Closely watched by the world for any escalation, the Iran-Israel conflict is already showing early signs of stress for India Inc - longer deliveries, doubling freight rates, extended working capital cycles, and higher costs. For those yet to feel the heat, there is growing apprehension and nervousness over future developments, observed industry executives.
The Divestment Ministry is moving fast to restart the sell-off process and go ahead with divestment in oil PSUs -- HPCL and BPCL.\n\n\n\n
Under-recovery or the gap between retail selling price and the cost of import, this month dipped to an all-time low of 8 paise a litre, helped by the monthly increases and softening in international oil rates.
With the prediction of an above normal monsoon in 2024, the government is expecting food prices to come down, the finance ministry's monthly economic report for March has said. The report, released on Thursday, said robust foreign inflows and comfortable trade deficits were expected to keep the rupee within a comfortable range. "Further easing of food prices is on the anvil as IMD (India Meteorological Department) has predicted above-normal rainfall during the monsoon season, which is likely to lead to higher production, assuming good spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall," the monthly report, released by the Department of Economic Affairs, said.
Despite discounts on Russian crude oil - which fell to the lowest since the Ukraine war began - and the rising sanctions, import volumes from the country will remain stable for now or at least till July, said refinery officials. "There is an appetite for Russian crude, and shipments are not expected to taper off beyond this point unless something major happens. "Talks are on, and buying will continue," an official at a major refinery said.
India's merchandise exports rose by 9.1 per cent to $38.13 billion in May even as the trade deficit widened to a seven-month high of $23.78 billion during the month, according to government data. Healthy growth in sectors, such as engineering, electronics, pharmaceuticals, textiles and plastics helped register growth in exports despite global economic uncertainties.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation had in 2007 farmed out 15 per cent stake in the KG-DWN-98/2 block, which sits next to Reliance Industries' KG-D6 block, to Brazil's state-controlled oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA or Petrobras.
The Oil Ministry has proposed a Rs 3-4.50 per litre hike in diesel price and Rs 100 in LPG rates along with raising the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders for households to nine a year from the current cap of six.
The prohibition has freed up as much as 60 million litres of ethanol
Among the 30 Sensex companies, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, ITC, Sun Pharma, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and JSW Steel were the major laggards. Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Maruti, NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra and UltraTech Cement were among the gainers.
Inputs by the Petroleum Ministry were found among stolen documents.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday conveyed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting that India would continue to do everything within its means to support a peaceful solution to the Ukraine conflict and that the way to peace is through 'dialogue and diplomacy'.
A task force set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) for transforming India into an "electronic and semiconductor products" nation is on the verge of finalising its report, which is likely to recommend an allocation of Rs 44,000 crore between 2024 and 2030 to support homegrown companies in their quest to develop products and build global brands. The task force's recommendations include significant incentives: Rs 15,000 crore dedicated to electronic products (systems), Rs 11,000 crore for semiconductor products, and Rs 18,000 crore for various other incentives such as talent development, common infrastructure, logistics, and technology & IP (intellectual property) acquisition, a member of the panel revealed.
The production growth of eight key infrastructure sectors slowed to a six-month low of 7.8 per cent in November due to a decline in the output of crude oil and cement sectors. The growth rate in the production of coal, fertiliser, steel, and electricity also decreased during November this year. According to the data released by the government on Friday, the growth during the month under review, however, is higher than the 5.7 per cent recorded a year ago.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
'With technology advancing, we should go all out and put up solar, wind, pumped storage, and battery, and make India go green.'
Domestic fuel sales at 11.39 million tons in February were 0.2 per cent lower than 11.41 million tons of petroleum products consumption in the same month a year ago.
The Budget should use the extra RBI surplus to better effect, suggests A K Bhattacharya.
RIL in a letter to the ministry said if such an "untenable" policy was allowed it would encourage KG-D6 allottees to sell the cheap gas at higher rates during times like plant shutdowns when they don't need the fuel.
Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, sea or air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy losses, the UK's ministry of defence said on Thursday.
A casual worker employed at the Defence Ministry was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly providing forged identity card to a key accused in petroleum ministry leaks case while police maintained that no sensitive documents were leaked or stolen from the defence ministry.
