Led by healthy growth in coal, crude oil, fertilisers, cement and electricity production, output of eight core industries grew to a 13-month high of 18.1 per cent in May this year, according to official data released on Thursday. The growth of core infrastructure sectors expanded by 16.4 per cent in the year-ago period and 9.3 per cent in April this year. The last high growth was recorded in April 2021 when it was 62.6 per cent.
The IT services giant is also slated to hold a board meeting on April 13 and 14, to approve of and take on record the consolidated financial results of the company for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2021. Indian IT majors will be announcing their fourth quarter (Q4) and 2020-21 results starting April 12. At the end of the Q3 FY21 Infosys had cash and investment of $4.5 billion.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is set to secure a $2 billion deal from Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) to roll out its 4G and 5G services across the country. However, the final approvals from the publicly-owned telco may take a couple of months, sources in the know said. As part of the deal, TCS will develop 4G core and Radio Access Network (RAN) technology for BSNL's telecom services.
The government, it would seem, is reserving its firepower to spend on big-ticket items that will be announced in the Budget, reports Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
Employee costs for Indian IT services players have touched an all-time high as salaries soar in their effort to retain talent. Engineer salaries are going through the roof. According to a news report, Infosys, which reported a 27.7 per cent attrition rate for the fourth quarter of FY22, plans to have an average salary hike of 12-13 per cent. High potential employees will get increases of 22-23 per cent.
The Centre is staring at a combined shortfall of up to Rs 1 trillion in excise and Customs revenues in the current financial year (FY23) compared to the Budget estimates (BE), mainly because of duty cuts on edible oil and petroleum products. The government set a target of Rs 3.35 trillion for excise and Rs 2.13 trillion for Customs mop-up for FY23 while presenting the Budget in February. "As excise duty collection is mainly driven by diesel volumes, we might see a clear gap in the level budgeted for FY23, following the reduction in cesses on petrol and diesel in May. We are expecting somewhere between Rs 80,000 crore and Rs 1 trillion dip in excise and customs duty collections," a senior government official told Business Standard.
Despite strong AUM growth, MFs lag behind other popular investment avenues. MFs received only 6 per cent of total household savings in 2021-2022.
The 62 per cent increase in natural gas prices by the Indian government will boost the profitability of upstream companies in the country and support their investment spending, Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday. The price for gas from fields that were assigned by the state to oil companies, mainly Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL), increased to $2.90 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) for October 2021-March 2022, from $1.79 per mmBtu in the previous six months. "Higher gas prices will increase the input cost for key end-consumer sectors, to the extent the price hike is passed on," Fitch said.
The bull run in the Indian equity markets is intact, said analysts at Morgan Stanley in a recent note. They expect the S&P BSE Sensex to hit 80,000 levels by December 2023 in their bull-case scenario, to which they have assigned a 30 per cent probability. From the current level, this translates into an upside of nearly 29 per cent.
While commercial vehicles are expected to benefit from strong replacement demand, the two-wheeler and tractor segments are expected to gain from a recovery in the rural economy.
Bank credit offtake is expected to pick up following normalisation of economic activities aided by the government thrust on public expenditure in current fiscal year, a report said. According to the Care Edge report, the gross non-performing assets (GNPA) ratio hit a six-year low of 5.9 per cent in FY22 but remained above the pre-asset quality review of 2015-16. However, it said, India's NPA ratio is one of the highest among the comparable countries despite gradual decline.
No expecting mother ever needs to travel for more than 30 minutes to reach one of their hospitals, believes the Cloudnine group.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 12.4 million subscribers in the first quarter of FY22, the most since the fourth quarter of FY20, as the second wave of Covid hurt its operational and financial performance. Vi had managed to trim subscriber losses in the third and fourth quarters of FY21. However, it lost 12.4 million subscribers and its customer base shrunk to 255.4 million in the first quarter of FY22. Sequential fall in 4G users was modest, indicating that most of the loss was in the low-margin 2G segment.
The number of centrally sponsored schemes have increased to 35 in FY22 from 30 in FY21 and central sector schemes have increased to 704 from 685 in the previous year, reports Dilasha Seth.
Axis Bank on Thursday reported a 54 per cent jump in its standalone net profit to Rs 4,117.77 crore for the quarter ended March 2022. The country's third-largest private sector lender had posted a net profit of Rs 2,677.06 crore in the year-ago period. The total income (standalone) rose to Rs 21,999.58 crore in the January-March period of 2021-22 against Rs 19,035.12 crore in the same period of 2020-21, Axis Bank said in a regulatory filing. For the full 2021-22, the net profit nearly doubled to Rs 13,025.48 crore from Rs 6,588.50 crore in 2020-21.
