7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
Senior SC advocate Sanjay Hegde tells Amit Agnihotri why the draft Masuka law is necessary.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia holds as many as 18 of the total 33 departments, including education, finance and home.
Buoyancy in the real estate sector along with improved construction activities created jobs and facilitated the return of migrant workers to cities, the Economic Survey for 2022-23 tabled in Parliament on Tuesday said. This assumes significance in view of loss of jobs due to lockdown restrictions imposed in various parts of the country from time to time amid different waves of pandemic since March 2020. The survey points towards sustained recovery in the economic activities during 2022-23 fiscal year.
Fresh formal job creation declined sequentially for a third straight month in February to fall to a 21-month low, signaling pressure in the employment market. These are the findings from the latest payroll data released by the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Thursday. The number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) declined 10 per cent sequentially to 738,052 in February from 819,659 in January.
Retail inflation breached the RBI's comfort zone and rose to a three-month high of 6.52 per cent in January, mainly on account of a spike in food prices, as per government data released on Monday. The inflation rate based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) stood at 5.72 per cent December and 6.01 per cent in January 2022.
Unemployment rate for persons of age 15 years and above in urban areas dipped to 12.6 per cent in April-June 2021 from 20.8 per cent in the same month of the previous year, showed a periodic labour force survey by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Joblessness or unemployment rate (UR) is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force. The joblessness was high in April-June in 2020 mainly due to the impact of lockdown restrictions in the country which were imposed to curb the spread of deadly coronavirus.
'Alas, in this scheme there is nothing to stop the black money flows of the future.' 'On the contrary Modi has sown the seeds of more, through the issue of Rs 2,000 notes.' 'But have you heard one politician decrying this aspect of the scheme?' 'They must be secretly rejoicing that while Modi is taking away their past, he has not shut the door on their future,' says banker S Muralidharan.
'Mumbai's corroding infrastructure, Delhi's pollution, Bangalore's rain water drainage, Kolkata's electricity -- these are all real and serious life threatening situations.'
Since its results, the stock of bottling and beverage distribution company Varun Beverages (VBL) is up 7 per cent on the back of a strong 2022-23 January-March quarter performance, robust outlook, and revision in profit estimates. Given the sharp uptick, it is now part of the trillion-rupee club, with its market capitalisation at Rs 1.01 trillion. The stock is one of the best performers in the consumer space as well as the S&P BSE 200, of which it is a constituent.
He said his government's goal is to make Delhi a grand city equipped with all the facilities as expected of the capital of the country.
'We created war rooms -- from an IT perspective and also a customer war room -- to address any challenges that come up.'
India's unemployment rose to a three-month high in March to 7.8 per cent as the country's labour markets deteriorated, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Unemployment rate in the country surged in December 2022 to 8.30 per cent but declined in January to 7.14 per cent. It edged up again in February to 7.45 per cent, the CMIE data released on Saturday showed. During March, the unemployment rate in urban areas was at 8.4 per cent while in the rural areas it was at 7.5 per cent.
The Supreme Court Thursday said it may be redefining the "evolving notion of marriage" as the next step after decriminalising consensual homosexual relationship which implicitly recognised that same-sex people could live in a stable, marriage-like relationship.
'If it weren't for Om Puri, a whole range of our big city experiences wouldn't have found their honest representations on the screen.'
India's consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation could ease in the coming months thanks to the arrival of kharif crops, lower international commodity prices, and a pass through of lower input costs to consumers, the finance ministry said in its Monthly Economic Review (MER) for October, which was released on Thursday. The MER, however, warned that the global macroeconomic situation remained precarious and a recession in many advanced economies would impact India's exports. "Easing international commodity prices and new Kharif arrival are set to dampen inflationary pressures in the coming months.
The country's unemployment rate in July fell to 6.80 per cent, the lowest level in the last six months, amid rising agriculture activities during monsoon, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.80 per cent in July from 7.80 per cent in June, the CMIE data said. Rural unemployment declined 6.14 per cent to 272.1 million last month from 265.2 million or 8.03 per cent in June, it said.
Delhi ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain on Tuesday resigned from the Cabinet, amid corruption allegations against them.
Retail inflation dipped marginally to 6.44 per cent in February, mainly on account of a slight easing in prices of food and fuel items though it remained above the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 6 per cent for the second month in a row. As per the government data released on Monday, the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation was at 6.52 per cent in January and 6.07 per cent in February 2022. The retail inflation rate for the food basket worked out to be 5.95 per cent in February, marginally lower than 6 per cent in January.
