To tackle increasing demand, the Union Ministry of Power has urged central and state public-sector power-generating companies (gencos) and state power and energy departments to pick projects that are undergoing insolvency proceedings. The power ministry is looking at a quicker turnaround of these stressed power plants and enhancing power supply. Increasing demand is pushing states to scout for more power sources. "It is requested that state-owned gencos may be encouraged to participate in the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) of stressed power assets, which are of strategic and commercial significance to the capacity addition plans of the states concerned.
Mining magnate Anil Agarwal's conglomerate on Friday announced a major business shake-up, with flagship Vedanta Ltd approving a spin-off of its metals, power, aluminium and oil and gas businesses into separate listed entities and an overhaul of lucrative zinc unit planned as part of value creation and reducing debt load. Vedanta will issue one share of the five demerged businesses for every share held in the company, the firm said in a statement. The entire exercise, which would require shareholder and lender approval as well as a nod from the stock exchanges and courts, is expected to be completed in 12-15 months, its president for finance Ajay Agarwal said.
'Das is friendly, but he finally does what he does. The quality of engagement is very good.'
During the fourth quarter (January-March), banks step up the activity to meet annual targets. This leads to a race to raise funds from markets often by jacking up deposit rates. This time around, the market has not seen such trend yet.
Enlarging the scope of its investigation, the finance ministry has asked some non-bank finance companies for loans-related information on an urgent basis.
The share of foreign companies in private sector investments, directed towards building new factories and other facilities, has declined over the past six months. A mix of large domestic announcements and relatively lower growth in foreign capital expenditure (capex) plans have played a role, although foreign investments remain near record levels. The share of foreign companies in the overall private sector investments over the four quarters ended June 2023 has dipped to 14.9 per cent, as shown by a Business Standard analysis of data from the project tracker Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
Capital expenditure (capex) by 54 large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and five departmental arms with an annual capex target of Rs 100 crore and above has reached around 42.5 per cent of their annual target of about Rs 7.33 trillion in this financial year so far, a senior official from the Ministry of Finance told Business Standard. "The Centre is pushing the big public undertakings in the infrastructure and refinery sector to achieve 90 per cent of their target by the end of the third quarter," he said. The capex by this group of CPSEs stands at around Rs 3.1 trillion in the April-August period so far.
'Initially, Gift City was just another real estate project, but all that changed with Modi moving to New Delhi,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The infra-major going belly up cracked open some major flaws in the system - the most evident being weak corporate governance and how layers of corporate structures could be formed adding to the opaqueness of the group.
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Modi has plenty of opportunities to test out his strategy. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott will visit India this month, and Modi will fly to Washington towards the end of September for a summit with US President Barack Obama.
There's a hint of new competition riding into a sector that has attracted attention for being in a duopoly-like situation. Rapido, a commute app known for its budget-friendly bike-taxi services, on Tuesday announced its entry into the cab market, which is currently dominated by marquee brands Uber and Ola. Rapido's cab foray will be enabled by a software as a service (SaaS)-based platform.
More and more women are making their presence felt in jobs related to sciences, technology, and engineering across organisations.
Even as India's internet base continues to widen, with the country set to have over 900 internet users by 2025, a parallel rise in cyber threats has become a matter of huge concern. Experts say that the sudden surge in digital adoption left little time to develop a cybersecurity backbone for the country. This has put large amounts of data at risk.
Jaypee, Essar, GMR, GVK, Lanco, Abhijeet groups debt rise despite falling cash flow, says UBS
Underlining the contribution of non-resident Indians, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said remittances sent to the country by overseas Indians were about $100 billion for the year 2022, an increase of 12 per cent in one year. Speaking at a session during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) convention in Madhya Pradesh's Indore city, she described NRIs as the "real ambassadors of India" and appealed to them to use made in India products and services as far as possible so that the country's individual brand can be promoted across the globe. Sitharaman also said that after the "China plus one" policy, the world is now talking about the "European Union (EU) plus one" policy.
'The biggest risk to the Indian markets from a 12-18-month view is that the current government does not get re-elected, or loses in a way that is not represented at all in the next central government.'
The Adani group has exited the financial services business by selling its entire 90 per cent stake in Adani Capital and Adani Housing to private equity (PE) firm Bain Capital for Rs 1,440 crore. The total valuation of the Adani financial services business stands at Rs 1,600 crore. Gaurav Gupta, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Adani firms will hold the rest of the stake.
'What happens in the real estate market is that once the prices go up it goes on to stay at that level.' 'It might not increase and at the same time the prices will not come down too.'
