs 100-per-litre mark in Leh, in almost all districts of Andhra Pradesh and parts of Telangana after fuel prices were again hiked on Friday. Petrol price was increased by 27 paise per litre and diesel by 28 paise a litre, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers. The hike - 18th in the last one month - took fuel prices across the country to a historic high. In Delhi, petrol hit an all-time high of Rs 94.76 a litre, while diesel is now priced at Rs 85.66 per litre.
Drivers of commercial vehicles, including trucks and tankers, stopped work in several states on Monday and blocked roads at some places to protest against the provision in the new penal law regarding hit-and-run accident cases involving motorists.
'Two would be premium products and three would be mainstream products.'
'I have no problems with the finance ministry or with state governments treating petrol pump prices as the last resort for meeting their ambitious spending targets with very limited revenue resources.' 'But let's do away with this smokescreen of free pricing of petrol and diesel and go back to administered pricing regime,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'The actual price of petrol is Rs 35 and it jumps to Rs 88 because of government taxes.'
Most brokerages are betting that the new government will shift to a policy focussing on boosting rural incomes and consumption since that has clearly been a pain point.
Bajaj Auto, the king of the market for CNG-powered passenger three-wheelers, now wants to replicate this dominance in two-wheelers. The difference is that while the former is zooming - registrations for CNG-powered passenger three-wheelers nearly doubled during January-December 2023 - the latter, meaning a market for CNG-powered two-wheelers, does not exist.
India, the world's third largest energy consumer, has enough petrol, diesel and cooking gas (LPG) in stock to last way beyond the three-week nationwide lockdown, as all plants and supply locations are fully operational, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) chairman Sanjiv Singh said.an Singh, who continued to oversee the mammoth operations of ensuring that fuel reaches every nook and corner despite the loss of his father on the day the 21-day lockdown was declared, said there was no shortage of any fuel in the country and customers should not resort to panic booking of LPG refills.
Petrol and diesel are among the 90-plus commodities that have been approved by the government for derivatives trading
'Oil companies like IOC, BPCL and HPCL have to set up world class systems where they are always two steps ahead of the crooks,' says Sudhir Bisht, a veteran of the petroleum industry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told Russian President Vladimir Putin that a solution to the Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and peace efforts do not succeed in the midst of bombs and bullets even as he flagged concerns over a missile strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv.
'It is important for states to agree 10-15 per cent duty cut and take home the same amount of tax revenue as budgeted.'
Although petrol prices are high in India, they are nowhere as high as in some countries in Europe.
One litre of petrol now costs Rs 64.76 while the diesel price is Rs 54.70 a litre in Delhi
Earlier in April, the price was reduced by 85 paise per litre.
The Union government will gain close to Rs 1.6 lakh crore in additional revenues this fiscal from a record hike in excise duty on petrol and diesel that has pushed the total incidence of taxation on auto fuels to 70 per cent of the price. Late on Tuesday evening, the government hiked excise duty on petrol by Rs 10 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 13 a litre to mop up gains arising from international oil prices falling to a two-decade low.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the new timing of the price change was agreeable to the dealers and so daily price revision will be implemented from June 16
A one rupee per litre cut in taxes would result in revenues being hit by Rs 30,000 crore on an annualised basis.
Low oil prices drove the growth in states' share faster than expected, says Abhishek Waghmare.
The government-controlled oil marketing companies (OMCs) decided to review retail prices of petrol on a monthly basis. However, the date for the next price review and the mechanism to fix the price are yet to be finalised.
The hike in prices of petrol and diesel seems to have been put on the backburner with the price of the basket of crude oil that Indian refiners
There will be a complete ban on gathering, processions or rallies and entry of tractor trolleys carrying people in the national capital as the Delhi Police has imposed Section 144 for a month in the view of intended widespread tension and 'social unrest' due to the farmers' 'Delhi Chalo March' on Tuesday.
India's crude oil imports from Russia fell for a second straight month in January to its lowest in 12 months but the nation's insatiable appetite for Russian crude remains for the long term, according to data from energy cargo tracker and industry officials. Russia supplied 1.2 million barrels per day of crude oil to India in January, down from 1.32 million barrels in December and 1.62 million barrels in November 2023, according to data from energy cargo tracker Vortexa. Russia however continues to remain India's top oil supplier, accounting for a little less than a quarter of 4.91 million barrels a day of oil that the world's third largest energy consumer imported in January.
India will not tailor its policies to suit US EV maker Tesla, and its laws and tariff rules will be formulated to attract all-electric vehicle manufacturers from across the world to set up a base in the world's fastest-growing economy, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said. Tesla has been seeking an initial tariff concession that would allow it to offset 70 per cent customs duty for cars priced less than $40,000, and 100 per cent for cars of higher value.
'There exists a 'brotherhood' of sorts for a very long time and corrupt dealers and corrupt OMC officials are in it together,' Ashwani Attrish, founder, Empowering Petroleum Dealers Foundation, tells Sudhir Bisht, a veteran of the petroleum industry.
Amongst cars sold in the mid-size category (domestic sales) between April 2007 and March 2008, diesel variants outsold petrol car models roughly in the ratio of 7:3. That means over 70 per cent of the over 1,79,493 mid-size cars sold in the domestic markets were diesel models. Diesel mid-size cars on an average are priced 15.5 per cent more than the petrol variant. Overall, the mid-size category, petrol and diesel models included, grew by 14.6 per cent.
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