While most experts suggest the government loosen its purse strings and not worry about the fiscal deficit in a pandemic impacted year, it will be a tightrope walk for the government to increase spending without going overboard.
S&P Global Ratings on Wednesday said Indian banks face a systemic risk as the second COVID wave will impair the performance of financial institutions in the April-September period. Stating that economic recovery remains highly vulnerable to setbacks due to COVID, particularly if fresh outbreaks trigger new lockdowns, S&P said the banking sector's weak loans will likely remain elevated at 11-12 per cent of gross loans in the next 12 to 18 months. "The second wave has front-ended weakness in asset quality," said S&P Global Ratings Credit Analyst Deepali Seth Chhabria. "Financial institutions face a strained first half amid weak collections and poor disbursements."
Select the exact category by matching your investment horizon to the portfolio duration, suggests Sanjay Kumar Singh.
The average rate of COVID-19 vaccination in the country has been 10.8 million per week. At that rate, it will take India till December 2024 to complete two billion doses.
'Unemployment barely figures in the Budget except as a derived demand from the industry and infrastructure.' 'There is no effort at direct attack on unemployment.'
'The markets seem apprehensive and that explains why the markets have been feeling slightly uncomfortable ahead of the Budget.' 'After the event, when all the concerns are resolved and clarity emerges, markets will decide what to do next.'
Hawkish tone likely to guard rupee from further slide
Concerns are swirling that Japan's dream of hosting the Tokyo 2020 Olympics could be a fatality of the spread of the new coronavirus, jolting organisers, sponsors, and media firms who have spent billions of dollars in the run-up to the event. Global insurers face a hefty bill if the coronavirus forces the cancellation of the Games, with estimates of the cost of insuring the showpiece running into billions of dollars.
Though the ministry is considering 2017-18 as the new base year, no decision has been taken as the committees of experts are awaiting some more data before finalising their opinion.
Prime Minister Modi has certainly pulled back, and his political capital -- dependent as it is on an image that he knows best and never retreats -- may have taken a bit of a beating. But, equally, it is hard to say that the protesters have 'won', argues Mihir S Sharma.
The power minister briefed the investors on various steps undertaken by the government.
Amid an increase in localised lockdowns across the country, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said there is no need for a loan repayments moratorium at present, stating that businesses are better prepared to face the situation. It can be noted that the RBI had announced a six-month moratorium in the early days of the national lockdown last year to help borrowers impacted by a chilling in economic activity. The entire state of Maharashtra is in a lockdown for non-essential services and localised and night lockdowns are being observed in many pockets of the country, including the national capital, to restrict the surge in cases.
We need transformative policies and incentives with purpose, especially in solar power and digital infrastructure.
Fitch Solutions sees RBI keeping benchmark interest rates unchanged during the fiscal to March 2022 following its decision to buy Rs 1 lakh crore of government bonds. "We had initially expected another policy rate cut to arrest the rise in government bond yields since the Union Budget announcement in February. "However, having an explicit bond purchase guidance from the RBI following the announcement of the G-SAP will also achieve a similar effect, if not even be more effective than a rate cut on capping the increase in bond yields," it said in a note. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) held its policy repurchase (repo) rate unchanged at 4 per cent at its monetary policy meeting on April 7.
India's GDP may turn positive at 1.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2020-21, having witnessed contraction in the previous two quarters due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the number of cases is falling and public spending has started rising, according to a report. The government will release the GDP numbers for the October-December quarter of the current fiscal on Friday. Projecting that the gross domestic product (GDP) may have returned to the black in the last quarter of the calendar year 2020, DBS Bank in the report said the full-year growth in real terms may be at a negative 6.8 per cent.
In less than a week of Donald Trump being sworn in as the 45th US President, the "H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act" was introduced to prioritise American workers and restore fairness in visa programmes for skilled workers.
'Businessmen are reluctant to invest because there is a fear that private investors are being targeted by various agencies.'
India has entered a 'demographic sweet spot' with half of its population being under the age of 29. This 'demographic dividend' is likely to last for 2-3 decades and provides the government a unique opportunity to harness the vast potential of India's youth, points out Raj Kishore Mishra, the former civil servant turned development professional.
