Cheaper ripoffs was how China powered its way as an economic superpower but hitherto the tech realm had remained out of bounds. With DeepSeek's AI model the West, it seemed, was about to lose its competitive edge in cutting edge generative AI technology. And this is what is causing deep furrows in the forehead of tech titans in Silicon Valley.
The Trump trade shock is a chance to push long-overdue reforms, rather than tinker with tariffs to appease the US, suggests M Govinda Rao.
India's economy grew 7.8 per cent in the March quarter, pushing up the annual growth rate to 8.2 per cent, according to official data released on Friday. Growth in the January-March period was lower than the 8.6 per cent expansion in the December quarter.
Rising demand for premium devices, led by Apple and Samsung, is expected to increase India's smartphone market size to over $50 billion (about Rs 428,900 crore) this year, market research firm Counterpoint Technology Market Research said on Friday. The Indian smartphone market size was estimated at $37.9 billion (about Rs 3.25 lakh crore) in 2021, according to the research firm.
The central government is likely to further consolidate its fiscal deficit by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.9 per cent in FY24 from 6.4 per cent in FY23, according to a recent report released by Goldman Sachs on Tuesday. In the current fiscal year, there is going to be an upside of 0.5 per cent on the receipts side due to higher nominal GDP growth, and higher tax buoyancy because of the formalisation, the report said. The upside to expenditure is mainly going to come from incremental subsidies (0.8 per cent of GDP), in both food and fertilizer, it said. The upcoming pre-election Budget will carry forward the trend of the increased capital expenditure seen in recent years.
Updated new base years for national accounts and other macro-indicators are expected to come into effect from January-February 2026, coinciding with the first and second advance estimates of national income for FY26, senior official sources aware of the development told Business Standard. "The statistics ministry set up the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) earlier this week. "It will advise on the base year for GDP (gross domestic product) and its alignment with other macro-indicators.
Pushpa 2's advance bookings have set a new record, with advance bookings standing at Rs 50 crore on Day One.
States are on track of fiscal consolidation with their total borrowings reaching Rs 5 trillion till October, which is 60 per cent of the projected borrowings of Rs 8.38 trillion till December 2024, according to data from official sources. Government officials said the lower-than-projected borrowings by states were a sign of prudent fiscal management by them. States announce their borrowing plans every quarter.
The finance minister, in her Budget speech, should focus more on what she is directly responsible for, rather than on programmes where her role is largely supportive, notes Nitin Desai.
'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
September 15 is the deadline for paying the second instalment of advance tax. This is income-tax (I-T) taxpayers need to pay every quarter, instead of a lump sum at the end of the year. Ashutosh K Srivastava, senior associate, SKV Law Offices, says, "The tax has to be usually paid when income is earned. "Nonetheless, according to the I-T Act, the taxpayer has to estimate his income for the entire financial year. Based on that, he/she pays tax at specific intervals."
The Interim Budget for 2024-25 (FY25) to be presented on February 1 is likely to assume 10-10.5 per cent nominal gross domestic product (GDP) growth against 8.9 per cent estimated for FY24 by the National Statistical Office (NSO). "We were waiting for the First Advance Estimates GDP numbers for FY24. "We will finalise the nominal GDP growth assumption for FY25 Interim Budget in a couple of days.
Analysts estimate that Pushpa 2 (in all languages) will become the fastest film to cross the Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) mark.
'Our production capacity ramp-up initiatives are expected to meet the critical requirements of our armed forces.'
Naval assets take years to build, and therefore, not only is futuristic force planning essential, but indigenous projects must also be put into the pipeline, technologies developed and contracts for assets signed regularly so that the Indian Navy always remains a future-focussed force, asserts Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (retd).
Usually, turmeric is grown over 290,000-330,000 hectares of land. But in 2022-2023, according to official estimates, there has been a drop of about 10,000 hectares.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone as he testified in open court for the first time in Tel Aviv in his years-long corruption trial on Sunday.
Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday said describing India's recovery as 'K-shaped' was wrong as both rural and urban economies were recovering, albeit at different paces. Speaking to reporters at the Finance Ministry, Nageswaran said the gross domestic product (GDP) growth print for the recent October-December quarter (Q3FY23) will likely be revised upwards. "The notion of using the letter 'K' to denote urban and rural is somewhat wrong because it is almost as if one is growing and one is contracting. "I would say one segment's slope is more positive, and the other one slope is less positive but it is positive," Nageswaran said.
Will allowing business correspondents to hawk insurance products help in reviving 5-lakh strong field agents as a viable channel?
In the months immediately following the 2024 tragedy, reporting on the landslide per se had been a straightforward affair. On one side was death and destruction. On the other side, survivors and the business of survival. It was black and white. What direction to take was clear. Rehabilitation in comparison, felt like a complex situation. One that is fraught with shades of grey. As grey as human life, explains Shyam G Menon.
According to the first advance estimates of crop production for 2007-08 report that was released on Wednesday, India can expect record production in maize, oybean, cotton and sugarcane crops.
Several leading scientists, academicians, and agriculturalists have called for raising government support for research and development to make Indian agriculture future-ready.
Gross value added in agriculture and allied activities clocked a healthy growth rate of 4.5 per cent at constant prices in the second quarter of FY22, up from 3 per cent during the same period last fiscal year and 3.5 per cent in Q2 of 2019-20. In the first quarter of FY22, gross value added in the sector was also 4.5 per cent. Growth in current prices was also a healthy 7.9 per cent in July-September 2021-22, up from 7.3 per cent in the same quarter last fiscal year. It was slightly less than the 8.7 per cent of the second quarter of 2019-20.
He said that as compared to global models costing 2.5 to 3 US dollars per hour usage, India's AI model will cost less than less than Rs 100 per hour (1.16 US dollars per hour) after 40 percent government subsidy.
India's economic growth slowed down to 4.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2022-23 mainly due to poor performance of the manufacturing sector. In October-December 2021, the economy grew by 11.2 per cent and by 6.3 per cent in the July-September 2022 quarter, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Tuesday.
'The first and most basic responsibility of any government is to protect its people from external threats and internal harm.' 'Budget 2025-2026 has to focus on meeting this responsibility,' asserts R Jagannathan.
Latest GDP growth numbers a one-off development and not the beginning of a trend, says CEA V Anantha Nageswaran.
The finance minister's assertion that industry should not expect any spectacular announcements in the 2024 interim Budget suggest that the electoral imperatives of more tax concessions or higher expenditure on welfarist programmes could be far less pronounced than they were before the 2019 interim Budget, expects A K Bhattacharya.
'Son believes India has a significant opportunity in chip design, especially in creating IP that will be uniquely Indian.'
It will be the second Budget of the Modi 3.0 government and eighth straight Budget for Nirmala Sitharaman, rare in Indian polity.
'The economy is clearly at a very soft spot, and earnings growth is disappointing every day.' 'After three great years, the Indian economy has hit a rough patch.'
The wedding season in Delhi has kicked off, with an estimated 4.5 lakh weddings expected over the next three weeks. Delhi Police are preparing for heavy traffic congestion and have deployed additional personnel to manage the situation. The season is also expected to provide a significant economic boost to the city, with wedding vendors reporting a surge in bookings.
The year 2024 was the hottest year on record, with the global average temperature exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time, according to the European climate agency Copernicus. Every month from January to June was the warmest ever recorded, and from July to December (except August), each month was the second warmest on record. Scientists are warning that the world is entering a new climate reality, with extreme heatwaves, floods, and storms becoming more frequent and severe. The report also highlights the failure of developed nations to meet their climate finance commitments to developing countries, despite the urgency of the situation.
A ramp-up in COVID-19 vaccination, healthy advance estimates of kharif (summer) crop and faster government spending were the factors which led to the revision, the agency said in a statement. It can be noted that after the 7.3 per cent contraction in 2020-21, there were expectations of a higher growth number in 2021-22.
India's GDP estimates for 2020-21 show that the economy is expected to perform much better than earlier projections by different agencies, indicating a sustained V-shape post-lockdown recovery, experts said. The first Advance Estimates (AE) by the National Statistics Office (NSO) has projected a contraction of 7.7 per cent in the real GDP during 2020-21. This was better than the projections by certain international agencies like the IMF and World Bank.
This is the first time in decades that China has made its flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile public in an apparent show of strategic deterrence, State-run China Daily reported.
Now that the economy is growing at a higher-than-expected rate, it is time to accelerate the pace of fiscal consolidation, and the Budget could be a good starting point, argues Rajesh Kumar.
The Union cabinet on Wednesday accepted the recommendations of the high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind on simultaneous elections.
It is not a good idea to take the line that since demonetisation happened in the third quarter, everything that happened then was a consequence of that, says Chief Statistician TCA Anant.
The makers of Khel Khel Mein and Vedaa could not have imagined the kind of euphoria that Stree 2 would bring and in the end, emerge as the first choice of audiences.
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