Now that the economy is growing at a higher-than-expected rate, it is time to accelerate the pace of fiscal consolidation, and the Budget could be a good starting point, argues Rajesh Kumar.
The findings of the report showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18.
In May 2019, the food inflation was 1.83 per cent as per the full CPI data released for that period.
Industrial production re-entered the negative territory by contracting 1.6 per cent in January, mainly on account of the decline in output of capital goods, manufacturing and mining sectors. The output of the manufacturing sector -- which constitutes 77.6 per cent of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) -- shrank by 2 per cent in January, as against a growth of 1.8 per cent during the same month last fiscal, as per data released by the government on Friday. The worst performance was witnessed by the capital goods sector, which recorded a contraction of 9.6 per cent during the month under review, compared to a 4.4 per cent decline a year ago.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
Bond markets, global as well as domestic, are likely headed towards hard times over the next three to six months, as higher vegetable prices, rising fuel costs, and improved wages may keep inflation hot, believe analysts, who expect the yields to hit 7.5 per cent in the near-term from the current 7.234 per cent. In this backdrop, they suggest investors can put in money in funds/instruments with residual maturity of 4 to 6 years, while longer-term investors can allocate cautiously to the longer end in the range beyond 7 years.
The central government is likely to further consolidate its fiscal deficit by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.9 per cent in FY24 from 6.4 per cent in FY23, according to a recent report released by Goldman Sachs on Tuesday. In the current fiscal year, there is going to be an upside of 0.5 per cent on the receipts side due to higher nominal GDP growth, and higher tax buoyancy because of the formalisation, the report said. The upside to expenditure is mainly going to come from incremental subsidies (0.8 per cent of GDP), in both food and fertilizer, it said. The upcoming pre-election Budget will carry forward the trend of the increased capital expenditure seen in recent years.
Elevated food price-led inflation could become a sore point for markets, which they seem to be ignoring at current levels, observe analysts. Retail inflation in India - as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - came in at a three-month high of 6.52 per cent in January 2023, compared with 5.72 per cent in December and 5.88 per cent in November 2022. The inflation print for February, according to Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, will be critical for the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy committee.
The figures show that the number of UK-born people in employment was 25 million over the three months to June, a fall of 50,000 people on a year earlier.
India's industrial production contracted by 4 per cent in October, the sharpest fall in 26 months, mainly due to decline in output of manufacturing and subdued performance of mining and power generation sectors, according to official data released on Monday. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown 4.2 per cent in October 2021. The previous low was (-) 7.1 per cent in August 2020.
Punjabi has been revealed as the third most spoken language in the United Kingdom after English and Polish, according to 2011 census data released by the Office of National Statistics.
The pre-budget Economic Survey, which is tabled in Parliament ahead of the Union Budget to present the state of the economy and suggest policy prescriptions, quite often misses on the GDP forecast, sometimes by a significant margin. This time, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will table the Economic Survey for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha on Monday soon after the President's address to both Houses of Parliament. She will present the Union Budget for the next financial year beginning April 1, 2022, on Tuesday.
The economic growth may have slowed to 3.5 per cent in fourth quarter of 2021-22 from 5.4 per cent in the previous three-month period due to the impact of higher commodity prices on margins, decline in wheat yields and on higher base, Icra Ratings said on Monday. The agency said the hiccups in the recovery of the contact-intensive services attributable to the third wave of Covid-19 in the country may have also affected the economic growth in the quarter. Even the gross value added (GVA) at basic prices (at constant 2011-12 prices) in Q4 FY2022 seems to have eased to 2.7 per cent from 4.7 per cent in Q3 FY2022, it said.
India recorded economic growth of 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2023-24 against 13.1 per cent in the year-ago period, as per the National Statistical Office (NSO) data released on Thursday. India remains the fastest-growing major economy as China's GDP growth in the April-June quarter was 6.3 per cent.
The interim budget 2024-24 on Thursday allocated Rs 1,277.80 crore for census, a significant reduction from 2021-22 when Rs 3,768 crore was allocated and an indication that the exercise may not be carried out even after three years of delay.
Nearly one in six people living in England and Wales last year were born outside the country and Indians constituted the largest chunk at 1.5 per cent of residents, according to latest statistics based on the country's 2021 census data.
...benefiting 350,000 persons. Also, Trai detected and blocked seven million mobile phone connections involved in cyber fraud and suspicious activities.
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.
The UK's death toll now makes it just one of a number of countries to have crossed the 20,000 fatalities mark, after France, Spain, Italy and the United States.
