A likely turnaround in profitability margins in the March quarter (Q4FY23) will not be enough to lift the outlook for paint stocks due to volatile crude oil prices and rising competition in the sector, analysts say. Hence, they advise investors to avoid the sector over the short-to-medium term despite the heavy correction in the stocks since last year. Shares of Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Indigo Paints, Nerolac and Pidilite have shed 6-32 per cent over the last 6 months versus a 3 per cent rise in the benchmark Sensex.
India's $100 billion push into solar energy over the next decade will be driven by foreign players as uncompetitive local manufacturers fall by the wayside, no longer protected by government restrictions on the sector.
The regulatory burden is the highest on small cars, a key segment of the Indian automobile industry and having a uniform tax structure across all segments of vehicles will not augur well for the sector growth, according to Maruti Suzuki India chairman RC Bhargava. He also said India's economic growth rate could be higher if the manufacturing sector grows fast, which 'unfortunately' has remained a laggard despite the best efforts of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre due to implementation gaps at the ground level. "The burden of regulatory changes on the small cars is far higher than the regulatory burden on big cars and that is changing the whole market behaviour.
The slot constraint in Indian airports is also going to play a role in pushing airlines to have wide bodies.
Micron plans an assembly testing, marking and packaging project of $1 billion, and talks are on to set up a memory chip plant for captive requirements.
Beijing wants assurance that its investments won't come under scrutiny
Tesla Inc, the world's largest electric car producer, is looking to make a significant investment in India, said its chief Elon Musk, who saw India as holding more promise than any other large country around the globe. Musk, after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said he plans to visit India in 2024. "I am confident that Tesla will be in India and we will do so as soon as humanly possible," Musk told reporters after the meeting.
These stocks offer the best combination of maximum 'buy' recommendations from brokerages and share price upside over the next 12 months.
Over 68,000 Army soldiers, around 90 tanks and other weapon systems were airlifted by the Indian Air Force to eastern Ladakh from across the country for rapid deployment along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) after the deadly clashes in the Galwan Valley, top sources in defence and security establishment said.
Sounding a note of caution, the Reserve Bank said on Friday said there is a risk of high wholesale price inflation (WPI) putting pressure on the retail inflation, albeit with a lag. In its annual report, the RBI said that the cost-push pressures from high industrial raw material prices, transportation costs and global logistics, and supply chain bottlenecks continue to impinge on core inflation. "The substantial wedge between wholesale and retail price inflation amidst a sharp rise in manufactured products' inflation poses the risk of a possible passthrough of input cost pressures to retail inflation with a lag, although slack in the economy is muting the pass-through," the central bank noted.
Starting with a family, which had a dealership of Bajaj Auto's scooters, to becoming the owner of a household name in consumer appliances who could afford to have Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador, Venugopal Dhoot's is a story of an aggressive small town businessman's pursuit to be on the top. Now arrested in connection with the ICICI Bank loan fraud case, Venugopal Dhoot during his heydays was not the one to simply sit on small achievements like Videocon becoming the largest television set manufacturer in India.
What is most troubling is that not a single party that is part of INDIA has talked about any kind of reform and economic sense, argues R Jagannathan.
Ola Electric will roll out its complete offering of electric scooters and motorcycles in each segment of the market - premium, mass premium, and economical - in the next 12 months in a bid to push for a near-full conversion of the two-wheeler market to electric in three years. According to Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Ola Electric, "ICE (internal combustion engine) products will fall off a cliff." He also says the company is aiming to become profitable next year.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will have to do a tight-rope walk between staying fiscally prudent and general public expectations of lower taxes and a wider social security net, while at the same time firing the engines of the economy before general elections. Sitharaman will on Wednesday present her fifth straight Budget at a time when the economy is slowing due to global headwinds and specific sectors need attention. In the run-up to the Budget presentation, expectations are rife that she may tweak income-tax slabs to provide relief to the middle class and increase spending on the poor through programmes such as the rural job scheme while ramping up financial incentives for local manufacturing.
Fridge, washing machine, and paint makers are expected to cut prices shortly, while TV, aircon, and sanitary napkin makers are a disappointed lot
The wholesale price-based inflation eased to a five-month low of 13.93 per cent in July on easing prices of food articles and manufactured products. The WPI-based inflation softened for the second consecutive month in July, raising hopes of further decline in wholesale prices in the months to come. The Wholesale Price Index-based inflation, after scaling a record high of 15.88 per cent in May, declined to 15.18 per cent in June. It was 13.43 per cent in February. It was 11.57 per cent in July last year.
