Since January this year, Indian exporters have begun to dread the shipping news. That's because most of it would be about another lot of shipping companies deciding to avoid Indian ports on account of delays.
Rogue lending under political influence was rife in the Congress-led regime and is not happening in the Modi regime, certainly not on that scale. But if PSBs cannot lend as indiscriminately as they did last time in the name of 'credit expansion', how well will these banks do, asks Debashis Basu.
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.
'Cyrus was always very different. He would think before acting.'
In her fourth tranche of the economic package, she said commercial mining will be done on revenue sharing mechanism instead of the regime of fixed rupee/tonne.
A business in India wanting access to maps and geospatial data would typically have to wait months before it got what it wanted. All this is set to change with the new guidelines on geospatial data, report Neha Alawadhi and Peerzada Abrar.
The government has cleared 19 foreign investment proposals, including that of Walt Disney Company and Reckitt Benckiser (India), entailing total investment of Rs 2,326.72 crore (Rs 23.26 billion).
Barring stray references such as the 'dual control' of banks and shifting the goalposts during demonetisation, he is not in a fault-finding mode with the government, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
In an email interview with Ranju Sarkar, International Finance Corporation's South Asia director Mengistu Alemayehu explains why the firm is bullish on building affordable homes in India.
Most of the NBFCs do not take public deposits but that does not mean they cannot create systemic risks. The banking system has at least Rs 57,000 crore exposure to IL&FS. Haven't the banks invested public money in IL&FS papers, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Wipro, Steel Authority of India, HDFC Bank, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, Bharat Heavy Electricals and Reliance Commnications among companies reporting a decline in headcount in FY17.
Employees across segments, including those involved in specialised jobs such as technology, compliance and risk management, have started leaving the bank fold in hordes, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your stock market queries.
'We get to know secrets such as some of India's top-rated firms do not always make payments when due and many State-owned, listed, enterprises that borrow in bond markets default regularly.' 'Without naming the bank, he says that ever-greening of poor loans by a part of India's shadow banking lay at the doorstep of India's banking, notably 'one private bank'.' Viral Acharya's Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India won't be music to many ears, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Unlike RIL, the Adani group has not yet brought in any big stakeholders to refinance debt or expand.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
For the wealthy, post-tax returns of debt funds would work out better
A major chunk of this FDI would flow through induction of foreign stake in telecom infrastructure provider Aster Infrastructure Ltd. The Secunderabad-based company plans to hike foreign stake to 72.5 per cent for Rs 232.58 crore (Rs 2.32 billion).
Acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, in a written reply, said Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Petroleum Ltd was one of the 19 companies against which complaints of insider trading were received by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India.
What made the tide turn in favour of the Adani group was the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down airports the world over, including Mumbai. There was no cash flow and the firm started defaulting on salaries July onwards.
Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) chairman Deepak Parekh on Tuesday said that while the country's macroeconomic fundamentals remain strong and the recovery is in progress, the unpredictability of coronavirus will remain a key challenge. Owing to the second wave, the Indian economy is likely to mirror a similar trend seen in FY21, where the first half of the financial year is weaker and the second half is significantly stronger, he said. "I remain confident that India's macroeconomic fundamentals are strong. Recovery is underway," Parekh said while addressing the 44th annual general meeting of HDFC Ltd. He said, the country's forex reserves and foreign direct investment inflows have scaled record highs, the capital markets are also buoyant and agriculture growth is expected to remain strong with food grain production estimated at over 305 million tonnes.
Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries:
Last year, the software giant launched a cloud adoption programme for SMBs.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday announced a Rs 75,000 crore investment in new energy business over the next three years as the operator of the world's largest oil refinery pivots towards a greener and cleaner version. Reliance will build solar manufacturing units, a battery factory for energy storage, a fuel cell-making plant and an electrolyzer unit to produce green hydrogen as a part of the business, chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual general meeting with shareholders on Thursday. It will also set up 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar power generation capacity by 2030 and invest in setting up a carbon fibre plant.
Housing sector to benefit from Budget.
Life Insurance Corporation of India, Housing Development Finance Corporation and State Bank of India together own a little over 45 per cent in IL&FS. The deal is expected to be valued around $2.5 billion.
In the current fiscal, as per the revised estimate, these two companies raised Rs 14,942 crore (Rs 149.42 billion) from markets.
The Finance Ministry has called a meeting of heads of public sector banks to clear stalled projects.
'Most importantly, marking a departure from the past, the RBI has made it clear that it is not overtly worried about the level of the local currency,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Lenders to Kingfisher Airlines, led by State Bank of India, had moved courts to get residual rights over these shares after Srei recovered the collateral from the defunct Kingfisher Airlines, making it difficult for Srei to sell the shares, said a legal source.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The reason is believed to be a 19% increase in interest cost.
Flush with liquidity, banks are eager to lend. And, therein lies the problem, warns Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Historically, the RBI has tried to keep the crooks at bay by issuing a circular a day. What it needs is more onsite supervision. Merely checking high-frequency data with the help of technology is insufficient, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Banking is a business of trust.'
The RBI governor-designate may be economical with spoken words, but is known for his sharp and critical writings
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday presented the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha that is expected to provide relief to the pandemic-hit common man as well as focus more on driving economic recovery through higher spending on healthcare, infrastructure and defence amid rising tensions with neighbours, As India emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, the ninth Budget under the Modi government, including an interim one, is widely expected to focus on boosting spending on job creation and rural development, generous allocations for development schemes, putting more money in the hands of the average taxpayer and easing rules to attract foreign investments.
Fix India's real estate sector. Fix India's public sector banks, advises Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'Put the assets of PMC Bank and the personal assets of the HDIL promoters and head of PMC Bank in an escrow account and ring-fence it from the ad hoc action of the revenue departments and creditors,' recommends Debashis Basu.