If New Delhi finds itself out in the cold in Afghanistan, both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have only themselves to blame. Each has been in power for a full decade from 2001, without reaching out to the Taliban, points out Ajai Shukla.
With the world's worst outbreak of COVID pandemic stalling a nascent economic recovery, the government has begun assessing the impact of the second wave of infections on different sectors and may look at providing support at an appropriate time to segments requiring fiscal help. Some of the economic indicators, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, still provide confidence and incoming data will throw some more light on the state of the economy, sources said. Services sectors like hospitality, tourism and aviation which had just started recovering were hit hard by the second wave of COVID, the sources said, adding these segments might need some support on an urgent basis from the government.
International rating agency Fitch Ratings has pegged India's economic growth at 8 per cent for this fiscal, up from an estimated 7.2 per cent in the 2009-10 period.
Plan to lay off excess staff, trim salaries of top executives.
Analysts, however, said the timing of the infusion was good.
Expecting oil prices to remain under pressure, Fitch Ratings said deregulation of diesel prices in October will help in lowering the under-recoveries (which is nothing but international petroleum prices minus the subsidised retail rates).
India's macroeconomic situation is improving fast and the country's GDP growth will turn positive in the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year, eminent economist Ashima Goyal said on Sunday. Goyal in an interview to PTI said the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and gradual unlocks announced by the government have helped in avoiding multiple COVID-19 peaks. The growth estimates by different agencies are being continuously revised, she said.
A day after Fitch lowered India's local currency outlook to negative, international rating agency Moody's said it was also worried about the reversal of India's fiscal situation due to high oil prices and the lack of policy adjustment by the government. Moody's, however, said it was unlikely to change its investment grade rating to India's sovereign foreign currency rating or the domestic currency rating, which is below investment grade.
India was already in the midst of a protracted economic slowdown before the virus hit due to a festering crisis among shadow lenders and declining consumer demand and private investment. Service sector activity in India is still effectively on hold.
France's World Cup-winning captain Hugo Lloris has been banned from driving for 20 months and fined after pleading guilty to a charge of drink driving, British media reported on Wednesday.
India's sovereign credit ratings do not reflect the economy's fundamentals, the Economic Survey said on Friday and nudged the global agencies to become more transparent and less subjective in their ratings. The Economic Survey 2020-21, tabled in Parliament, said that sovereign credit ratings methodology must be amended to reflect economies' ability and willingness to pay their debt obligations, and suggested that developing economies must come together to address this bias and subjectivity inherent in sovereign credit ratings methodology. "Never in the history of sovereign credit ratings has the fifth largest economy in the world been rated as the lowest rung of the investment-grade (BBB-/Baa3). While sovereign credit ratings do not reflect the Indian economy's fundamentals, noisy, opaque and biased credit ratings damage FPI flows," the survey said.
Global rating agency Fitch on Tuesday said the imminent entry of Reliance Jio into the telecom space will see a likely 20 per cent fall in data tariffs, but will not have any impact on the credit profile of the top four incumbents in the medium term as their revenue is on an uptick on rising voice tariffs and improving regulatory environment.
The record contraction in the growth rate of eight core sectors will have its impact on IIP.
Fitch, one of the largest design consultancies in the world that has designed stores of Wal-Mart, Target, Marks & Spencer, Best Buy and Tesco among others, is betting big on India's organised retail sector. Already in the country to serve clients such as Aditya Birla Retail, Reliance Retail, Tatas and so on, Fitch plans to treble the number of staff and open new offices in the country.
Stating that India's economic stimulus was not adequate, Banerjee said, the measures did not increase consumption spending of lower income people as the government was not willing to put money in the hands of the low income population.
The official said the finance ministry will impress upon rating agencies the resolve of the government to contain fiscal deficit at 4.1 per cent this year and lower it to 3 per cent by 2016-17.
The local currency recovered some ground after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was said to have stepped in through state-run banks, helping the rupee to end at 64.30, a fall of 110 paise or 1.74 per cent.
To attract bidders, the government had decided to hive of around Rs 35,000 crore of the company's debt into a separate subsidiary, leaving around Rs 23,286 crore to be absorbed by the new bidder.
S&P has maintained a stable outlook on the basis of their expectation that over the next two years the growth will remain strong and India will maintain its sound net external position and fiscal deficit will remain elevated but broadly in line with their forecast.
Flush with surplus capital and liquidity, European banks are increasingly looking for potential acquisition targets in India among other emerging economies.
The FATF continuing Pakistan in the 'Grey' list means its downgrading by IMF, World Bank, ADB, EU and also a reduction in risk rating by Moody's, S&P and Fitch.
But, the Wall Street Journal said that the US labour market is operating with millions fewer jobs than in February, the month before the coronavirus pandemic struck the country's economy.
For the current fiscal which ends on March 31, it put the real GDP estimate at 5 per cent. It estimated a 7 per cent growth in 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years. The inflation rate was seen moderating to 4.4 per cent in the next fiscal from 4.7 per cent in the current.
PSU divestment, LIC IPO, fiscal deficit: Budget 2021 marks a clear change in the Modi government's stance from fiscal conservatism to growth orientation.
The unexpected upward revision of the country's sovereign rating by Fitch today will strengthen the battered rupee which would also stem the fund outflow from the domestic market, Standard Chartered said.
Fitch Ratings has said fundamentals of the Indian textiles industry are changing and the sector seems to be on a comeback trail aided by government policies and buoyant exports in 2002-03.
The broader NSE Nifty too slipped by 9.50 points, or 0.09 per cent, to end at 10,118.25
The comments come a day after Fitch Ratings had warned the setback for the Congress party in recent state elections could imperil the fiscal deficit target by tempting the government to have less restraint on spending.
The safest banks are those that have shown their strength in times of turbulence.
Stating that India's consolidated deficit is the highest among the G20 nations, Gopinath added it is important for India to undertake reforms.
Even as Standard & Poor's and Fitch have warned India's sovereign ratings could be cut to junk level, the government's chief economic advisor, Raghuram Rajan, says there is no point in grudging that India's ratings are on a par with debt-ridden European nations.
In the global market, the US dollar made a minor rise against the Japanese yen today, following the previous day's rally for the Japanese currency after Bank of Japan didn't expand stimulus measures.
Higher food prices can accelerate broader inflation by pushing up wages, while negatively impacting the government finances and reducing monetary policy flexibility, Moody's said in a report.
While asserting that the growth of coronavirus cases in the country has been more or less linear and not exponential, it also said testing has been ramped up consistently.
East European countries have better rating than India though their economies are not as stable as the latter.
But says govt finances the weakest aspect of the country's macroeconomic profile.
India Ratings & Research, part of global major Fitch Group, also cautioned that expected investments worth Rs 1,75,000 crore (Rs 1,750 billion) in various power projects could turn into non- performing assets unless fuel issues are resolved.
India Ratings on Friday downgraded the outlook of domestic construction sector to 'Negative' due to challenges faced in the execution of projects on account of delays in environment clearances and other issues.
Financial stocks led by Axis Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank hogged the limelight, rising by up to about 9 per cent.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan are bankers for the bonds
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