Adani group opened a $1.2 billion copper plant, bought a port in Odisha, raised stakes in a cement company and stitched an alliance with rival Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, all in a matter of one week in signs that the apples-to-airport conglomerate has shrugged off the Hindenburg effect and is back to rapid expansion spree. In the last one week, Adani group has through regulatory filings and press statements announced expansions and investments in its mainstay ports business, diversification into metal refining, fund infusion into a two-year-old cement foray and continuing progress in the commissioning of its mega solar project.
Has Vijay Shekhar Sharma given up on the bank? For now, he seems to be on a save-OCL mission. The bank will face its logical end, observes Tamal Bandopadhyay.
Let's wait for the monetary policy on February 8 -- to see how it complements the fiscal commitments, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
A whirlwind trip of the dark underbelly of global finance, covering everything from tax law changes to aiding criminals to decamp with money from bank accounts.
When the subscriber reaches superannuation or the age of 60, 60 per cent of the total corpus accumulated in NPS can be withdrawn as a lump sum.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Dr Reddy's Laboratories have agreed to cooperate on clinical trials and distribution of Sputnik V vaccine in India, RDIF and Dr Reddy's said in a joint statement.
India has a huge untapped population which doesn't have facilities for financial aid and insurance, and it is perhaps plausible to look at the option of having niche players catering to smaller sectors akin to non-banks and microfinance institutions in lending, said Rakesh Joshi, member (Finance & Investment), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit, Joshi said, "Today, most of our insurance companies operate at a national level. There is arguably a case for having differentiated operations, which cater to niche sectors the same way we have non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and microfinance institutions in lending." "The capital requirement for niche players may not be as large as those having national ambitions. "Enabling these niche players, which require lower capital, will enhance the penetration in areas which hitherto had not seen traction from large players," he said.
After opening close to 1,500 branches in 2022-23, HDFC Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, will continue expanding its branch network at the same speed in the current financial year. The lender says branch expansion is crucial for deposit mobilisation. As of March 31, 2023, HDFC Bank had 7,821 branches, up from 6,342 a year ago.
The choice should depend on the size of the retirement corpus, stage in life, and state of health.
The Rakesh Mohan Committee in its report in 2001 said that Railways' financial situation was extremely difficult and suggested new strategy for revenue generation.
The department of investment and public asset management (Dipam) can also seek in-principle approval from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for strategic divestment of PSUs on a case-to-case basis considering investor appetite and sectoral trends.
In the context of market integrity, the IRAI and RBI should go over the minutes of the LIC and SBI board meetings when the decisions to invest in Adani equity or debt were taken, notes Jaimini Bhagwati, former World Bank treasury professional.
Indian society may be more advanced than we think it is, notes Ajit Balakrishnan.
These include Goldman Sachs, HSBC, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, RBS, Citigroup and JP Morgan and they have said in their respective regulatory filings that they are cooperating with the relevant authorities in the investigations.
The tribunal accepted the government's argument that licence or spectrum is a state asset over which Aircel had no right of ownership.
There is no reason for keeping an entire ministry with a total staff strength of 2,300, just for the oversight of a few aviation sector laws and regulatory bodies, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Jalan Kalrock Consortium, the winning bidder for the grounded Jet Airways, will make a total cash infusion of Rs 1,375 crore in the airline and lenders will take a steep haircut on their admitted claims of over Rs 7,800 crore under the approved resolution plan. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on June 22, approved the consortium's resolution plan for Jet Airways, which has been undergoing insolvency resolution process since June 2019. The carrier shuttered operations in April 2019.
Since there are many and complicated choices, retail investors stand to benefit
While the collapse of a large financial intermediary can wreak havoc on the system because of the interconnectivity, a large business conglomerate too can play spoilsport if the banks have too much exposure to the entity, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Currently, most crowdfunding platforms neither operate with proper authorisation nor are governed under any law.
Policies to break down the business group format are far more likely to be effective, argues Simon Commander.