According to Jaishankar, the problem is that the Russian authorities maintain that these Indian nationals entered into contracts for services with the Russian army.
New Delhi has missed its target for partial privatisations for the past five years
Reliance Industries was to relinquish 25 per cent of the gas-bearing KG-D6 block in 2004 and a similar area in 2006 but the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, which was at that time headed by V K Sibal, concluded that hydrocarbon prospectivity "extends over entire block and hence no block area needed to be relinquished."
It is learnt that Lavrov is expected to travel to India either on Thursday or Friday after concluding a two-day visit to China.
The Oil Ministry has fixed the subsidy payout by upstream firms like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Ltd at Rs 15,546.65 crore (Rs 155.46 billion) for the April-June quarter.
From the Sensex basket, Power Grid, Asian Paints, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and JSW Steel were among the major gainers. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Wipro, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards.
From the time he first rose to prominence during the movement against the then UPA government, Arvind Kejriwal has regularly grabbed headlines for his surprise moves and decisions. Here are 10 such instances.
India expects to remain unscathed this time, mainly because it is in a sweet spot as the world's third largest oil consumer, after the US and China, says Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
Wholesale inflation in the country rose marginally to 0.53 per cent in March compared to 0.20 per cent in the preceding month due to increase in prices of vegetables, potato, onion and crude oil. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation was in the negative zone from April to October and had turned positive in November at 0.26 per cent. The inflation in March 2023 was 1.41 per cent.
On the back of rising crude oil purchases, India's bill for imports from sanctions-hit Russia jumped 3.5 times in a year in April to $2.3 billion, showed data from the commerce ministry. In April, India's crude oil imports from Russia were valued at $1.3 billion, 57 per cent of India's total inbound shipments from Russia. Other major imported items during the month included coal, soybean and sunflower oil, fertilisers, and non-industrial diamonds. That month, Russia was also the fourth-largest crude petroleum supplier to India, after Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Wholesale price-based inflation rose to a record high of 15.88 per cent in May on rising prices of food items and crude oil. The Wholesale Price Index-based inflation was 15.08 per cent in April and 13.11 per cent in May last year. "The high rate of inflation in May, 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of mineral oils, crude petroleum & natural gas, food articles, basic metals, non-food articles, chemicals & chemical products and food products etc. as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year," the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.
India's imports from Russia rose 64 per cent to $36.27 billion during the April-October period this fiscal on higher shipments of crude oil and fertiliser, according to the commerce ministry data. With this, Russia has become India's second-largest import source during the first seven months of this fiscal. The imports were $22.13 billion during April-October 2022.
India's total purchase of oil from Russia in a month is probably less than what Europe does in an afternoon, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.
The country's exports edged up 1 per cent to $38.45 billion in December 2023 while the trade deficit narrowed to a three-month low of $19.8 billion, official data released on Monday showed. Imports declined by 4.85 per cent to $58.25 billion in December last year due to a dip in crude oil shipments. The previous low in trade deficit - the difference between imports and exports - was recorded in September at $19.37 billion.
While the tournament saw the emergence of young stars, the usual suspects, the big names flattered to deceive.
The Ministry recently issued an order saying 'no authorisation from Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board is required for setting up of a CNG station.' PNGRB has been since 2009 issuing licences to entities for city gas distribution networks, essentially for retailing compressed natural gas to automobiles and piped cooking gas (piped natural gas or PNG) to households.
The FinMin will pay Rs 5,324 crore (Rs 53.24 billion) for Jan-March.
India, the world's third-biggest oil consumer, has conveyed to OPEC countries its concern over high oil prices that are threatening to impact the nascent economic recovery after the devastating pandemic. New Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has made phone calls to key OPEC nations to convey the desire for an affordable price for consumers. After calling his counterparts in Qatar and the UAE, he called Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) kingpin Saudi Arabia on Thursday evening.
India's merchandise exports in April 2024 marginally rose to $34.99 billion from $34.62 billion in the year-ago month, according to government data released on Wednesday. Imports too increased to $54.09 billion from $49.06 billion in April 2023.
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