'If you look at where inflation (headline and core) is today in India and where the rates are, there's clearly room to cut rates.'
rediffGURU T S Khurana answers readers' personal income tax queries.
Shah recently visited the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
India's voting pattern in the United Nations with regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict is lately marked by a calibrated distancing from Israel, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
He also said a total of Rs 38.75 crore, deposited by people in the Karavannur Cooperative bank in this district, which is now facing charges, had already been returned.
A consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to provide loans to Tata Group for the smooth operations of loss-making Air India. Tata Group, which won the bid to acquire the national carrier along with Air India Express and 50 per cent stake in AISATS in October last year, is expected to formally takeover the airline on Thursday. Sources said the SBI-led consortium has agreed to grant both term loans and working capital loans depending on the airline's requirements. All large lenders, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank of India, are part of the consortium, they added.
Between April and August, it issued request seeking LoC against 147 individuals to prevent them from leaving the country, the bank said in response to a Right to Information query filed by Pune-based activist Vihar Durve.
For the time being, digital lending remains a grey area, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The price hikes during Covid were more because of supply chain and logistics disruptions caused by the pandemic and the Ukraine war rather than firms increasing prices because of higher pricing power, a report by State Bank of India (SBI) said. "It is thus incorrect to infer that concentration power dictated pricing capacity of firms, thus resulting in unyielding core inflation," the report authored by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser, SBI, said. A recent research article by former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor Viral Acharya had observed that persistence of core inflation in India is due to purchasing power of top-five corporate houses.
Mortgage finance remains a structural growth opportunity in India with a policy focus on affordable housing, housing shortages, low mortgage penetration, and rising incomes as drivers. Affordable Housing Finance Companies (AHFCs) serve the mass market, low-income segments, which is the least-serviced category, and to operate in this segment, the mortgage provider needs good assessment skills. AHFCs and HFCs have also been increasing exposure in other mortgage segments (loan against property, developer loans among others).
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
A fresh PIL was filed on Thursday in the Supreme Court seeking a probe by multiple central government agencies under the supervision of a panel or a former apex court judge against the Adani Group of companies following allegations of fraud and share price manipulation made by the US-based Hindenburg Research.
In mid-March this year, the finance ministry asked state-run banks to review their gold loan portfolio for the two-year period between January 1, 2022, and January 31, 2024. This business had grown at a fast clip. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data has it that it grew 15 per cent to Rs 1 trillion in FY24. Now, in recent times, any kind of exuberance in financial services has seen the authorities swoop down - be it pushing the lines on governance or unsecured credit.
Consistent practice is crucial for retaining math concepts and formulas, says rediffGURU CAT expert Ashish Sood.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has initiated discussions with banks to address financial stress in the telecom sector, particularly Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) that urgently requires fund infusion to stay afloat. There was a meeting of DOT officials and senior bankers on Friday on the issue of Vodafone, sources said, adding that banks have been asked to look for a solution within the prudential guidelines. According to sources, senior officials from the country's biggest lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda were also present among others in the meeting. More such meetings are expected to take place in the coming days, they said.
Net inflows were $18.4 billion for the rolling 12-month period ended January 2024 compared to $32.7 billion for the rolling 12-month period ended January 2023.
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
The top 100 companies have accounted for 63% of the gains (Rs 51 trillion out of Rs 81 trillion), while firms beyond the top 100 have contributed 37 per cent (Rs 30 trillion).
The NIA had registered three cases last year following information suggesting that terrorist outfits and their sympathisers abroad were operating as members of organised criminal gangs active in the northern states of India for targeted killings and violent criminal acts.
Shares of public sector enterprises have corrected by up to 22 per cent month-to-date until March 19, 2024. Analysts attribute this steep fall to the valuation exuberance seen after a sharp run in these counters last year and suggest investors remain selective regarding the stocks in this space. "The rally in public sector undertaking (PSU) stocks has been stretched and sharp, although it is somewhat justified by improvements seen in earnings, operations, balance sheets, and overall profitability.
From the Sensex pack, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, Maruti, Infosys and Bharti Airtel were the major laggards.
