A British court on Tuesday opened the continuation appeal hearing in the extradition case of Nirav Modi, who is wanted in India on the charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to an estimated $2 billion in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan scam case. The 51-year-old diamond merchant had lodged an appeal last year against his extradition order on mental health grounds. Lord Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith and Justice Robert Jay presided over an initial hearing at the High Court in December last year to determine whether District Judge Sam Goozee's Westminster Magistrates' Court ruling from February 2021 in favour of extradition was incorrect to overlook the diamond merchant's "high risk of suicide".
How Naushad boosted Rafi's morale... Tune first or lyrics first? Raju Bharatan reveals some secrets of the Hindi film music industry.
India's exports are unlikely to get an immediate boost from a depreciating rupee, which touched an all-time low on Monday, driven by rising commodity prices. The rupee fell to 76.97 against the dollar earlier in the day, settling 1.05 per cent weaker than the previous close. Oil prices soared to their highest since 2008 on Monday at $139 per barrel, after the US and European allies explored a Russian oil import ban, while delays in the potential return of Iranian crude oil to global markets increased supply fears.
Auditors seem to have developed a heightened sense of risk and are not content to tick the boxes and sign the papers.
Among other things, the e-commerce players will have to display the total 'price' of goods and services offered for sale, mention the 'expiry date' of goods and the 'country of origin' of goods and services.
'India has always been a bottom-up stock-picking market, and as growth recovers with higher liquidity, mid and small-caps always tend to outperform.'
She came like a whirlwind to wipe out, in one stroke, practically all female singing competition, recalls Raju Bharatan.
As stringent sanctions imposed by the European Union and US are crippling business and trade, desperate Russian oil companies are offering huge discounts to India, provided a payment mechanism to bypass the SWIFT ban is quickly approved by the government. According to sources familiar with the development, Russian oil firms are offering 25-27 per cent discount to the dated Brent crude prices. State-run Rosneft is one the biggest oil companies that supply crude to India.
India's forex reserves decreased by $587 million to $635.08 billion for the week ended December 24, the RBI said on Friday. In the previous week ended December 17, the overall reserves had decreased by $160 million to $635.67 billion. The kitty had touched a lifetime high of $642.45 billion in the week ended September 3, 2021.
After a sharp outperformance in the mid-and small-cap segments in the first half of calendar year 2023 (H1-CY23), analysts are now turning cautious on these two market segments and suggest investors stay selective and look for valuation comfort and earnings visibility before investing. The S&P BSE Midcap index has surged 13.7 per cent in H1-CY23, and the S&P BSE Small-cap index gained 12.7 per cent during this period, data shows. The S&P BSE Sensex, in comparison, has moved up 6.4 per cent.
The Hindi film industry has seen its share of controversies. Raju Bharatan gives us a closer look.
Moody's Investors Service on Thursday upped India growth forecast to (-) 10.6 per cent for the current fiscal, from its earlier estimate of (-) 11.5 per cent, saying the latest stimulus prioritises manufacturing and job creation, and focuses on longer-term growth. Last week the government had announced a new fiscal package amounting to Rs 2.7 lakh crore. Moody's said the latest measures aim to increase the competitiveness of India's manufacturing sector and create jobs, while supporting infrastructure investment, credit availability and stressed sectors.
Companies, which missed out on listing earlier, are giving it another shot but with significantly-reduced issue sizes. In the recent past, companies such as TVS Supply Chain Solutions, Suraj Estate Developers, and ESAF Small Finance Bank have re-filed their draft red herring prospectuses (DRHPs) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). This came after they slashed their issue sizes by 20-60 per cent.
With the markets scaling new highs, as many as 43 stocks from the Nifty50 index and 27 of the 30 scrips that are part of the S&P BSE Sensex are trading above their respective 200-day moving average (DMA). The 200-DMA is seen as one of the most relevant trend indicators by investors and traders, who believe that stocks and indices trading above this level possess strength and are likely to rally in the short to medium term, while the ones trading below this level are viewed as bearish and expected to see a sell-off. Wipro, UPL, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindalco, Infosys, Cipla, and Adani Enterprises are the only stocks from the Nifty50 pack that are still below their respective 200-DMA, the exchange data suggests.
Brace for some warmth this winter as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in its December-February forecast on Thursday said that the minimum and maximum temperatures could remain 'normal' to 'above normal' over most parts of Northwest and Northeast India. Both the minimum and maximum will remain below normal in Southern Peninsular and Central India in these winter months. While this could give some respite from the intense cold of North India, it could have a negative impact on the standing rabi crops if the temperature rise is unusual and abnormal.
India's jugalbandhi with coal and clean energy is coming unstuck, neither achieving adequate renewable generation nor ensuring sufficient coal-fired power in the quest to become a $5-trillion economy. Six months have elapsed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ambitious climate agenda for India at COP26 at Glasgow. The net zero emissions target by 2070 is a distant one, but there are nearer-term plans to meet 50 per cent of energy demand with renewables by 2030 by increasing capacity to 450 Gw. A cursory look at the balance sheet of India's climate progress since November reveals ponderous progress towards meeting the renewables target even as the country is scrambling to expand coal-fired generation in the face of a power crisis.
Do you have financial planning queries? Ask rediffGURU Kirtan A Shah.
Shreekant Sambrani remembers P R S 'Biki' Oberoi, personal friend and hospitality icon, who passed into the ages this week.
