Perhaps the finance ministry or NITI Aayog could take a detailed look at what governments actually deliver and at what cost; how their services can be improved and expanded where necessary; how much money can be saved through doing things differently; and how many things the government does which it can safely leave to the private sector, argues T N Ninan.
Images from Sunday's action in the Premier League
This season, the nature of the advertising game has changed dramatically with TV and digital rights going to different entities.
'The pride of the devoted Seinfeld fan is that he happens to love a show that doesn't take his love for granted, so that even on repeat viewings he is never really sure what directions an episode might take,' observes Sreehari Nair.
Indian rupee, which earlier this week touched an all-time low, is likely to remain under pressure and may test new levels as a fallout of the US Federal Reserve indicating more interest rate hikes, experts said. The aggressive rate hikes will dampen demand and increase the possibility of a recession in the US. This could accelerate the pace of capital outflows, weaken the rupee and raise the threat of imported inflation.
The ruble has recouped most of its losses and become the top-performing currency globally. It continues to gain and is up 60 per cent against the US dollar from its lows in the first week of March. The ruble appreciated to 83 to the dollar intraday on Tuesday against a record low of 139 on March 7.
Rediff Labs investigates the link between environment and economy in countries around the world.
Within days of announcing mega investments for building in Hyderabad its second data centre cluster in India, Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday said it is excited about the India market, where cloud adoption offers massive headroom for growth. Pledging its long-term commitment to the India market, AWS, Amazon's cloud computing unit, said it expects global uncertainties to accelerate the decisions by companies to opt for flexible, on-demand cloud infrastructure to pare costs, gain efficiencies and drive business innovation. "Cloud reacts well to uncertainty," Puneet Chandok, president - commercial business, AWS India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) told PTI.
Some aircraft technicians at IndiGo are on sick leave since Friday demanding a revision in salaries. The protest comes days after the airline partially restored salaries of its pilots and cabin crew and made changes to its human resource (HR) policies. Some technicians in Hyderabad reported sick on Friday night while those from other bases skipped work on Sunday demanding a revision in salary, an industry source said.
Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
Frantic dollar demand from corporates along with an aggressive hedging strategy adopted by importers in the wake of the currency volatility predominately took a toll on the domestic unit despite moves by the central bank to stabilise the currency.
A statement from the finance ministry said, 'it shall be the policy of the Sri Lankan government to suspend normal debt servicing...shall apply to amounts of affected debts outstanding on April 12, 2022'.
Project Vivaan won big at the Solar Decathlon, placing second overall (and missing the first position by a whisker). Members of the award-winning Team Shunya tell Mrigank Warrier how they built a carbon-neutral, water-neutral, energy-positive home for a family of four.
Do you have health insurance/mediclaim queries? Rakesh Kaul, chief distribution officer, Edelweiss General Insurance, will answer your queries.
With an eye on the coming festive season, leading public sector bank State Bank of India will provide home loans to its customers at concessional interest rates. SBI chief general manager (CGM) Umesh Kumar Pandey informed that this drive to provide home loans at concessional interest rates will be completed in two phases, an official release said on Thursday. The first phase will be operated from September 1 to October 31, while the second phase will be operational from November 1 to December 31, it said.
A quick look at the Q1FY23 performance of top-tier IT services players shows that they are still far away from getting a grip on managing attrition. Talent retention has eroded not only their margins but also any gains they may have made from rupee depreciation. Despite robust growth numbers and strong deal pipelines, margins for all the players -- TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro -- have continued to shrink at a pace that has had the street surprised.
The list of companies skipping dividends in FY19 includes some of the country's largest firms and industry leaders such Tata Motors, Avenue Supermart, Future Retail and Vodafone Idea, among others.
Britain's third female prime Minister, Liz Truss, was out of office on Thursday after the shortest tenure at 10 Downing Street in London and without a cherished India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) under her belt as a Brexit prize.
What is more surprising is that a surge in Russian oil supplies has come after the G7 imposed stringent sanctions on Moscow.
End users should take the plunge despite higher home loan rates as these tend to be cyclical.
There is still enough pull to play for New Zealand: Ferguson on players giving up contracts
In January, Visa's chief executive officer, Al Kelly, said during an earnings call that "there's been a burst of the balloon in valuations in the fintech world". Noting that the trend of lower valuations "is a helpful characteristic of the current environment", he added: "We will look for capabilities and management teams that will bring more value to Visa than we can bring ourselves." Data from KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H2'22 shows that global fintech investment - via mergers and acquisitions (M&As), private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms - at $164.1 billion in 2022, was down 31 per cent over the year before. Indian fintechs held up better during this timeframe, attracting $6 billion, or a fall of 24 per cent.
Air India Express, the low-cost subsidiary of Air India, would pay an annual royalty to the parent company after it starts operations to the Gulf next month end.
The former PM attack on the Modi government for its "disastrous policies" and "economic mismanagement".
Earlier this year, the Union Cabinet gave the management of state-run companies the freedom to decide on divesting their subsidiaries. However, the very next day a meeting was held at the top level of the Government of India, for the presentation of proposals for more autonomy for state-run companies. Interestingly, no chiefs of any of these companies were invited. It is a problem that will stare the government in the face with the state-owned banks too, as talks have again begun for inviting strategic investments in these companies.
Suyash battles through Delhi cricket politics to shine in IPL
To attract people from tier-1 colleges IT services companies must increase payment to freshers: Mohandas Pai.
'The CM kept his cool, but his adviser was liberal with filthy language.' Tamal Bandyopadhyay recreates the diary of a general manager in a public sector bank, providing a glimpse of how they balance their work and life.
'The Indian economy and the Indian financial sector today remain resilient and much better placed.'
American accounting and medical billing firms are the latest to join the outsourcing bandwagon, transferring hundreds of thousands of jobs to India to take advantage of the low pay scales and educated workforce in the country.
'Very few of small investors stay invested for those three or four or five years.' 'If there's like a six month, one-year period when market is not doing well, you exit.' 'After the market has run up, you get in again.' 'This way you will never make returns.'
"The remuneration of a referee per match is very low. In state leagues, a referee gets Rs 2500 to Rs 5000, and in national leagues from Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000. This comes up to Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh a year, which is insufficient for a referee to maintain his family by doing refereeing only.
Vodafone-Idea is working on a multi-pronged strategy to begin its long journey to get back in the game but much hinges on how much money it can raise following the government's decision to go for equity conversion last week. Based on discussions with sources aware of the company developments and with vendors, VIL's immediate plan is to invest in increasing 4G coverage to the level of its competitors. Currently, it covers a 1 billion population with 4G while its competitors cover 1.2 billion people.
Is the cost of medical cover too high? Opt for co-payments or deductible plans. Here's more on when they work the best.
Ahead of the Union Budget 2023, insurers are hoping that the Centre will act on their recommendations, which includes increasing the limit for tax deduction under 80D of the Income Tax Act. Also among them are issuance of long-term bonds, tax incentives for home insurance premiums, and a separate section to claim deduction for term-insurance premium, among others. These suggestions would help improve the penetration of insurance in the country.
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.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff.com's Most Valuable Player Index of IPL 2023 after Game 42.
'He made the whole country laugh. It's sad today that he has gone.'
The more market driven the economy becomes, the more its government sector should function in its basics like the rest of the economy.