'With a very stable technology with limited functionalities, a large network has spanned out.'
With stricter policies dampening the US/UK dream, Germany, Ireland and New Zealand are emerges as new study abroad destinations for Indian students.
'The chief minister believes the poorest of the poor have the first right on government resources.'
'We are not asking for incentives, but at least taxation can be aligned such that the rupee tax on consumers remains the same.'
The high point of the 19 Shastri months was the 22-day war that he fought against great odds and won in principle, even if military historians often call it a stalemate. Pakistan saw a great opportunity to conquer Kashmir and lost. It was the last time they had the relative strength militarily and diplomatically to take Kashmir. Shastri's resolve buried that dream forever, points out Shekhar Gupta.
rediffGURU T S Khurana answers readers' personal income tax queries.
'Unless banks focus on the Rs 10-15 lakh loan segment, growing affordable housing will remain a challenge.'
What is pushing students to take this extreme step?
Footwear companies were among the weakest performers in the consumer discretionary sector during the October-December quarter (Q3) of 2024-25. The combined revenue growth of the top four listed firms was just 2.9 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) - the lowest among major discretionary categories.
Tomato prices have been on the boil for more than a month. Data from major cities show that the spike has been between 125 and 150 per cent at the wholesale level. Soaring vegetable prices, including tomatoes, pushed the retail inflation rate to a nine-month high of 5.49 per cent in September, according to government data. Though reports say prices are expected to come down in the next few weeks after supplies improve from Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, how long will the respite last is anybody's guess.
The number of cyberfraud cases has skyrocketed from 2,677 in 1999-2000 to 29,082 in FY24 -- more than a 10-fold increase. The RBI pegs digital payment frauds at Rs 1,457 crore in FY24, up more than five times in a year. It's not just the number of frauds. What's alarming is the growing sophistication of the fraudsters, exposing the vulnerabilities within the financial system, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
rediffGURU Vipul Bhavsar answers readers' personal income tax queries.
Among the cities that have fully implemented their projects are Agra, Varanasi, Madurai, Coimbatore, Udaipur, Pune, Surat, and Vadodara
'It has remained around 38 per cent over the past four to five quarters.'
Towards the end of February, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) restored the risk weighting on banks loans to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs; including to microfinance institutions, or MFIs) to 100 - back to its November 2023 position - from 125. It is only a partial relief though. "Higher risk weighting on unsecured lending continues to be in place while the same on bank funding to NBFCs has been done away with. "This is a positive step by RBI," says Rajiv Sabharwal, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), Tata Capital.
rediffGURU T S Khurana answers readers' personal income tax queries.
'While I would never wish for anyone to go through what we are, it has brought out the best in us by making each one of us a better version of ourselves.' 'Being courageous, fighting for freedom, taking the burden of responsibility to help each other...' 'I know hundreds and hundreds of examples where Ukrainians are risking their lives for complete strangers and it is only in moments like this that we truly understand what it means to be human.'
Describing the DAD as the "guardian of defence finance", he emphasised the need to bolster the internal vigilance mechanism so that any suspicious activity can be detected and reviewed immediately.
Will allowing business correspondents to hawk insurance products help in reviving 5-lakh strong field agents as a viable channel?
India's e-commerce market alone is projected to reach $200 billion by 2026, making it a prime industry for ambitious entrepreneurs, explains rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
In the Union Budget for Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had held forth on the need for better governance and investor protection in the banking sector. She had proposed certain amendments to the Reserve Bank of India Act (RBI Act), 1934; the Banking Regulation Act (BR Act), 1949; and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970.
In 2024, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) implemented significant reforms, focusing on cooling down the derivatives segment, enhancing transparency and accountability in small and midsised enterprise (SME) listings, and deepening the fund management ecosystem.
Some residents have already taken this step to relocate, either temporarily or permanently, some to their native places and others to clean-air destinations like Goa and Himachal Pradesh.
Security incidents became more costly and harder to contain due to drastic operational shifts during the pandemic with the cost of data breaches to Indian organisations rising close to 18 per cent to Rs 16.5 crore on an average between May 2020 and March 2021, according to a report by IBM. The study pointed towards similar trends in other parts of the world with data breaches costing surveyed companies $4.24 million per incident on an average - the highest in the report's 17-year history.
'The focus needs to shift towards the ability to collect payments, particularly in tier-3 to tier-4 areas where acceptance is still lacking.'
rediffGURU Sushil Sukhwani offers expert advice about pursuing higher education abroad.
Trump's sweeping tariffs and penalties on China-built ships have turned global shipping into the front line of economic war, observes Shyam G Menon.
The relationship between the US and India has been very productive, in particular on the trade and technology front, and 2023 can be considered the best year historically for bilateral ties, according to a former top American trade official. Arun Kumar, an Indian-American, who served as the assistant secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and director general of the US and Foreign Commercial Service (USFCS) during the Obama administration, said this during an interview with PTI in Washington. "Looking back on 2023, it was a very productive year for the US-India relationship, by many accounts the best year historically," he said.
Move can also bring a huge change in the way business is done in India, where firms use multiple current accounts, often for even individual projects, making them difficult to monitor.
First things first: For those wondering if they need to reapply, the answer is no.
'A credit line on UPI is going to make banks think about credit fundamentally as they digitise the credit process entirely.'
'Trump's disregard for norms and institutions could prove very costly for America's social fabric.'
In the first such collaboration for India, the country's flagship payments platform, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and Singapore's PayNow payment system have launched a real-time cross-border payment linkage system. The linkage, which was launched by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Singapore's PM Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, was kicked off by a live cross-border transaction between Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das and Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon, using mobile phones.
'This is the victory of the people of Gujarat who want real development, not the hype of development.'
The Indian Institute of Science topped the HRD ministry's 2017 national rankings. In 2016, the IISc was ranked among the world's top 15 universities in the Times Higher Education University Rankings. In his book The Creation of Wealth: The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century, R M Lala recounted how Jamsetji Tata's grand vision and immense personal contribution laid the edifice of arguably India's finest educational institution.
However, the Polycab share price is up by nearly 80 per cent while Havells' has risen by 39 per cent. The Sensex has gained 26 per cent in this period. The Q1FY25 results were in line for both companies.
rediffGURU Samkit Maniar answers readers' personal income tax queries
'BJP and RSS may have differences over minor issues but their hearts long for one common aim -- that of A Hindu Rashtra.' 'And this time to prove this point the RSS has prepared to help BJP win this election with all its might.'
Available evidence suggests that we are on the way to a very costly failure of the current demonetisation scheme, says M R Narayana.
False and acrimonious debates such as Modi versus Manmohan might allow for victories that are political and partisan. But the real loser is the nation, India and Bharat, notes Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor to the Modi government in its first term.
