Telcos have indicated that rates will have to be raised, as higher volumes alone will not suffice to meet the higher costs.
Dharmendra Pradhan lays bare the next course of action for his ministry and says RIL will have to pay the same price at which it produced the volumes.
The year gone by saw the high and mighty of the corporate world face the music in the Delhi High Court which held that the telecom majors are amenable to CAG audit and Mukesh Ambani's RIL struggling hard to get rid of an FIR lodged on gas pricing by the 49-day-old AAP regime.
The market breadth in BSE remains positive with 1,554 shares advancing and 1,196 shares declining.
The panel finds 'discrepancy' in the Annual Survey of Industries data.
Markets end in the red, midcaps in focus
Benchmark indices failed to sustain gains and retreated from day's high dragged primarily by the losses in metals, information technology and bank shares as investors started to book profits in late noon deals. Earlier, markets had scaled fresh all-time highs on the surprise post-budget rate cut by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 30-share Sensex ended down 213 points at 29,380 and the 50-share Nifty closed down 74 points at 8,922. Intra-day, Sensex reached the all-time high mark of 30,024.74 while Nifty touched the life-time high level of 9,119.20. In the broader market, both the BSE Midcap index and Smallcap indices, down 1% and 1.2% each underperformed the front-liners. Market breadth in BSE ended negative with 1,882 declines against 1,010 advances. A day after signing an agreement with Finance Ministry on inflation targeting, RBI surprised the markets with an early post-budget repo rate cut of 25 bps (basis points) to 7.5% from 7.75% which was again outside of central bank's scheduled policy review meetings as the earlier rate cut effected on January 15. "RBI's latest rate cut of 25 basis points, while a surprise in its timing is in-line with our expectations of a sharp rate-cutting cycle over the coming quarters. With inflation sustainably lower by 500bps, the RBI has in recent months acknowledged the scope for rate cuts and was only waiting for additional comfort that the government's fiscal policy would not play spoil-sport," said Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director at Angel Broking in a note. Analysts at Karvy believe that further monetary policy action will depend on number of factors including easing of supply constraints, improved availability of power, land, minerals and infrastructure, fiscal consolidation, the pass through of rate cuts by banks and the expected monsoon. Citing weakness in some sectors of the economy and the overall global trend towards monetary easing as rationale for the rate cut the central bank also exuded confidence in the road map for fiscal consolidation as laid out in the Union Budget, 2015. Commenting on how the markets reacted to RBI's surprise move, K Subramanyam assistant vice-president (institutional research), Asit C. Mehta Securities said, "The unexpected cut did take the market by surprise .However, credit off-take is not dependant only on interest rates. A gradual revival in the economy would be of more help which would trigger credit off-take. Hopefully this will follow and RBI's action would prove helpful. From market point of view this is bullish as equity becomes more attractive vis-a-vis falling interest rates." On the macro-economic front, the HSBC services PMI rose to an eight-month high of 53.9 in February up from 52.4 in January indicating strong expansion in output across the sector. Respondents cited robust growth of new business as the principle factor for the increase in activity. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 773 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data. Buzzing Stocks 9 out of the 12 sectoral indices of BSE ended in red. BSE Metal index, down 2.4% was the top loser followed by BSE Oil & Gas and Power indices, down 1.3% each. BSE Healthcare index, up 1.2% and BSE FMCG index, up 0.9% were the top losers. Bank stocks came under during late noon trades as traders booked profits at higher levels. However, RBI rate cut may encourage large lenders to cut their lending rates boosting demand for home and auto loans and provide funds for various stalled and new projects. Many stalled projects across the country are waiting for cash to restart work. The stock of stalled projects at the end of December 2014 stood at Rs 8.8 lakh crore or 7% of GDP. ICICI Bank ended down 0.1%, Axis Bank and SBI declined over 3% and HDFC Bank shed 1.5%. Sun Pharma gained over 6% on approval granted to Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company (SPARC) by US FDA for an antiepileptic drug. The product will be manufactured by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries at its Halol (Gujarat) facility in India. SPARC was formed in 2007 when Sun Pharma separated out its active projects in drug discovery and innovation into a new company. Dr Reddys Lab and Cipla have gained over 1% each. ITC gained over 1% after consecutive sessions of losses on the proposed larger-than-expected hike in excise duty on cigarettes in the Union Budget. The biggest ever auction of spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) started on Wednesday in the morning where government expects to garner Rs 80,000-1lakh crore from the sale of spectrum. Idea Cellular gained over 2%, Reliance Communication gained around 1% and Bharti Airtel closed 0.5% higher. Metal stocks were under pressure in today's session. Hindalco declined over 3%, Sesa Sterliteended down over 4% and Tata Steel closed down 2%. Profit-taking in IT stocks led to Wipro losing around 1.8%, Infosys declining 0.7% and TCS losing 1.5%.