Mired in corruption, politics and with a history of suicides by its hapless depositors, PMC Bank's revival is a challenge very different from Yes Bank and LVB, both for the regulator and the rescuer, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Coming down heavily on the Maharashtra government, the apex court castigated it saying the state has huge amount to "waste on freebies" but does not have money to compensate to a private party which lost land to it "illegally".
The combined entity is set to be the third largest bank in India, behind State Bank of India and ICICI Bank.
Mukesh Ambani, the patriarch of Reliance Industries (RIL), and Gautam Adani, the chairman of Adani Group of companies, have secured the top positions on the Fortune India Rich List, created in partnership with Waterfield Advisors, with respective wealth of $99.7 billion and $63.71 billion. With a wealth of $34.6 billion, the Mistry family of Shapoorji Pallonji Group holds the third position on the list, while the Poonawalla family, owners of vaccine maker Serum Institute, with a wealth of $32.9 billion, stands fourth. Stockbroker and founder of D-Mart-branded grocery stores, Radhakishan Damani, claims the fifth spot on the India Rich List with a wealth of $23.4 billion
'As our per capita income increases and various demographic segments emerge, the need for various kinds of protection and risk covers will become even more explicit.'
Mumbai-based Weizmann, part of a diversified group, will take to court its former partner Western Union Holdings, the American money-transfer giant, alleging that the United States-based company has imitated its trademark and logo. This, its lawyers say, constitutes a case of infringement and dilution of its intellectual-property rights.
The heat wave is likely to impact parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal, the Met office said.
'Facilitating conversion of well-run NBFCs into banks is urgently needed.'
Among the states due for election next year are AP, Haryana and Odisha, which have a fair share of agri credit. If these states individually announced debt relief, the combined waiver would be at least around Rs 600 bn to Rs 700 bn. Clearly, this will be a frightening challenge for Indian banks.
At a time when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were unloading Jio Financial Services from their portfolios, some active fund managers were placing large bets on the demerged financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research shows. Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and Quant Mutual Fund were the top MF buyers of the stock in August. They bought around 60 million shares each, together investing around Rs 2,800 crore.
Benchmark BSE Sensex and Nifty closed higher in a highly volatile trade on Monday, riding on the back of a recovery in IT, oil and financial stocks after a two-day fall. The 30-share Sensex recovered 169.51 points or 0.29 per cent to settle at 59,500.41. During the day, it rose by 313.34 points or 0.52 per cent to 59,644.24.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the group's biggest cash generator, overtook Vedanta to become the highest dividend payer in India in FY23. The IT services major paid Rs 42,090 crore for FY23, up 167.4 per cent from Rs 15,738 crore for FY22. The 10 biggest payers together shelled out Rs 2.06 trillion for FY23, more than double the Rs 98,371 crore for FY22.
After a tumultuous past few days that almost halved value of the Adani group, embattled tycoon Gautam Adani-led conglomerate had some pressure eased on Friday as two global rating firms stuck with their calls on its credit profile and its French partner backed its investments in the group firms. Also for the first time since January 24, shares of the group's flagship firm Adani Enterprises ended in positive territory after erasing an intraday loss of 35 per cent. Adani Ports and SEZ also ended 8 per cent higher. This is after a over $100-billion rout in value of group stock since the US short seller Hindenburg Research accused Adani group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud.
Is the worst over for Indian banks? The past two years saw them ride on treasury trades as deposits soared and credit growth dipped sharply. Gross and net non-performing assets (NPAs) moved south, and the provision coverage ratio (PCR), capital buffers, and profitability indicators are back at pre-pandemic levels. So, what's the plot ahead?
All the global transitions are working in India's favour, giving it the potential to become a force in today's uncertain world, but one of the country's biggest challenges is inclusive growth, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Monday. In his address at the JRD Tata Oration, the head of the Tata group also asserted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay and it will be beneficial if India prepares for it. Post the cold war era of relative stability and prosperity, the world appears to have given way to unpredictable conflicts and economic uncertainty, he said, adding that the pandemic resulted in supply chain shocks of gigantic proportion.
24 hours before campaigning ends in Thiruvanathapuram, Archana Masih/Rediff.com discovers Shashi Tharoor and his BJP rival Rajeev Chandrasekhar are busy getting their message across to voters.
'Focus on 19,400/64,900 as the key resistance levels for the Nifty/Sensex.'
For the remaining projects, it is difficult to arrive at an estimate.
