'New Delhi showed itself willing -- at least for a period -- to tolerate the risk of conflict and to withstand Beijing's implicit and explicit threats.' 'But it also continued to try to cut some kind of deal with China to reduce tensions.'
'Let us hope that this Budget delivers.' 'It needs 10 per cent plus real GDP growth in 2021-22, the rebound year,' notes Omkar Goswami.
Out of nearly 30 public sector undertakings and assets under 'strategic sale' plan, only the ONGC-HPCL plan has been completed
The government on Monday budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including 2 PSU banks and one general insurance company, in the next fiscal year beginning April 1. The amount is lower than the record Rs 2.10 lakh crore which was budgeted to be raised from CPSE disinvestment in the current fiscal year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the government's CPSE stake sale programme, and the target has been lowered to Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates.
Does IAS officers' work go unappreciated, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Govt bosses in no hurry to exit from PSUs; many agencies, long process likely hurdles.
22 companies won bids for the 31 contracts on offer; 15 were new entrants to the oil and gas business. Three years on, none of them have started production.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday presented the Union Budget for 2016-17.
The retrospective tax controversy was highlighted by Vodafone, but Cairn Plc's continuing problems point to the impact this law has had on FDI in India's oil and gas sector.
The larger virtue of maintaining fiscal credibility should not be unduly diluted by quibbles on the fiscal math, says Sajjid Chinoy.
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.
The private college and hospital has been in the thick of controversy following irregularities and fraud, raising questions on why the Chhattisgarh government wants to acquire the debt-ridden institution by paying double the amount of its valuation.
There is money to buy the central public sector enterprises, but buyers will need a firm assurance that the disvestment programme will keep environment issues front and centre of their corporate plans.
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The new owner may be allowed to dispose of assets accruing from the 10-26 per cent of the net assets of the company.
In a proposal to FinMin, the Banks Board Bureau suggests asset sales to PSUs within a deadline to recover bad loans.
India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the United States, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
How should one billion Indians, for whom deprivation has become an inescapable way of life, join us in celebrating 75 years of Independence? And where do we go from here? asks Kalyan Singhal.
The new provision under the Income-Tax Act may enable the authorities to seize trustees' personal assets if there's a breach of objectives governing registered charitable trusts.
If the fear of ED could drive the powerful people of today to be honest or at least be minimally corrupt, will it not be a great thing for our nation?, asks Sudhir Bisht.
SVAMITVA is a new government project that primarily aims to demarcate abadi areas that includes inhabitant land, inhabited areas contiguous to abadi and wadis/basties in rural areas, using drone surveying technology.
Real estate firms like DLF, Prestige, Phoenix Mills to benefit.
SBI Capital, Axis Capital, GMR Holdings, United Breweries, Alpic Finance (a Cipla group unit), Saradha Realty, United Bank of India and Trident India are among the prominent entities named in the list.
Banks will need more funds, as they have to provide more capital.
Henry Kravis, co-founder of global private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, thinks India should go for a bad bank to deal with bad assets in banks. In an interaction with journalists in Delhi, he says there are plenty of opportunities in India. He was joined by India CEO Sanjay Nayar.
Initially it will procure only e-rickshaws and e-autos for leasing to operators
However, the road to profitability has already hit some hurdles for the Delhi-based bank as the Union government has rejected its demand for an additional capital infusion of around Rs 8,000 crore in 2018-19
CBDT circular issued last month had raised multiple taxation concerns.
Private sector firms need to be re-engaged for better infra planning.
The problem can be met, according to Shubhashis Gangopadhyay, research director of India Development Foundation, by the government tapping into its own land holdings.
In its latest transition, the company will also double up as an investment vehicle.
'The solution is to enable a graceful transfer of the deposit and funding 'franchise' from capital-deficient firms to capital-surplus firms.' 'This will expand credit intermediation, bring down its costs, and put the financial sector on a definite path of recovery,' argues former RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya.
Of the seven surveys presented under Modi govt, predictions of three were quite close to the actual GDP growth rate, one saw the base year change in between, but the last three were way off the mark.
The best available recourse to keep the defence sector healthy, is to source most of our requirement within the country so that procurement outlays under both the Revenue and Capital heads flow within the country, recommends says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Indradhanush-II is likely to chart out the process for resolution of non-performing assets.
A fall presents an opportunity to buy rate-sensitive stocks.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das tells Anup Roy, Raghu Mohan and Niraj Bhatt that it is time for banks to lower interest rates and start lending to cash-starved finance companies after due credit appraisal and proper risk assessment.
With cash shortage and plans going awry, the AirAsia owner is looking to cash out of the venture he built with Ratan Tata in 2013.
While IDBI Bank's 140 million customers and 1800-odd branches will come in handy for LIC to hawk insurance, the bank can use LIC's massive agent network to sell its retail loans. But if it is run the same way it had been in the past and LIC is a proxy of the government, then it has no future, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Most of the agitations are staged by the Opposition to disturb the peace of the state.'