'If he gets bail, he will bounce back.'
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has sent a judicial request to the United States seeking information from private investigator Michael Hershman, who has claimed to possess crucial details about the Rs 64-crore Bofors bribery scandal of the 1980s. Hershman, the head of the Fairfax Group, had previously expressed his willingness to share information with Indian agencies, alleging that the investigation into the scam was derailed by the then Congress government. The CBI's request comes after previous attempts to obtain information from US authorities yielded no results. This move highlights the continued efforts to uncover the truth behind the decades-old scandal, which has had a significant impact on Indian politics.
IT services major Infosys on Monday said it has bought back over 5.58 crore equity shares as part of its about Rs 9,200 crore buyback offer. The shares were bought back at a volume weighted average price of Rs 1,648.53 per equity share, according to a public notice. "The company bought back a total of 5,58,07,337 equity shares (1.31 per cent of the pre-buyback paid-up equity share capital of the company) and the total amount utilised towards the buyback is Rs 9199,99,99,599.80 (excluding transaction costs)," it said.
IT services major Infosys on Wednesday posted a 17.5 per cent rise in net profit to Rs 5,076 crore for the March quarter, and announced up to Rs 9,200 crore buyback offer at a maximum price of Rs 1,750 per share.
The stock of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (AHEL), India's largest listed health care services company, fell 4.6 per cent on Monday (April 29) and slipped another 0.34 per cent to close at Rs 5,946.20 on Tuesday (April 30). The share declined due to a lower valuation for subsidiary Apollo HealthCo (AHL) and an aggressive valuation for Keimed, a promoter-owned drug wholesaler that is merging with AHL.
Sridhar Kalyanasundaram, an independent director of private sector lender Dhanlaxmi Bank, has resigned from the board with effect from September 16. In his resignation letter, Kalyanasundaram has raised issues like factionalism in the board, his differences regarding rights issue and the alleged 'lack of in depth banking knowledge' in other members. This comes after Ravindran Pillai, head of RP Group, who holds 9.99 per cent stake in the bank (largest shareholder), came out with a special notice for removal of Kalyanasundaram.
The budgetary allocation for the sector is Rs 60,908.22 crore, with Rs 6,400 crore earmarked for the centre's flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (AB-PMJAY).
The government on Saturday said it will earn an additional Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) from the hike in excise and restoration of duties on petroleum products, while it will lose Rs 21,000 crore (Rs 210 billion) due to income tax sops.
A combination of bank guarantees, letters of credit, buyer's credit for computer servers have been provided to the two local operational arms by Kotak Mahindra Bank and Deutsche Bank.
Contributions to mutual fund schemes through systematic investment plans or SIPs remain unfazed from the market volatility in 2022 with inflow growing to Rs 1.5 lakh crore in 2022, a surge of 31 per cent from a year earlier, due to higher retail participation. In comparison, an inflow of Rs 1.14 lakh crore through the route was registered in 2021 and Rs 97,000 crore in 2020, data with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) showed. Going ahead, SIP numbers are expected to continue to remain strong in 2023 as investors are increasingly appreciating the importance of regular investing through the route, Kaustubh Belapurkar, director - manager research at Morningstar Investment Adviser India, said.
Key individual parties have cornered a larger share, with some favouring regional and others national players.
Huawei, as well as ZTE, has of late shown interest in setting up a manufacturing facility in India.
Akshata Murty, the wife of Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, stands to earn Rs 68.17 crore in dividend income from her shareholding in India's second-largest IT firm Infosys. Murty, daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, held 3.89 crore shares of Infosys at the end of December, according to company filings with the stock exchanges. Infosys declared a final dividend of Rs 17.50 per share for FY23 (April 2022 to March 2023).
The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) is investing close to Rs 46 crore (Rs 460 million) in four new centres of excellence -- School of Entrepreneurship, School of Infrastructure Design and Management, Steel Technology Centre, and Centre of Excellence in Telecommunication Engineering.
The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
About 82 per cent of the total income from unknown sources declared by national political parties in 2022-23 came from electoral bonds, according to a poll rights body.
'The top five IT giants are not hiring, but most of the freshers want to start their careers with the top five IT firms.' 'In today's scenario this is a challenge.'
The government is considering various options, apart from the public offer route, to achieve the disinvestment target for the fiscal by way of share buy-back, private placement of shares or asking cash-rich PSUs to buy equity in their peers.
Nestle India, the subsidiary of Swiss dairy major Nestle, is all geared to set up its ninth plant in the country. The company had acquired about 50 acres of land at Sanand, nearly 30 kilometres from Ahmedabad, for a manufacturing plant, said Gujarat government officials.
IT services major Wipro is reconsidering a proposal of buy back of equity shares, said the company in a regulatory filing. A final decision on this will be taken during the board meeting to be held on April 26-27. The outcome of the board meeting will be communicated to the stock exchanges soon after conclusion on April 27.
The net worth of India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, dropped 28 per cent, or USD 300 million a day for two months to USD 48 billion as on March 31 due to the massive correction in stock markets, a report said on Monday. The chairman and managing director of the diversified Reliance Industries saw his wealth decline by USD 19 billion (app Rs 144,400 crores) in the February-March period, taking his global ranking down eight places to 17th, the Hurun Global Rich List said.