Penalty must act as a deterrent. If it is too low, it could encourage the regulated entities to lap up penalty instead of complying with the norms, suggests Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday pitched for formulating a policy for using the Reserve Bank of India's rising foreign exchange reserves for funding road projects, saying the country needs low cost finance for such infrastructure projects. Addressing a virtual event organised by industry body CII, Gadkari further said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) should also have a financial arm like the power ministry's Power Finance Corporation (PFC). "We have a surplus of dollar reserves in the country. I have decided to talk with the RBI Governor, about how we can formulate a policy by which we can use this foreign exchange reserves for development of infrastructure in the country," he said.
Its statement also said Facebook does not use WhatsApp payments information for commercial purposes.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Friday backed the proposed data privacy and cryptocurrency bills, saying India is putting in place the most forward-looking policies and regulations. Ambani, who has been a votary of Indians owning and controlling their own data and the nation drafting strict rules around how digital information is stored and shared, said nations have the right to build and protect strategic digital infrastructure. Stating that data is the 'new oil', he said every citizen's right to privacy has to be safeguarded. "India is putting in place the most forward-looking policies and regulations," he said at the Infinity Forum, hosted by International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).
'The Reserve Bank's independence has remained a work in progress, an enduring challenge that the nation has been grappling with on an ongoing basis,' says RBI Deputy Governor Dr Viral Acharya.
India's residential market is expected to sustain demand momentum despite rise in mortgage and property rates as sales this year across the top 7 cities are likely to breach pre-pandemic level of 2.62 lakh units, industry players said. After braving four back-to-back disruptions in form of demonetisation, RERA, GST and COVID-19 in the last 6 years, industry experts feel the housing market is going through a lot of structural changes and is now at the start of a long-term upcycle. Homebuyers body FPCE gives credit to the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) under the Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 for this improved buying sentiment.
A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit also cancelled the leases of Amrapali's properties granted by the Noida and Greater Noida authorities and directed the Enforcement Directorate to investigate alleged money laundering by CMD Anil Sharma and other directors and senior officials of the group.
Nilekani said new-age technology markets work on a winner-takes-all basis.
This pertains to certain irregularities in loan disbursements towards the development of two Slum Rehabilitation Authority projects undertaken by the company in the past.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das kept the red flag on cryptocurrencies flying, warning that the next financial crisis can be triggered by private cryptocurrencies if such speculative instruments are allowed to grow.
Since the bankcuptcy law came into effect from December 2016, with every quarter, the recovery rate has progressively been going down, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The government is keeping a "close watch" on the developments relating to the Tata-Mistry case, but does not want to "interfere" at present as it was an "internal matter" of a private group, Ministry of State for Corporate Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal has said.
The recent report in the New York Times that China had brought India's financial capital - Mumbai - to a halt by hacking the electricity supply grid has not come as a surprise to the CTOs (chief technology officers) and cyber security experts. Indian companies, including critical infrastructure providers such as power grids, ports and radar systems, lack the IT infrastructure to prevent hacking from hostile state actors like China and North Korea, warn security experts. Recently, the United States government warned of yet another breach of critical systems tied to Microsoft Exchange email systems that the company has blamed on China. The breach has impacted thousands of organisations in the US and its impact on India is still unknown.
On these routes, the train speed would also be increased to above 160 kmph over the next four or five years by revamping the entire signaling, tracks and fencing.
'Tinkering will not do. Merely staggering spectrum dues comes nowhere near solving the problem,' cautions Rahul Khullar.
Infosys pointed out that it is not uncommon for plaintiffs' lawyers to issue press releases or other media communications asking potential plaintiffs to contact them in order to apply for lead plaintiff status in an existing lawsuit. In October, Infosys had informed the stock exchanges of having received anonymous whistleblower complaints alleging certain unethical practices by the top management.
More than 1,000 independent directors have quit since January 2017; more could be on their way out
Billionaire Gautam Adani's Adani group on Monday said it has reached an agreement to acquire GVK group's shareholding and control of Mumbai airport.
Earlier this month, the CBI registered a Preliminary Enquiry against former Sebi Chairman C B Bhave and ex-member K M Abraham, as also against Jignesh Shah-founded FTIL and MCX, among others.