Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
tailwinds of a remarkable year and handsome investor returns, Indian equities are set for an eventful journey in 2024, with a slew of local and global cues -- varying from interest rates to Lok Sabha polls to geopolitical happenings. Analysts are of the view that the bull run in the domestic equity market will continue, and over the next 3-6 months, the benchmark indices -- Sensex and Nifty -- could climb up to 7 per cent. In 2023, the 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 11,399.52 points or 18.73 per cent, and the NSE Nifty climbed 3,626.1 points or 20 per cent.
The government in its budget for the current fiscal decided to borrow Rs 4.5 lakh crore (Rs 4.5 trillion) from the market, up from Rs 3.1 lakh crore (Rs 3.1 trillion) in the previous fiscal.
There will be some populist announcements in Budget.
'You have to be a total anti-national bozo to shut down the Nokia plant in Sriperumbudur, which was the first large manufacturing plant for mobile phones in India.' 'Why was the unit shut down? Because of somebody's ego.'
Hawkish guidance by the US Fed raises concerns it could tie the hands of RBI from trimming rates.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the market regulator, has said, in a submission to the Supreme Court, that it is "enquiring" into the allegations made by American short-seller Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group of companies and its impact on the markets. In the same matter, the central government has agreed to form an expert committee to strengthen the regulatory regime in order to ensure that market investors are protected. The Supreme Court had last week suggested an expert committee to look into the allegations and had asked the Centre for its response.
These schemes are expected to perform in the next 2-3 years.
Among index funds, the most popular products are funds tracking the Nifty 50 and Sensex, says Dwaipayan Bose, and explains the finer points of selecting the right index mutual fund.
Those who want to invest should consider their risk appetite. Youngsters may go for it as they have a longer horizon to recover from a setback.
A vast majority of the business leaders believe that the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes have been beneficial and expect an extension to other sectors in the coming years, a Deloitte Survey said on Friday. An overwhelming number of survey respondents hope the budget will fuel growth across industries by building strong domestic demand and focussing on capital expenditure and believe that it would define the 'Amrit Kaal'. "Critical to this growth will be the pace of capital expenditure, infrastructure development, and the need to boost infrastructure financing through private partnership. 60 per cent of respondents suggested raising funds through Indian Government Bonds," the survey said.
Embattled Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal walked out of the Tihar Jail on Friday evening, hours after the Supreme Court granted him interim bail in a money laundering case to enable him to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections, in a huge relief to his party struggling to gain momentum in the absence of its foremost leader.
Movement in the equity market this week will largely be dictated by quarterly earnings of blue-chip firms HDFC Bank and Hindustan Unilever, along with the announcement of WPI inflation data and global trends, analysts said. Trading activity of foreign investors, global oil benchmark Brent crude and rupee-dollar trend would also guide the movement.
Gold is an excellent asset class for diversification and should be included in all long-term portfolios.
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
After meeting party leaders in the area, Majumdar went straight to Sandeshkhali police station and later started a sit-in outside it.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
From the Sensex pack, Tata Steel declined 3.45 per cent, followed by Tata Motors which fell by 3.19 per cent. Bajaj Finserv, NTPC, JSW Steel, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro and Bharti Airtel were among the other major laggards. Nestle, Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever and Tech Mahindra were the gainers.
MEA xpokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India continues to closely follow the developments in Sri Lanka and that it is aware of the many challenges that the country and its people have been facing.
Modi told US lawmakers, "I can understand the debate of ideas and ideology. But I am delighted to see you come together today, to celebrate the bond between the world's two great democracies -- India and the United States.
Apprehending a sharp decline in business, mutual funds including UTI AMC have asked Finance Minister P Chidambaram to exempt all debt instruments from the proposed 0.15 per cent transaction tax.
'The BJP has started a war-like situation against farmers and the Jat community.'
The government of India has outlined a plan to spend $1 trillion in next 10 years on infrastructure development. This development is necessary because infrastructure needs support to sustain the projected growth rate of Indian economy for next few decades.
Cricket climate change to medical practice, dropped candidates have their non-political life sorted.
To arrest the rupee slide, RBI on Monday increased FII limit in government bonds to USD 20 billion, while allowing up to USD 10 billion from overseas borrowings by India Inc for refinancing rupee loan.
Besides India, the other affected countries are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana. The pilot scheme is expected to run for a year from this November before being extended to all visa types.
'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.' 'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
Away from the courtroom and legal circles, Nariman was a familiar figure for residents of Hauz Khas who would see him walk regularly, even in the cold winter months of December and January.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta, which had allowed anticipatory bail to Surat resident Tusharbhai Rajnikantbhai Shah in a cheating case, got irked when it was informed that the businessman was remanded in police custody.
Many banks' profits will take a hit and a few of them could even end up being in the red because of treasury losses, triggered by a sudden spike in government bond yields in the rising interest rate cycle, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
Asserting that his government's decision to ban instant triple talaq has boosted the overall sense of security for Muslim women, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked Bharatiya Janata Party leaders to reach out to them during the upcoming festival of Raksha Bandhan.
Brands such as Gap, Primark and C&A which source some of their garments from Tamil Nadu say they do regular audits to ensure their suppliers comply with their codes of conduct.
Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani has said the Ram Janmbhoomi movement, whose primary objective was construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, also became a symbol of 'reclaiming the true meaning of secularism from the onslaught of pseudo-secularism'.
Among the Sensex firms, Bajaj Finance jumped the most by 4.64 per cent. Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, NTPC, JSW Steel and Tata Steel were among the major gainers. Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, IndusInd Bank and HCL Technologies were the major laggards.
'We are cautious only on sub-sectors that have seen massive melt-up during the past six months.'
If investing in Bitcoin, adopt a three to five-year horizon and invest systematically to gain from its volatility.
El-Sisi welcomed Modi, who is on a two-day state visit to Egypt, at the Presidential Palace where the two leaders were closeted for one-on-one meeting after which the two sides signed a memorandum of understandng.