Gross inflows into active equity mutual fund (MF) schemes dipped 34 per cent month-on-month (MoM) -- to Rs 25,400 crore -- in April as investors applied brakes on lump sum investments amid a sharp upwards movement in the market. Gross inflows for March stood at Rs 38,641 crore. The sharp decline pulled the net inflows to a five-month low of Rs 6,480 crore, shows data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in the Budget for 2015-16, is likely to target around Rs 43,000 crore (Rs 430 billion) from divestment proceeds, almost the same level that the government expects to realise from stake sale in PSUs this fiscal.
Yet another week of Hollywood movies doing very well at the Indian box office.
The government has ordered Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to pay a near-record Rs 13,764 crore as fuel subsidy for the December quarter, a move that will dent the firm's profitability.
Revenue rises 20.7% to Rs 36,854 crore.
Swiggy is planning to file its draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India for its initial public offering (IPO) in the next two weeks, aiming for an $11 billion IPO valuation target. The Bengaluru-based firm plans to raise an estimated $1 billion (Rs 8,300 crore) through the IPO this year. The company is targeting a valuation in the range of $10-11 billion, and it currently has approximately $800 million in cash from the previous funding round, according to sources.
Asset Reconstruction Company has acquired bad debts totalling Rs 805 crore (Rs 8.05 billion) from ICICI Bank and National Housing Bank (NHB) and is close to finalising 2-3 more deals including public sector lenders, a top ARCIL official said.
Urjit Patel said said the process of remonetisation was on and estimation of costs was a complex exercise.
From the 30 Sensex pack, State Bank of India jumped 5 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finserv, NTPC, Adani Ports, Bajaj Finance and Larsen & Toubro. In contrast, Maruti, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the laggards.
State-owned Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency's (Ireda's) chairman and managing director Pradip Kumar Das has announced that the company has requested the government to allow it to carry out a follow-on public offer (FPO) as it will need further equity infusion to maintain the pace of growth. The FPO would aim to raise between Rs 4,000 crore and Rs 5,000 crore. Ireda, which provides funding assistance and other services to renewable energy and energy efficiency/conservation projects and is 75 per cent owned by the government of India, has requested the Union Finance Ministry to be included under Section 54EC of the Income Tax Act, which will help reduce borrowing costs.
'Just this year alone, close to 40 major transactions involving Bollywood stars have been recorded.'
'The estimated expenditure is expected to be more than double the Rs 60,000 crore spent in 2019'
Pepper futures set a new record of Rs 457.09 crore (Rs 4.57 billion) during intra-day trading at the National Multi-Commodity Exchange last week.
Journalist and author Chitra Subramaniam has demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) make public its findings from the "box of evidence" received from Switzerland regarding the Bofors payoffs. Subramaniam, author of 'Boforsgate: A Journalist's Pursuit of Truth', expressed concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the evidence, questioning who opened the box, when it was opened, and what it contained. She also raised doubts about the official narrative regarding the alleged bribe in the Bofors case, suggesting the sum of Rs 64 crore may not reflect the full extent of the corruption. Subramaniam also alleged that the CBI planted stories about Hindi film actor Amitabh Bachchan to derail the investigation and launched a political vendetta against the Bachchans. She recalled that Bachchan had come to her home and asked if she had seen his name. The CBI has recently requested assistance from the United States in the case, seeking information from private investigator Michael Hershman, who claims to have crucial details about the scandal. The Bofors scandal, a major bribery case involving the Indian government and the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors in the 1980s, pertains to allegations of a Rs 64-crore bribe in a Rs 1,437-crore deal for the supply of 400 155mm field Howitzers.
Major global banks such as Standard Chartered, Barclays and HSBC have paid lesser amounts in advance tax in the third quarter of this fiscal compared to the year-ago period, while the domestic banks have paid higher amounts during the same period.
NMDC, the country's largest iron-ore miner, posted a consolidated revenue in the January-March quarter of FY24. This was in line with estimates at Rs 6,500 crore, which was up 11 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), and a 20 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) rise on the back of realisations. Iron-ore production was 13.3 million tonnes (down 6 per cent and up 8 per cent Q-o-Q), while the sales stood at 12.5 MT (up 1 per cent Y-o-Y and up 10 per cent Q-o-Q).
Tata Power saw a big sell-off, with the stock falling almost 8 per cent after declaring disappointing results for the October-December quarter (Q3) of 2023-24 (FY24) on Friday evening. The company reported net consolidated revenue of Rs 14,650 crore, up 4.4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) of Rs 2,607 crore, up 2 per cent Y-o-Y, in the quarter, led by higher sales across Odisha distribution companies (discoms) and capacity addition in renewables. This was well below consensus estimates.
Rasna has recently launched its ready-to-drink fruit concentrate named Fruitplus. This concentrate gets dissolved within 5 seconds and offers greater nutritional value of fruits. Fruitplus was launched in four flavours -- orange, lemon, mango and pineapple, which will be available in bottled packs as well as in pouches. The sachets have been priced at Rs 3 each per glass & will fill the gap of lower price fruit drinks. Rasna is banking on the price factor to enter the market.
Of late, Bollywood is showing a lot of interest in planes, the commercial and fighter varieties. And audiences seem to love it too!
