Insurance companies are seeking a separate deduction limit of Rs 1 lakh for insurance premium payment under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act in the upcoming Union Budget to bring in more people under the ambit of insurance. The insurers also want reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) rate of 18 per cent currently applied on health insurance products to 5 per cent to make such products more affordable to common people. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for 2022-23 on February 1.
Days after JP Morgan announced the inclusion of government bonds in its emerging market (EM) bond index, a host of banks and other financial institutions (FIs) are set to tap the debt market. They plan to raise Rs 18,000 crore by issuing non-convertible debentures (NCDs) and bonds. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) plans to raise up to Rs 3,000 crore via five-year social impact bonds on Tuesday, the first of its kind in India.
The silver lining is that after two years, e-commerce has emerged as the top sector with $689 million in investments across 15 deals, accounting for 43 per cent of all investments in January 2021.
According to the revised plan, promoter Naresh Goyal, his wife Anita Goyal and the directors nominated by the promoter would be asked to step down from the board, and the lenders, as part of the resolution process, will infuse around Rs 1,200 crore into the airline as emergency funding.
A Rs 7,056 crore outer harbour project by VO Chidambaranar (VOC) Port in Tuticorin is garnering interest from domestic and global majors in the sector, such as Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Singapore's PSA International, Dutch major Van Oord, JM Baxi, and JSW, among others, according to sources close to the development. The project aims to capitalise on the newfound investor interest in the region, spurred by mega investments such as the Rs 16,000 crore electric vehicle manufacturing unit by Vietnamese major VinFast, the Indian Space Research Organisation's second spaceport in Tamil Nadu's Kulasekarapattinam, and Singapore's Sembcorp's Rs 36,238 crore investment in renewable energy.
The Union government could target a fiscal deficit of 5.8-6 per cent of nominal GDP for 2023-24, and it should continue its capital expenditure push and look to simplify the personal income tax regime, economists recommended Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team during their pre-Budget interaction on Monday. Starting last week, Sitharaman had eight pre-Budget consultations this time. More than 110 invitees representing seven stakeholder groups participated in these meetings, the finance ministry said in a statement. The stakeholder groups included representatives and experts from agriculture and agro-processing industry; industry, infrastructure & climate change; financial sector and capital markets; services and trade; social sector; trade unions and labour organisations; and economists.
An analyst says, due to excess capacity, investment in manufacturing will not be forthcoming
According to the IVCA-EY report, July recorded 10 large deals worth $3.1 billion compared to 13 large deals worth $7.1 billion in July 2019.
A powerful senatorial committee on Wednesday is set to consider a bipartisan resolution to recognise Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India, pushing back against China's military aggression to change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control.
While activity in the highway segment has been slow, the bid pipeline saw recovery in January 2024, and awards are expected to improve in Q4FY24. The national highway (NH) bid pipeline has recovered from a low of Rs 15,900 crore in December 2023 to Rs 68,400 crore at present. The NHAI's pipeline stands at Rs 66,100 crore, with hybrid annuity model (HAM), build operate transfer (BOT) and engineering procurement and construction (EPC) projects accounting for 60 per cent, 29 per cent and 13 per cent share, respectively.
India Inc is encouraged by a determined Budget.
The senior IPS officer said that 45 percent of cyber financial frauds taking place in the country are originating from the South East Asia.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
The rally in the equity markets in the second half of 2023 has led to a sharp surge in the cutoff for stocks to qualify as largecaps and midcaps. On the latest list put out by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), the smallest largecap stock now has a market capitalisation (m-cap) of Rs 67,000 crore, 35 per cent higher than in July 2023. In the case of midcaps, the cutoff has surged 26 per cent to Rs 22,000 crore.
India's cement demand has consistently shown double-digit growth over the past few quarters, primarily driven by infrastructure spending. However, dealers and industry executives note that state elections, festival season, and, in some markets, weddings and pollution may temporarily disrupt this demand story. While the festival season typically sees a slowdown in construction activity, some dealers anticipate this lull extending throughout the entire month as multiple states enter election mode.