'The new ceiling will cover around 93 per cent of all deposit accounts, up from 90 per cent earlier,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'I was quite taken in by the adept handling of a simple (yet complicated!) subject and had my share of laughs and tears by the time the curtain fell,' observes Nitin Sathe after watching the superhit Baipan Bhari Deva.
'Investors should hold equity assets for 3 to 5 years.'
Automobile retail sales in India witnessed a double-digit year-on-year growth in February driven by robust sales across segments including passenger vehicles and two-wheelers, automobile dealers' body FADA said on Monday. Total registrations across segments rose 16 per cent year-on-year to 17,75,424 units last month, as compared to 15,31,196 vehicles in February 2022. Passenger vehicle retail sales rose 11 per cent to 287,182 units last month, against 258,736 units in the year-ago period.
The Indian Railways on Monday identified eleven projects at an estimated cost of Rs 3502 crore (Rs 35.02 billion) for inclusion in the ambitious Mumbai Urban Transport Phase II (MUTP) project.
A person who has cancer and doesn't have any health insurance will find it difficult to buy a regular hospitalisation cover. An indemnity-based cancer plan may cover them.
'A weak monsoon always spells disaster. But it's too early to have a pessimistic view.'
'At a time when massive strides are being made in bringing 5G technology to India, and with TSPs ramping up their infrastructure, it is unacceptable that a large number of complaints over quality issues continue to come in, even from major urban areas.'
An Indian family, the Pandays, spend a few days on the Nepo river.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday said it has approved a loan of $125 million (around Rs 938 crore) for water supply and sanitation projects in Uttarakhand. The funds will be utilised to improve access to quality water supply and sanitation services in the Himalayan state, ADB said in a release. Under this project, 136 kilometres of water pipe system will be constructed to replace defective water networks in South Dehradun. This will ensure reliable and continuous water supply, benefitting an estimated 40,000 people, including 4,000 urban poor and vulnerable groups.
The 2023 Budget set off a downtrend in the listed life insurance company stocks. The key reason was a proposal to tax income from insurance policies (other than unit-linked insurance plans or ULIPs) with a premium, or aggregate premium, of above Rs 500,000 per annum. This impacted the traditional savings profile since it affected the returns for these products.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clinched 23 out of 27 Scheduled Tribe seats in Gujarat as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the new entrant in the state's politics, swept aside the Congress to find a footing in the state's tribal belt.
The changing of names was part of the delimitation exercise, under which the number of wards went up to 80 in Gorakhpur, with several of these named after iconic personalities and freedom fighters.
Half the stocks in the Nifty 100 index have seen a reduction in their target price by analysts this year due to fears of lacklustre earnings growth and uncertain economic environment. Adani Green Energy, FSN E-Commerce (Nykaa), Adani Ports & SEZ and Indus Towers are among the companies that have seen the maximum cut in TPs during the first three months of calendar 2023, shows Bloomberg data. On the other hand, Canara Bank, JSW Steel and Bank of Baroda have seen the highest increase in TPs.
With raw material prices rising sequentially in Q4 FY23, margins of fast moving electrical goods (FMEG) companies could witness pressure as they refrain from hiking prices and demand remains soft. Transition to a new regulatory regime-fans moved to new BEE standards from January 1-poses additional risk for firms. Business depends on volume trends in summer for key sub-segments, which account for a significant chunk of the sector's overall sales pie.
For people with disabilities, a mobile application called 'Saksham' has been introduced, which they can login to and choose the option to vote.
The retail industry witnessed robust top-line growth for the greater part of the previous financial year, but demand has started to show signs of fatigue seen in the January-March quarter (fourth quarter, or Q4) of 2022-23 (FY23), especially in the apparel and innerwear segments. Jewellery, however, has managed to hold on to demand in the quarter. "In the discretionary space, demand moderation in urban markets is expected to impact the quick-service restaurant and apparel categories the most, while paint, luggage, and jewellery should see resilient growth," Systematic Institutional Equities observed in its preview of the sector.
There has been a 45 per cent growth in 'active internet users' in rural India since 2019, according a study by Nielsen, a global company for audience measurement, data and analytics. The Bharat 2.0 Internet report said that female active internet users grew by 61 per cent since 2019. The report said that India has 646 million active Internet users aged 2 years and above as of December 2021. Rural India has 352 million internet users--almost 20 per cent higher than urban.
'It has been an ongoing process, talking to the relevant ministries about eliminating leakages and curbing non-core expenditure in various schemes.'
Demand for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) went up last month across India, as kirana stores stocked up their shelves in anticipation of a sizzling summer, according to data by retail intelligence firm Bizom. There was a spike in beverages sales across the country despite inflation inching up in February after moderating downward previously, Bizom noted.