India's second-largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday posted more than twofold year-on-year jump in its consolidated net profit for the March quarter to Rs 2,008 crore, buoyed by a lift in average revenue per user and an exceptional gain. The telco said its Q4 scorecard was backed by strong performance delivery across the portfolio and its CEO Gopal Vittal, in a statement, exuded optimism about opportunities in the coming years and Airtel being "well-poised" as a company. Airtel, which competes in the market with Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea, as well as state-owned BSNL/MTNL, promised to maintain razor sharp focus on financial flexibility, optimising the capital structure and finance cost.
India will have 30 per cent of its two-wheeler industry turning electric by 2030 as new manufacturers lead the shift, said a report on Monday. Passenger vehicles will be 15 per cent electric and the three-wheeler segment 75 per cent electric by 2030, said the report by BNP Paribas called 'India Autos-Electric vehicles: Minutes to midnight'. "We see FY22 as the year of inflection for the two-wheeler EV industry, with an accelerated EV adoption helped by incentives, wider availability, model launches, rise in crude prices and improved general awareness. We see 30 per cent of the 2W industry turning electric by 2030; the pace of incentive withdrawal presents an upside/downside risk," the report (India Autos - Electric vehicles: Minutes to midnight) said.
PowerGrid was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 4 per cent, followed by ITC, Bajaj Finance, Infosys, NTPC and Tech Mahindra. NSE Nifty advanced 117.15 points to 17,072.60.
The Tata group is planning to invest $90 billion in new industries such as mobile components plant, semiconductor, electric vehicles, batteries, renewables energy and e-commerce by 2027. The Tata group's investment in India is far higher than the $75-billion investments planned by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and $55-billion investment planned by the Adani group in the next five years in the country, the Economist reported recently. The investment by the Tata group is a shift in its strategy to focus more in the home markets instead of international markets where the group lost money.
Officials were surprised at how quickly smugglers appraised the Covid situation to recruit jobless migrant workers to ship gold.
Shares of Yes Bank may face selling pressure as the Reserve Bank-mandated three-year lock-in period for individual investors and exchange-traded funds is ending on Monday, according to analysts. The analysts expect distress on the bank counter on Monday as they expect investors, primarily the nine banks led by State Bank, which picked up almost 49 per cent of its stocks in March 2020 for Rs 10 per share -- at a premium of Rs 8 on the face value as part of the RBI bailout, making an exit. Exchange-traded funds are also likely to press the exit button.
China's covid crisis could provoke a raw material crunch for India's EV industry later this year.
Slowing growth and execution challenges for Cognizant (CTSH) may well allow Infosys to overtake the former after a decade. Cognizant had marched ahead of Infosys in terms of revenue in the first quarter of financial year 2012-13. The Nasdaq-listed IT services firm's performance in Q3 and the guidance for Q4 and full-year 2022 suggest that it could take time for Cognizant to see the expected improvement in performance from its decision to restructure.
The economy faces more downside risks now as economic disruptions arising from the second wave are likely to stabilise only from July, warned the Swiss brokerage USB Securities. Last month, the brokerage had cut its GDP forecast by 150 bps to 10 per cent for FY22, which though is much higher than the consensus projections by others with some pegging it at as low as 8 per cent. Though adverse impacts on sequential growth is less severe than in the June 2020 quarter when it plunged by 23.9 per cent, as lockdowns are more targeted and localised and households and businesses have adjusted to the new normal now, still, it is increasingly possible that normalcy returns only by July as against our baseline assumption of June.
The economy is likely to register a 9.5 per cent growth this fiscal over 7.3 per cent contraction last year, as the ongoing recovery is faster and more credible than earlier foreseen, according to a foreign brokerage report. It will gather more momentum in the second half of the current fiscal, but will slow down to 7.7 per cent next financial year, it added. The government has budgeted for a 10.5 per cent growth this fiscal, but the Reserve Bank has scaled it down to 9.5 per cent.
Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday indicated that the much-delayed privatisation of oil major BPCL may not happen in the near future, saying there is "no proposal whatsoever" on his table for now. As part of its asset monetisation plan, the government had in November 2019 put Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) on the block and said it would completely sell its 52.98 per cent stake in the country's second largest state-run oil refiner and marketer. Though it had received three tentative bids, it got only one financial bid from Vedanta group, forcing it in May 2022 to shelve the plan pending a "comprehensive review".
Ending its uncomfortable journey in India after eight years, Malaysia-based AirAsia Group on Wednesday said it has exited AirAsia India by selling its remaining 16.67 per cent stake to Tata Group-owned Air India for Rs 155.64 crore. Later in the day, Air India said it has begun the process of creating a single low-cost carrier subsidiary by merging AirAsia India and Air India Express. A working group consisting AirAsia India CEO Sunil Bhaskaran and Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh has been formed for the two carriers' integration, which is expected to take approximately 12 months, it added.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) outstanding net forward purchases of US dollars fell by more than 50 per cent from the last quarter of FY22 to $30.86 billion in the June quarter (Q1). The net forwards position was at $65.79 billion at the end of the last fiscal year. The purchases fell by $18.33 billion in June as the central bank intervened in both the forwards and the spot market in order to protect the rupee from excessive depreciation in the face of a widening trade deficit.