The government had committed to increasing spending in infrastructure
Whilst substantive public allocations have been made in the infrastructure sector, this strategy is plateauing due to the fiscal deficit constraint, capacity limitation of statal implementing agencies, the declining ability of PSUs, and the precarious situation of the Railways' operating ratio. It is, thus, high time to get the policy compass to point at rejuvenating private sector investments in infrastructure, says Vinayak Chatterjee.
The executive order, which was signed by Trump on Thursday, prohibits certain purchases involving publicly traded securities or any securities that are derivative of or are designed to provide investment exposure to such securities of any Communist Chinese military company.
'I found it unbelievable that L&T said 45,000 jobs were waiting to be filled because of unavailability of suitable skillsets.' 'So, when the Opposition sweepingly says there are no jobs, I'm sorry... I'm not saying it's raining jobs, but there are jobs. The (skill) gap has to be bridged.'
The quarter also saw exits worth $1.9 billion across 37 deals, 59 per cent higher YoY. This was driven by one of India's largest PE-backed IPO exit, the $1-billion partial exit by Carlyle in the SBI Cards IPO.
The government will press ahead with the sale of public sector companies that have been approved by the Cabinet, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. Highlighting that FDI flow into India is much higher compared to other emerging economies, she said India's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, ability to do reforms and a stable government help attract long-term foreign funds into Indian businesses.
Punjab National Bank joined hands with the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services for setting up a private equity fund for investing in domestic companies mainly in telecom, oil and gas, ports, water supply and surface transport segments.
Outlay for infra is also expected to see a significant increase in view of the government's Rs 111-trillion investment plan under the national infrastructure pipeline to develop social and economic infrastructure over five years.
According to industry players, over 50 FMPs have exposure to Zee Group companies.
'This market is very expensive in some pockets, dirt cheap in some, and the belly of the market is reasonably valued.'
Even at early stage, start-ups are raising more money faster owing to the rise of a lot of specialised early-stage VCs and emergence of seed-stage programmes.
The Asian Development Bank has approved a US$ 1.5 billion (around Rs 11,185 crore) loan to India for COVID-19 vaccine procurement.
Growing at a robust rate due to economic reforms in key sectors like digitisation and infrastructure, India has emerged as a star performer and is projected to contribute more than 16 per cent of the global growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. "What we have been observing for quite some time now is that India has been growing at a very robust rate. "It's one of the star performers when it comes to real growth when you look at peer countries.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
Nothing is more promising than countries putting aside hubris and ideological differences to invest in our shared future, observes Durga Sreenivasan, a delegate at COP28.
When Vineet Mittal first got into solar power, sometime around 2009, and was planting solar panels in Gujarat, renewable energy looked like a sector ripe for startups. Renewables were clearly the future of energy, and the big boys - Mukesh Ambani's Reliance, Adani Group, and the Tatas - were focusing much more on coal and petroleum. Little did Mittal know that things were going to change drastically.
Modi govt must bring about reforms to kick-start big-ticket infra projects.
The decision was taken at the BRICS Summit in Durban which also launched a Business Council to encourage investment and trade in member countries and to expand business cooperation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sees India as a "bright spot" in the global economy and as per the World Bank, India is in a better position to deal with the global headwinds than many other countries. This is because of India's strong "macroeconomic fundamentals", Modi said while virtually addressing the inaugural function of the 7th edition of Invest Madhya Pradesh-Global Investors Summit in Indore. In the past eight years, the government has increased the speed of reforms and removed many hurdles in the way of investments.
Barely two weeks after the Reserve Bank of India permitted 49 per cent foreign stake in stock exchanges
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has directed the new board of the debt-ridden IL&FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the Group to its creditors on pro-rata basis. The interim distribution award of Rs 16,361 crore includes Rs 11,296 crore in cash and Rs 5,065 crore in InvIT units (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) and a majority of this is to be distributed to the creditors of three large group firms -- IL&FS, IFIN and ITNL. "The interim distribution shall be confined only to the entities as reflected in Annexure-6 except those excluded and for the amount of Rs 16,361 crores i.e Rs 11,296 crore of cash and Rs 5,065 crores of InvIT Units," said an order by a two-member NCLAT bench headed by Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan.
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.
With passenger growth pegged at 14 to 15 per cent, airport infrastructure could be a make or break business for both new players and incumbents.