The Union government could target a fiscal deficit of 5.8-6 per cent of nominal GDP for 2023-24, and it should continue its capital expenditure push and look to simplify the personal income tax regime, economists recommended Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team during their pre-Budget interaction on Monday. Starting last week, Sitharaman had eight pre-Budget consultations this time. More than 110 invitees representing seven stakeholder groups participated in these meetings, the finance ministry said in a statement. The stakeholder groups included representatives and experts from agriculture and agro-processing industry; industry, infrastructure & climate change; financial sector and capital markets; services and trade; social sector; trade unions and labour organisations; and economists.
Ride-hailing platform Uber on Wednesday said it is recruiting close to 250 engineers for its teams in Bengaluru and Hyderabad as it continues to expand the scope of operations for its engineering and product work in the country. The current round of hiring will strengthen the company's rider and driver growth, delivery, eats, digital payments, risk and compliance, marketplace, customer obsession, infrastructure, adtech, data, safety and finance technology teams, a statement said. These roles are currently split between the company's Hyderabad and Bengaluru tech centres, it added.
New Delhi's timing couldn't have been worse, both for India's fledgling electric vehicle (EV) sector and prospective electric bike buyers. It was hard to miss the perfect storm brewing for India's EV industry since early 2022. On one hand, you had several accidents involving battery fires that unnerved consumers; on the other, uncertainty had crept in over subsidies.
Delays in implementing power projects, mainly due to fuel issues, could turn Rs 1 lakh crore of bank loans into NPAs if prompt action is not taken, according to a study by KPMG.
Entrepreneurship, education and training will be provided in 2,200 colleges, 300 schools, 500 government ITIs and 50 vocational training centres through massive open online courses.
With 600-700 new NPA cases getting admitted into NCLT every month, the demand for resolution professionals is on the rise with their number more than doubling in less than a year.
The fund is being set up in association with two off-shore partners -- HSH Nordbank, (HSH) Germany and Noor Financial Investment Company of Kuwait. HSH Nordbank is a major financier in the transportation sector especially in shipping and aviation. In India, it has participated in debt financing for the modernisation of the Delhi airport. Noor is the financial arm of NIG Group, a conglomerate.
This month, advertisements for managing directors and the senior management team for the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development or NaBFID, should be out, signalling the start of a financial institution (FI) like no other the country has ever had. For this and other reasons government managers associated with the NaBFID project are convinced it should remain a 100 per cent government-owned entity. This is somewhat different from what former economic affairs secretary Tarun Bajaj said when the NaBFID Bill was being tabled in Parliament earlier this year: "To begin with, it will be 100 per cent government owned.
Public-sector enterprise stocks have seen a good run thus far in 2023-24 (FY24), with the S&P BSE PSU Index surging by over 26 per cent during the period, compared to an 11 per cent increase in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.
American Tower bulks up in India with $1.2 billion Viom stake buy
Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani on Friday resigned as director of Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure, following markets regulator Sebi order restraining him from associating with any listed company. "Anil D Ambani, non-executive director, steps down from the board of Reliance Power in compliance of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) interim order," Reliance Power said in a BSE filing. In a separate filing to the stock exchange, Reliance Infrastructure said that Anil Ambani has stepped down from its board "in compliance of SEBI interim order".
Uniparts India and PNC Infratech are the latest companies to file initial public offer papers.
Sounding a note of caution, former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that India is "dangerously close" to the Hindu rate of growth in view of subdued private sector investment, high interest rates and slowing global growth. Rajan said that sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying. Hindu rate of growth is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged around 4 per cent.
India is an under-penetrated ATM market with only 98 ATMs for every 10 lakh of population.
Air India sale will give a boost to India's privatisation drive, the Economic Survey said on Monday, as it suggested redefining the public sector role in business enterprises to encourage private participation in all sectors. The government earlier this month handed over ownership rights in national carrier Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore. The amount includes the takeover of the debt burden of Rs 15,300 crore and another Rs 2,700 crore in cash.
'The Budget that Mr Jaitley will present on February 29 will be crucial.'
Joe Biden's B3W proposal aims to bring democracies together. India should come up with its own plans to contribute to the initiative, states Rahul Mishra.
The Budget emphasises on capacity building and empowerment of marginalised sections of society including farmers.
The third-quarter financials didn't excite market watchers. But equity investors can still make money if they invest in the right stocks.
41 listed firms made 73 donations to gaushalas (cow shelters) and other cow-related charities over the last four years. The donations range from a few thousand rupees to a million.
