With store rentals dropping as much as 35 per cent in the last one year, retailers say opening stores in certain locations has become profitable. As a result, some retailers plan to roll out their bigger format stores and others are booking retail spaces that will come up in two years at a much lower cost.
'The dakiyas will be our partners, receiving credit proposals from micro-enterprises at the grassroots level.'
In recent months, several pharma multinational corporations (MNCs) are increasingly turning to Indian companies to expand market reach in the country's pharmaceuticals sector. Sanofi's partnerships with Dr Reddy's, Cipla, and Emcure, AstraZeneca and Mankind Pharma - teaming up for asthma medication distribution - are a few instances of this trend. This strategy allows MNCs to leverage established Indian networks and reach a wider audience. Indian companies also benefit from global brands and expertise, say analysts.
This comes amid a rapid surge in spread of the disease in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and its detection in neighbouring countries as well.
Automobile (auto) retail sales in India grew by an impressive 14 per cent in July compared to the same period last year, driven by a surge in the rural economy, good product availability, and product launches. While passenger vehicles (PVs) saw a 10 per cent increase during this period, inventory levels have surged to a historic high of 67-72 days in PVs, equating to Rs 73,000 crore worth of stock, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada). This poses a risk to dealer sustainability. Inventory levels in July 2023 were only 50-55 days, equating to a stock worth Rs 49,833 crore. In June 2024, inventory was between 62 and 67 days, with a stock value of Rs 60,000 crore.
In the case of double-income couples, not more than 40 per cent of the net income of one partner should be the EMI for the property.
The revamped Champions League will feature a tennis-style seeding system for the last-16 knockout phase, UEFA said.
'When I asked whether they would choose a government job that offered Rs 30,000 a month or a private job that offered them Rs 3 lakh a month, without exception, everybody said, "I would rather have the government job!"'
India, the world's third largest oil consuming and importing nation, in July bought $2.8 billion worth of crude oil from Russia, second only to China which remains the largest importer of Russian oil, a report said. Russia emerged as India's biggest supplier of crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel in refineries, after Russian oil was available on discount following some European nations shunning purchases from Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Expressing concern over instances of 'unwarranted' confiscation of personal devices during raids, the CJI said they highlight the pressing need to strike a balance between investigative imperatives and individual privacy rights.
Flipkart's hyper-value e-commerce platform Shopsy is intensifying efforts to tap over half of the 821 million internet users (about 442 million) in rural India. These efforts are being led by Prathyusha Agarwal, who recently joined as business head at Shopsy. The aim is to become the go-to destination for consumers seeking entry-level products across various categories.
'India's top companies currently lack the organisational wherewithal to hire and train 2 million interns annually, given their current scale of operations and existing employee base.'
There is a need to incentivise R&D investments, offer corporate tax concessions and establish an effective intellectual property rights regime in order to push the growth of domestic pharmaceutical industry, as per the industry bodies. Outlining the sector's wish list for the upcoming Union Budget, Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) Director General Anil Matai urged the government to explore methods to incentivise R&D investments, such as deductions on R&D expenses, research-linked incentives for MNCs, and corporate tax concessions.
The BSA Gold Star is launched....Ola Enters e-motorbikes Biz... Bajaj, TVS To Enter e2Ws Market...
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel reported more than 2.5 times jump in its consolidated profit to Rs 4,160 crore in the April-June quarter of 2024-25 compared to the year-ago period driven by an improvement in average revenue per user and an exceptional gain of Rs 735 crore. The company had posted a profit of Rs 1,612.5 crore in the same period a year ago. The consolidated revenue from operations of Bharti Airtel increased by 2.8 per cent to Rs 38,506.4 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 37,440 crore in the June quarter of the last year.
It's intriguing that the prime minister now wants his American partner to help protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. That's conceding to the Americans a pre-eminence India has always contested, resented and feared, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
In the first quarter (Q1) of the ongoing financial year ending June 30, Westlife Foodworld, which operates McDonald's outlets in the South and West, reported an 88 per cent drop in net profit. While net sales remained flat, its same-store sales growth (SSSG) fell by 6.7 per cent, impacted by "subdued in-store business, although the off-premise segment saw positive same-store sales", the company said.
Gen Z, don't shy away from expressing your ideas, and millennials, be receptive to new perspectives, suggests Sonica Aron, founder of the HR consultancy firm, Marching Sheep.