Leading economists have pencilled in a high 13-15.7 per cent uptick in the economy in the first quarter of 2022-23 with an upward bias. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, the group chief economic adviser at State Bank of India, on Tuesday said he expects the GDP to clip past 15.7 per cent in the first quarter with more chances of the final numbers printing in higher, while Aditi Nayar, the chief economist at the rating agency Icra, said the economy will grow much lower at 13 per cent in the June quarter. The national statistical office will announce the first quarter GDP numbers later next week.
In FY23, the State Bank of India (SBI) reported a 57.4 per cent jump in its net profit to Rs 55,684.17 crore. But the chairman of the country's largest bank, Dinesh Khara's annual pay for this creditable performance was just Rs 37 lakh (his peers at state-run banks are no better off). Look at his private bank rivals - most pocketed in excess of Rs 7 crore annually - plus stock options.
Untimely rains during March have caused damage to rabi crops and may result in lower yields, a report said on Wednesday. Between March 1 and 21, cumulative rains have been 20 per cent more than normal, and in the past four days, it was 3-4 times more than usual, according to a report by Crisil Market Intelligence and Analytics. On March 21, the rain volume in central India was 1,600 per cent more than normal, the report said, adding that unfortunately, this ongoing harvest window for rabi crops has been lashed by an untimely torrent.
A rare 18th century decorated gun made in India for Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan, and valued at around GBP 2 million, has been barred from export to allow time for a UK-based institution to acquire it for the public study of a "fraught period" in India-UK history.
'The government should act proactively to instil confidence in the private investors, and also boost the purchasing power of people directly or indirectly by ensuring minimum wages.'
India will either have to create a system in which certain geographical areas will wind up being permanent political outsiders at the Union level or it will have to create a system in which certain votes are weighted more heavily than others, observes Mihir S Sharma.
India's reserve position with IMF rose by $ 7 million to $ 3.636 billion.
Way before the rains arrived at Talwandi Sabo Power plant in Punjab, the one check the coal ministry was carrying out was the availability of coal stock with the generator. Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL), the 1,980-Mw thermal power plant of Sterlite Energy, part of the Vedanta Group, which supplies about 15 per cent of Punjab's power, is one of the most difficult locations to manage coal supplies. It is nearly 1,700 km from the mines of Mahanadi Coalfields in Odisha, the longest coal route in India and possibly the trickiest as it cuts through the traffic heavy rail lines between Delhi and eastern India.
How many of the apps downloaded in India deliver the GPT technology they say they are?
Despite fears of the Omicron variant, business activity touched an all-time high since the onset of the pandemic for the week ended December 12, a Japanese brokerage said on Monday. The Nomura India Business Resumption Index (NIBRI), which compares the activity for a particular week as against the one before the onset of the pandemic, rose to 115.8 from the 112.9 for the previous week. "Despite Omicron risks, neither policy restrictions nor public fear factor appear to have had any impact on mobility so far, which is supporting a further normalisation in services," it said in a statement.
The pilot project for central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the retail segment went live on Thursday with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issuing Rs 1.71 crore to four participating banks based on their indents. The central bank has identified four banks for the first phase of the pilot - State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank - in four cities, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar. The highest indent was received from one private sector bank.
The rupee rose by 12 paise to close at 79.78 against the US dollar on Monday due to a weak dollar in overseas markets and an improved appetite for riskier assets. Stronger regional currencies also supported the rupee sentiment ahead of the US Fed policy decision on Wednesday. Weak domestic equities and FII outflows, however, capped sharp gains. At the inter-bank forex market, the local unit opened at 79.86 against the greenback and moved in a range of 79.70 to 79.87 in the day trade.
"Over 50 files were created on Swamy's hard drive, including incriminating documents that fabricated links between him and the Maoist insurgency," the report said.
Ahead of Diwali festival, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday increased the dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief by 4 per cent effective July 1, 2022, benefiting 41.85 lakh central government employees and 69.76 lakh pensioners. The additional instalment of DA and dearness relief (DR) is an increase of 4 per cent over the existing rate of 34 per cent of basic pay/pension. The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be Rs 12,852.5 crore per annum, said Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur while briefing reporters about the decisions of the Union Cabinet.
The global turmoil in the banking sector has made analysts cautious, who advise that investors stay away from stocks of this sector till the overall sentiment improves. The recent trouble for the banking sector started with the collapse of US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank. On its part, Moody's Investors Service has also cut its outlook for the US banking system to 'negative' from 'stable', citing the run on deposits at these three banks that led to the collapse of these banking majors in less than a week.
Only a few thousand chargers dot the Indian landscape, some in working condition, others not, with some held hostage to the power supply vagaries of local utilities, reports S Dinakar.
Indians supposedly have the right to freedom, and the right to equality, which cuts across gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc, observes Devangshu Datta.
A dear friend pays tribute to celebrated Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder who passed into the ages on Tuesday
The first five months of 2023 have witnessed at least six major events/trends that augur badly for global economic and socio-political prospects, points out Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
What could be more uncertain than Virat Kohli's agonising wait for a century for over two years? Perhaps it's what you will pay tomorrow morning to fill your vehicle's tank. Pump prices have joined cricket scores as the country's favourite discussion topic. Steep increases invite widespread protests, while moderate additions make the government anti-reformist. The ongoing fuel price conundrum is no different.
Ride-hailing app Uber is selling off its entire holding in Indian food delivery company Zomato for at least $373 million (Rs 2,939 crore) through a block deal of shares, merchant banking sources said on Tuesday. The development comes on a day when the Zomato scrip witnessed a nearly 20 per cent surge to close at Rs 55.60 apiece on the BSE. The sources said the offer price range for the deal to be carried out on Wednesday will be between Rs 48-54 per share.