Investors booked profits at higher levels after the Sensex and Nifty hit all-time highs in the previous session.
No Indian auto brand (including Tata or Mahindra) is well-known globally.
A sluggish economy and stalled bureaucratic decision-making for the past two years thwarted capital investment and dented earnings, making it tough for the companies to raise funds.
Sensex ended up 41 points at 29,136 and Nifty gained 4 pts to 8,809.
A steep decline in the Asian equities after crude oil fell to its lowest since September 2003 dented sentiments.
Gains in key IT, capital goods, healthcare and metal stocks, after consistent buying by domestic and foreign investors, helped both the key indices to scale new peaks.
India has more than 45 million SMEs, accounting for nearly 40 percent of gross domestic product.
NDTV operates news channels, including NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India.
4 MNCs among top 10 companies with dividend-earning promoters in FY15.
'Have we finally gotten over the holy cow syndrome?' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy after watching Aisi Taisi Democracy in action.
While the two high-profile exits in pharmaceutical and telecom have raised concerns over regulatory hassles in the country, Japanese investors are still keen to tap into India's consumer growth story and many more merger and acquisition deals are in the offing in this space.
The WPI inflation stood at negative 2.4% in May 2015, compared with a negative 2.65% in April 2015.
Most analysts expect growth in the sales of Nifty-50 companies to decelerate, albeit marginally, in the quarter ended December compared to the corresponding period of 2013-14, with metals and real estate companies pulling down earnings.
Bharti'suarterly revenue run rate continues to be hover around the $1.2 billion mar
Shashwat Goenka of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group plans a high-decibel campaign around its young apparel brand 2Bme.
Market breadth continued to remain strong, with 1899 gainers and 674 losers on the BSEs.
Asian shares ended higher after a string of positive US economic data.
After 3 weeks of consecutive rally, this week was a breather for the index, which corrected by almost 1.5%.
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
Markets ended at record closing highs for the second day in a row on institutional buying.
Metal shares were the top gainers with Hindalco up over 5%.
Markets extended losses to end 1.5% down on Tuesday, amid weak global cues, after investors turned cautious ahead of key economic data and booked profits in rate sensitive shares while the further fall in the rupee continued to weigh on investor sent.
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The broader markets traded positively with mid-caps and small-caps rising 0.5 per cent each on the BSE.
Reliance Industries and ONGC were down 4-6% each contributing the most to the Sensex losses
Markets in green tracking firm global cues.
In the January, 2013 Cabinet note on revision of prices of all domestically produced natural gas, the ministry had proposed immediate implementation of the formula suggested by a panel, headed by Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan, for all producers except in cases where the current rate is valid for a certain period.
Hike would have led to higher cost of fertiliser, electricity and even CNG.
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.
The short answer, as usual, is I don't know. But this is what could happen in the next one year...
The BSE Sensex was down 326 points at 23,277 and the Nifty was down 107 points at 7,056.
Many chief executives said they were talking to people at the top level in their organisations to find how their companies can help the flood victims.
RIL, HDFC twins, M&M, Infosys among the top losers for the day.