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal's recent comments on large e-commerce players have reignited the debate about their impact on smaller offline retailers. On Wednesday, Goyal said that the rapid growth of e-commerce in India is a "cause for concern" and is diminishing the market share of small, mom-and-pop stores by offering high-margin products such as consumer electronics and apparel at discounted rates.
Eleven years into the league and after a 70 per cent year-on-year growth in merchandise sales over the past three to four years, albeit on a low base, the franchise owners are coming up with innovative games and shows around their teams besides spinning a wider range of merchandise around their star players.
The Indian badminton team returned empty-handed from the Olympics for the first time in over a decade.
For Dinesh Nirmal (pictured), who heads IBM Software, one of his mandates is to integrate generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into all products IBM builds and leverage it to enhance developer productivity across global labs. Nirmal believes that one of the biggest benefits of GenAI is automation, leading to optimisations and productivity gains. He shares that IBM Software has observed productivity gains of 30-40 per cent in some segments of software development.
Follow this 15 x 15 x 15 rule to become a crorepati without taking big risks. Ramalingam Kalirajan explains how
Quiet hiring allows employees to expand their skill sets, making them more versatile and valuable to the organisation, says Sonica Aron, founder of the HR consultancy firm, Marching Sheep.
A task force set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) for transforming India into an "electronic and semiconductor products" nation is on the verge of finalising its report, which is likely to recommend an allocation of Rs 44,000 crore between 2024 and 2030 to support homegrown companies in their quest to develop products and build global brands. The task force's recommendations include significant incentives: Rs 15,000 crore dedicated to electronic products (systems), Rs 11,000 crore for semiconductor products, and Rs 18,000 crore for various other incentives such as talent development, common infrastructure, logistics, and technology & IP (intellectual property) acquisition, a member of the panel revealed.
Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Ola, is encouraging developers to switch from Google Maps to Ola Maps. Ola is offering developers a year of free access to Ola Maps on the company's Krutrim Cloud and over Rs 100 crore in free credits. This initiative comes after Ola replaced Google Maps with its own Ola Maps, leading to annual savings of around Rs 100 crore.
'India has a skill shortage of 56%.' 'This is a very interesting paradox -- the unemployment rate is 6% to 7%, and at the same time 20% of those qualified are unemployed.'
'The real repo rate is very high in terms of core inflation.'
Manjhi's political journey took a dramatic turn when, in 2014, he was unexpectedly anointed Chief Minister by Nitish Kumar, who had resigned after a disastrous Lok Sabha election.
'In the audience's mind there is no urgency to go see a film in the theatre.' 'If you pay for social media buzz it does not convert into bums on seats.'
'The die is cast. The wave is for her.' 'We will win this. The numbers are going to be higher than people are saying.' 'It is going to be more closer to Obama's numbers than Biden's numbers.'
As the Bharatiya Janata Party grapples with a potential shortfall in its Lok Sabha tally, its ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has unequivocally pledged allegiance to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), dismissing any speculation of a pivot towards the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
'If the period between 1991 and 2014 was about laying the foundations and building the runway, the period from 2014 to 2024 has been about the aircraft taking off.'
Moody's Analytics said that the reduced political stability and the need for consensus building that is inherent with a coalition government, might erode investor confidence in the near term.
'API prices are dragging down margins and impacting our competitive ability.'
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed stricter eligibility criteria for adding and retaining stocks in the futures and options (F&O) segment, which accounts for the bulk of the trading volumes. The proposal-which comes six years after the securities regulator last revised the stock selection framework---is much awaited by the market players as the derivatives stock list has largely remained stagnant for the last two years.
Smartphones have been a key success story of the government's production-linked incentive scheme, helping India become the second-largest mobile phone manufacturing country, after China.
Air India will soon have a new crew management system that will help strengthen rostering rules and enable faster recovery from scheduled disruptions. In a message to the staff on Friday, Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson said that in the next two weeks, there will be the CAE Crew Management System that will "strengthen our systems' adherence to rostering rules, improving the tracking of training & qualifications, and enabling faster recovery from schedule disruptions". The new system also comes against the backdrop of concerns flagged by pilots' unions about rostering issues.
The stock of footwear major Bata India has been the highest gainer among larger listed footwear companies since the start of the month on expectations of a recovery in the value segment, new launches and measures by the new government to boost consumption. The third largest footwear maker by market capitalisation has been trailing its peers over the past few quarters due to the slowdown in the mass segment market which accounts for a significant chunk of its revenues.