India's widening current account deficit (CAD), driven by the massive spike in commodity prices led by crude oil, is set to put pressure on the fragile recovery, warns a brokerage report that has revised upwards its CAD forecast to $45 billion or 1.4 per cent of GDP by March. According to a report by British brokerage Barclays, the worries arise from the fact that the trade deficit has been jumping continuously since July. From an average monthly trade deficit of $12 billion till June, it has jumped to $16.8 billion in July-October, with September showing the highest-ever trade deficit on record at $22.6 billion, the report said.
As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic abates, India's automakers are hopeful of a quick recovery in sales volumes, led by better rural sentiment, low interest rates, improved availability of finance and a gradual uptick in business and economic activity. In fact, companies have started to ramp up production already, encouraged by high order books and the growing preference for private transport in both rural and urban areas as a means to avoid infections. In early April, the industry had been bullish as the sales trend for March showed that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic had been left behind. The total vehicle sales had grown by 77 per cent, albeit on a lower base, and for the past few months, sales had consistently touched 300,000 units per month.
Days after Moody's cut its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for financial year 2022-23 (FY23) after the official GDP print for the June quarter came in lower than expectations, the global ratings agency said it would maintain its long-term sovereign debt credit rating and outlook on Asia's third-largest economy. "The credit profile of India reflects key strengths, including its large and diversified economy with high growth potential, a relatively strong external position, and a stable domestic financing base for government debt," Moody's said on Tuesday. "We do not expect rising challenges to the global economy, including the impact of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict, higher inflation, and the tightening financial conditions on the back of policy tightening, to derail India's ongoing recovery from the pandemic in 2022 and 2023," it said.
The two-wheeler sector has been underperforming its peers on the volumes front for over five quarters now. Even in the March quarter, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp posted a 17-24 per cent YoY decline in volumes, the sharpest in the listed auto universe. The ongoing impact of frequent price hikes, all-time high fuel prices, and muted rural sentiment has led to the lacklustre showing by two-wheeler makers. What has aggravated the situation for two-wheeler companies, which get almost all their sales from the internal combustion engine or ICE-based units, is the traction for electric two-wheelers (EV).
Enthused by rising potato prices after a prolonged slump, Pradeep Sharma was planning to sow the crop on his 15-acre farm near Agra slightly earlier than usual. The delayed departure of the southwest monsoon also prompted his decision, since the good soil moisture would have saved at least one initial irrigation. But the acute shortage of diammonium phosphate (DAP), a crucial nutrient ahead of the sowing season for potatoes, nipped those hopes in the bud. DAP is the second-most used fertiliser in the country after urea.
'In the short term, we may see some disruptions due to Covid, but in the medium-to-long term, we should keep an eye on US inflation and 10-year bond yields.'
Fitch expected economic activity to contract by 5 per cent in FY21 due to the strict lockdown measures imposed since March 25, before rebounding by 9.5 per cent in FY22.
Some states are taking a legal view on the state GST rate and the compensation rules ahead of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting, which is likely to be held in mid-June, said people in the know. While the agenda is still being finalised, several states are likely to take up the matter related to GST compensation and may pitch for its continuation beyond the June 30 deadline. States would like to know how they would divide the compensation collected after June 2022 for payment of principal and interest of compensation shortfall borrowing and arrears to states, sources said.
A month-long national lockdown to arrest the spread of COVID 2.0 could shave off 100-200 bps of GDP, leading to a 300 bps risk to annual growth, a brokerage report has flagged while expressing doubts over the ability of local lockdowns to control the pandemic. The second wave of the coronavirus inflection has caught the government off-guard with the daily cases jumping over 6.5 times in the past 30 days. With close to 3.53 lakh fresh daily infections, the country is the worst hit globally.
Fitch Ratings on Thursday said the resurgence of COVID-19 infections may delay India's economic recovery, but won't derail it, as it kept the sovereign rating unchanged at 'BBB-' with a negative outlook. It projected a 12.8 per cent recovery in GDP in the fiscal year ending March 2022 (FY22), moderating to 5.8 per cent in FY23, from an estimated contraction of 7.5 per cent in 2020-21. Fitch had in June last year revised outlook for India to 'negative' from 'stable' on grounds that the coronavirus pandemic had significantly weakened the country's growth outlook and exposed the challenges associated with a high public debt burden.
Of $90 billion remittances that India is expected to receive in 2022, only $27.4 billion has come in the first half of the year.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances