'We may have moved back three decades on the fiscal situation,' notes T N Ninan.
UBS, Credit Suisse see emerging markets doing well next year, but expect India to underperform, given its rich valuations.
Imports during October also rose by 17.62 per cent to $44.11 billion, leading to widening of trade deficit to $17.13 billion.
After extricating five bodies from an abandoned coal mine in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district, government authorities and the Eastern Coalfields limited Wednesday called off the rescue operation, while locals and leaders of political parties claimed more people were still trapped under the debris.
Oil sank to the lowest level in a month after shedding all of its gains from the US-Iran clash as traders waited to see whether any further hostilities will disrupt exports from the East Asia.
The budget-making exercise offers golden opportunities despite challenges, observes Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
Had Finance Minister Sitharaman thought a little more about the middle class, disadvantaged sections, and the poor who are struggling, it would have been an inclusive Budget that would have made history, notes Ramesh Menon.
The Narendra Modi government's alacrity in promoting ease of tax administration, a critical component in the ease of doing business index, has set in motion several incremental policy and administrative reforms, says Mukesh Butani.
'When bankers are hounded by investigative agencies for credit decisions going wrong and defaulters are treated like outcasts, who will borrow money and who will lend?' asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The SJB has begun to collect signatures from MPs for the no-confidence motion, according to media reports.
Senior bureaucrats say the government has planned a 'feel-good' Budget after the 'pain' of demonetisation.
In fact, no other recent Union Budget has held so much significance for the Indian economy as the one to be presented in about six weeks from now, notes A K Bhattacharya.
'Good investment opportunities should not be missed.'
The pandemic has led to the International Finance Corporation massively ramping up its impact investment in the country - its largest client nation globally - at $1.7 billion as of June, a 51 per cent rise over the past 12 months, the largest developmental lender into third world private sector said on Tuesday. This is nearly half of its investment in the whole of South Asia since the pandemic, which touched $3.8 billion as of June 2021, it said. "Our total commitment to India, which is our largest client country globally, at the end of June stood at $1.7 billion representing an increase of over 51 per cent from last year," IFC vice-president for Asia and the Pacific region Alfonso Garcia Mora said in a statement.
Bankers said as part of its debt reduction plan, Canada's Brookfield-sponsored India Infrastructure Trust acquired a pipeline for Rs 13,000 crore from East West Pipeline Ltd, an arm of Reliance Industries Holding Private Ltd, and all the liabilities are now off the subsidiary's books.
How do we get back to higher trend growth? The heart of the problem lies in private corporate investment, recommends Ajay Shah.
'A lot of first-time users who have entered the markets after Covid are increasingly investing in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and stocks for their long-term goals.'
FY22 will be the year to rebuild with the IMF projecting output growth at 11.5 per cent, economic survey at 11.0 per cent and the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee at 10.5 per cent.
'How can you explain the necessity of selling an institution that has been delivering regular returns to the government, that has never asked for any capital from the government, that has invested Rs 38 lakh crores in the Indian economy and that owns 4 per cent of the market capitalisation in India?'
The broad trends of GST collections will make you wonder if indeed the biggest indirect tax reform in the country has led to a real improvement in revenues, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Family philanthropy has proven resilient throughout the pandemic and grew to nearly Rs 12,000 crore in fiscal year 2020, accounting for almost two-thirds of the rise in private sector funding since FY19, says a report. According to the India Philanthropy Report 2021, co-created by Bain and Company and Dasra, funding from family philanthropy has tripled its corpus, growing to nearly Rs 12,000 crore in FY 2020. As per the report, in FY 2020, private-sector funding which stems from four sources including foreign, corporate, retail, and high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) or families totalled about Rs 64,000 crore and 20 per cent of this came from family philanthropy. While foreign contributions account for a quarter of all funding, domestic corporation donations also known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) account for 28 per cent and retail investors account for another 28 per cent.
On the Sensex chart, IndusInd Bank was the top gainer, rallying over 11 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC, M&M and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Dr Reddy's, Tech Mahindra and TCS were among the laggards.
As FY20 Budget fiscal measures need to be better understood, a reversal of the stance back to neutral will allow MPC flexibility to respond to incoming data.
The government is pushing the public sector behemoth ONGC to involve private sector companies and service providers wherever possible to help raise oil and gas production, Petroleum Secretary Tarun Kapoor said Thursday. Kapoor's comments came days after the second-highest ranked official in his ministry asked Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to give away a 60 per cent stake plus operating control in India's largest oil and gas producing fields of Mumbai High and Bassein to foreign companies. "ONGC has to explore more so that it can discover more oil and gas reserves and bring them quickly to production to raise domestic output. The government is very clear that ONGC has to do more," he told reporters.
"We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations -- one that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending people's lives. But this is much more than a health crisis. It is a human crisis," Guterres said.
With funds more readily available, Fitch expects a portion of stalled housing projects to resume construction, and this will feed into its forecasts for India's buildings sector growth in the short term.
India's manufacturing sector activity strengthened in December, with manufacturers stepping up production and input buying amid efforts to rebuild their inventories following business closures earlier in the year, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was at 56.4 in December, a tick higher than November's reading of 56.3 and above the critical 50 threshold for the fifth straight month. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.
Of the total 53,334 cases of frauds reported during 2008-09 and 2018-19 fiscal years, involving a whopping Rs 2.05 lakh crore, a highest of 6,811 cases were reported by the ICICI Bank.
'We are not able to manufacture even low-end products as cheaply as China.' 'We are not buying Chinese goods today out of any love for China.'
April policy could be all about RBI communication.
Smart work can help you more than hard work.
Nearly 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, but an internationally coordinated policy response can help lower the impact on global unemployment, according to a UN agency. In its preliminary assessment report titled 'COVID-19 and world of work: Impacts and responses', the International Labour Organization (ILO) calls for urgent, large-scale and coordinated measures across three pillars -- protecting workers in the workplace, stimulating the economy and employment, and supporting jobs and incomes.
The GST Council on Friday left taxes on COVID-19 vaccines and medical supplies unchanged after the BJP- and Opposition-ruled states sparred over whether tax cut benefits will reach the common man. Congress and other Opposition ruled states have been demanding a reduction in taxes but the central government felt the move may not result in tangible gains for people. "It is one thing to rush to say - do this, it will benefit the common man. But when the technical, fitment and law committees go into the details, you realise that that could have collateral impact on many others," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. "I am not talking about the revenue generation aspect, but how many other items will get included in it as a result of which how you are going to implement it," she added.
'The attempt to build a negative narrative about India's economic performance is disingenuous.' 'For the investors as well as the targeted beneficiaries of welfare schemes, the ground reality is very different,' argues Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman, NITI Aayog.
Finance minister tries to put house in order before reforms are unveiled in February.
China on Friday hiked its defence budget to $209 billion, maintaining a single-digit growth for the sixth consecutive year with a 6.8 per cent increase in 2021.
'Fiscal purists would quarrel with the idea of selling assets to pay for current expenditure -- such as the payout to farmers and the health insurance programme -- for the obvious reason that the process cannot go on forever.' 'At some point, the list of assets available for sale will run out,' notes T N Ninan.consultations -- something already aired in connection with the lease of airports to the Adani group, says T N Ninan.
Kerala has seen one of the worst floods in its history during this monsoon. From August 8 to 20, nearly 223 people have lost their lives, 33 are missing and around 1.2 million individuals from 3,02,441 families are in 3,941 relief camps. Initial losses are estimated to be around Rs 200 billion (Rs 20,000 crore). With the rescue measures in its last leg, the Kerala government is looking at raising funds to rebuild the state. In an interaction with Gireesh Babu and T E Narasimhan, Kerala Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac says he has a three-pronged strategy to raise funds. Edited Excerpts.
Moody's Investors Service on Friday slashed its estimate of India's GDP growth during the 2020 calendar year to 2.5 per cent from an earlier estimate of 5.3 per cent, on account of the rising economic cost of the coronavirus pandemic.
Besides advancing the presentation of the Budget to perhaps the first week of January, , there are four new initiatives that could be rolled out from the next Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