'No one cares about fiscal deficit now. Or for that matter, inflation.' 'The focus is on growth and growth alone.' 'RBI needs to break the risk aversion of banks and infuse adrenaline in their veins', says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the participation of the private sector in the entire range of space activities, including planetary exploration missions, Union minister Jitendra Singh said. The newly-created Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) will provide a level playing field for private companies to use Indian space infrastructure, Singh, who is the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, said.
He also took potshots at opposition parties' decision to observing November 8 as a 'Black Day', saying the move displays their faith in cash economy.
The country's demographic dividend is dissipating, with seriously adverse consequences for young India, asserts Shankar Acharya, former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
India's network has expanded at a compound annual rate of around 4% which has added more than 4.8 km of additional roads since 1951, but even so the network remains badly underdeveloped
In response the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - have taken steps to strengthen cooperation such as setting up a joint development bank
Waves of foreign portfolio investments worth over Rs 51,000 crore splashed into the Indian market in 2021 as overseas investors turned net buyers of domestic securities for the third straight year while excess global liquidity and other factors steered the ebb and flow of their investing ways. With the global financial system still flush with liquidity, emerging market assets, especially equities, might well remain the preferred investment avenue for many more months to come, experts opined. As the equities sizzled during most of 2021, that also saw economy slowly coming back into the recovery path, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) turned net buyers but their investment is much less compared to net inflows of Rs 1.03 lakh crore in 2020.
Sitharaman said economic slowdown seems to have bottomed out and the coming festive season will help the economy start looking up.
Real estate experts say rentals have corrected by 5-10 per cent across formats, including office, retail and housing, with a pick-up expected over the next few quarters as the economy recovers.
But Trump is about to announce his candidacy for president in 2024. And it is not clear if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the present hero of disenchanted Republicans, or Biden, who says he might seek re-election (but will decide in 2023), can checkmate Trump, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
According to a new report by international management consulting firm Arthur D Little, the worst of COVID-19's impact will be felt by India's most vulnerable in terms of job loss, poverty increase and reduced per-capita income, which in turn will result in a steep decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). "Given the continued rise of COVID-19 cases, we believe that a W-shaped recovery is the most likely scenario for India. This implies a GDP contraction of 10.8 per cent in FY 2020-21 and GDP growth of 0.8 per cent in FY 2021-22," the report said.
It is true that the rupee is at least becoming less strong, albeit slowly.
'If we don't want to be the poorest large economy even in 2030, we need to be doing very much more than is being attempted.'
The lawsuit seeks to overturn these sweeping and unlawful immigration restrictions that are an unequivocal not welcome sign to the engineers, executives, IT experts, doctors, nurses, and other critical workers who help drive the American economy.
Observing that the economic recovery was not yet fully entrenched, the RBI Governor said recovery is likely to be gradual.
As part of the programme, the 36 ministers are visiting J&K this week to participate in 60 public interactions at various places in the Union territory," Principal Secretary to the J&K government Rohit Kansal told reporters.
'What Jaishankar says is simplistic.' 'The past does not matter that much.' 'If we think that it does it is because we are not good enough at running the nation competently today and are searching for excuses why,' argues Aakar Patel.
Terming infrastructure as the "backbone" of any nation's development, Goyal while presenting the interim Budget for 2019-20 in the Lok Sabha said India aspires to be a USD 10 trillion economy in the next eight years, and on the anvil is next generation infrastructure of roads, railways, seaports, airports, urban transport, gas and electric transmission and inland waterways.
Listing the series of reforms which led to the upgrade, he said while demonetisation took the economy towards greater formalisation and digitisation, use of Aadhaar ensured targeted delivery of government benefits.
'There is economic danger: Not inflation, but a slowdown that feeds an employment crisis,' says T N Ninan.
The Indian State does not believe in the rule of law. It does not even recognise the need to follow treaties that it itself signed. And so it is refusing to shell out to Cairn; and, as a consequence, has brought on the Paris humiliation, notes Mihir S Sharma.
The budget-making exercise offers golden opportunities despite challenges, observes Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
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