India's economy grew by 6.3 per cent in the second quarter of the current fiscal, official data released on Wednesday showed.
Annamalai has faced criticism for the breakup between the AIADMK and the BJP, but BJP leaders say 'he attracts youth, who needs change'.
The internals of the food inflation are worrying, given a broad-based uptick across categories that tend to be sticky, such as proteins, and a narrower-than-expected reduction in inflation for vegetables.
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 Centre will invest around Rs 200 crore over five years for the exploration and development of these mines.
'One is happy. The moment one starts criticising the BJP, ED, IT and CBI comes to one's house.'
Retail inflation dropped marginally to 7.01 per cent in June mainly due to slight easing in prices of vegetables and pulses, though it still remained above the Reserve Bank's comfort level for the sixth month in a row. The consumer price index (CPI) based inflation stood at 7.04 per cent in the preceding month of May and 6.26 per cent in June 2021. Inflation in the food basket in June 2022 was 7.75 per cent, compared to 7.97 per cent in the previous month, as per the National Statistical Office (NSO) data released on Tuesday.
'We should look at is full year's growth rather than quarter numbers.'
India's economy grew by 13.5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal, mainly due to the base effect, official data showed on Wednesday. The gross domestic product (GDP) had expanded by 20.1 per cent in the corresponding April-June period of 2021-22, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Many analysts had projected the Indian economy will expand at a double-digit growth rate due to the base effect.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
Between April and June, 186,000 people started work in Britain, of which 145,000 were foreigners and 41,000 were British.
As a percentage contributor to nominal GDP, PFCE's share was 60.1 per cent in FY23, compared with 59.6 per cent and 60.8 per cent in the two preceding fiscal years. "Although PFCE is expected to grow 7.7 per cent in FY23, we believe it is still short of a broad-based recovery. "The current consumption demand is highly skewed in favour of goods and services consumed largely by the households falling in the upper income bracket. "A broad-based consumption recovery, therefore, is still some distance away," said Sunil Kumar Sinha, principal economist with India Ratings.
Nearly 40 per cent of IITians sitting for placements in 2024 are yet to receive job offers, showing a doubling of the 'unplaced' in the last three years from 19 per cent in 2021-2022 to 38 per cent in 2023-2024.
Retail inflation softened to 6.71 per cent in July due to moderation in food prices but remained above the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 6 per cent for the seventh consecutive month. With retail inflation continuing to remain high despite a fall in prices of vegetables and edible oils, among other commodities in July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might go for another rate hike in September. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was at 7.01 per cent in June and 5.59 per cent in July 2021. It was above 7 per cent from April to June this fiscal.
Retail inflation eased to 7.04 per cent in May, mainly on account of softening food and fuel prices as the government as well as the RBI stepped in to control spiralling price rise by way of duty cuts and repo rate hike. However, the inflation print stayed above the Reserve Bank's upper tolerance level of 6 per cent for the fifth month in a row. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was 7.79 per cent in April.
Industrial production growth entered positive territory after a gap of two months with a record 22.4 per cent rise in March this year, mainly due to the low-base effect and good show by manufacturing, mining and power sectors. The manufacturing sector -- which constitutes 77.63 per cent of the index of industrial production (IIP) -- grew by 25.8 per cent in March 2021, as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday. The mining sector output too grew 6.1 per cent in March, while power generation increased by 22.5 per cent.
Industrial production contracted by 1.9 per cent in November, entering the negative territory after a two-month gap, mainly due to poor showing by manufacturing and mining sectors, official data showed on Tuesday. The manufacturing sector -- which constitutes 77.63 per cent of the index of industrial production (IIP) -- recorded a contraction of 1.7 per cent in November 2020, as per data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Mining sector output too witnessed a decline, shrinking 7.3 per cent.
As per the data released by the NSO, the overall food inflation rose to 14.12 per cent in December as against (-) 2.65 per cent in the same month of 2018.
The country's demographic dividend is dissipating, with seriously adverse consequences for young India, asserts Shankar Acharya, former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
Retail inflation fell to a 15-month low of 5.66 per cent in March, mainly due to a decline in food prices, government data showed on Wednesday. The inflation figure in March is within the RBI's comfort zone as it is below 6 per cent. The retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 6.44 per cent in February 2023 and 6.95 per cent in the year-ago period.
India's economic growth slowed down to 4.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2022-23 mainly due to poor performance of the manufacturing sector. In October-December 2021, the economy grew by 11.2 per cent and by 6.3 per cent in the July-September 2022 quarter, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Tuesday.