After assuming power in 2014 with a full majority of its own, the BJP-led NDA government started an ambitious process of reforming labour laws in the form of codes aimed at making the framework less cumbersome with a variety of alterations. It had planned four codes each for industrial relations, wages, social security and welfare, and occupational safety, health and working conditions. To this end, 35 central labour laws were to be converted into four codes that would have had the virtue of streamlining labour relations. But none of the proposed code Bills could be converted into a law principally because neither trade unions nor industry representatives came on board. They hold the key to India's low-growth-high unemployment paradigm but the government may struggle to push them through this time as well. Somesh Jha explains why
'Companies are coming to the campuses, and we have companies booking their slots for the placement season, but the overall number of companies signing is low, and the hiring numbers are also lower.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to make this decade a "techade" for India and the push for 5G, semiconductors and transformation through digital services is going to boost the technology sector in the country, industry players said on Monday. Modi, in his speech on the 76th Independence Day, touched upon all-round development of technology in the country, from 5G to push for electronic chips, laying of optical fibre cable (OFC) network across villages and enablement of digital entrepreneurship in villages through Common Services Centres, making the present decade as "techade" for India. Homegrown mobile devices maker Lava International's Chairman and Managing Director Hari Om Rai said electronics and technology sectors create about $4 trillion of revenue.
With a million-odd electric vehicles (EVs) - two-wheelers, e-rickshaws, buses and passenger cars - expected to hit the road this calendar year, the shift from gasoline-powered vehicles has become irreversible. Now the question is whether the supply chain is ready for this shift. Key components - the high-powered lithium-ion battery and the cells which go with it, the electric motor, and the electronics powered by chips - account for nearly 60 per cent of the cost of an EV.
A surge in manufacturing pushed up the country's industrial growth to 12.9 per cent in March 2007, taking the expansion during 2006-07 to 11.3 per cent.
The applications range from disaster recovery to predicting demand and understanding customer choices using artificial intelligence.
Lauding India's ambitious space programme, The New York Times has said the country, currently witnessing an 'explosive' growth in space-tech start-ups, is set to 'transform the planet's connection to the final frontier' and can emerge as a 'counterweight' to China.
Hardening prices of manufactured items during the month may refrain the Reserve Bank of India from cutting rates in its policy review on February 8.
It would be a difficult task for the Indian economy to reach the $5-trillion mark a year before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projection of 2026-27. Pankaj Chaudhary, minister of state for finance, said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday that the government is taking steps to make the country a $5-trillion economy at a date earlier than the IMF's projection. In that context, it would not be difficult to meet the projection in the third quarter of FY27.
At present, the Pralay ballistic missiles can take out targets from 150 to 500 km and are extremely difficult to intercept for the enemy through interceptor missiles.
The growing mismatch between Go First's losses and other group companies' profits was making it tough for the group to fund the losses of the airline venture.
Modi government plans to set up a committee of five or six chief ministers to suggest ways to promote digitisation.
Very often, 'sentiment' drives prices well beyond what is warranted and it is hard to forecast market sentiment, explains Debashis Basu.
19 per cent of all travel in India (by bus, train or air) was pilgrimage or religious travel (possibly the single largest after business and family-related travel), discovers Ambi Parameswaran.
He wants Jaitley to give investors more clarity on policies
Jaitley's Budget has the potential to change the face of Modi's Bharat
The defence ministry on Thursday accorded its approval to procure 30 MQ-9B Predator drones from the US to crank up the surveillance apparatus of the armed forces, especially along the frontier with China, people familiar with the development said.
Enthused by higher than expected GDP numbers in the fourth quarter of 2022-23, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Wednesday said India's economic growth may exceed the initial estimate of 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal and the country can look for another year of solid economic performance.
'The Indian govt's initiatives on EVs are very strong and customers want to buy EVs. This will make the country's conversion to EVs faster than other markets, and I hope even faster than the US'
Industry body CII has pitched for a reduction in personal income tax rates, decriminalisation of the goods and services tax and a relook at the capital gains tax rates as part of its agenda presented to the government for the forthcoming Budget. Arguing that the GST law already contains adequate penal provisions for deterrence against evasion of taxes, CII has suggested decriminalisation of GST law. Also, the applicability of prosecution provisions should not be based on the absolute amount of tax evasion but should be based on real intent to evade the taxes and a certain percentage of the tax payable, it stated.
The country imported 9.31 million tonnes (mt) of steel in FY15.
In case of onions, inflation skyrocketed to 127.04 per cent, while for the eggs, meat and fish segment the rate of price rise was 5.76 per cent.
Kolkata trams -- now in their 150th year -- are the last to survive modernity in Indian cities, writes Ishita Ayan Dutt.