Since 2014, the public sector banks' branch network in rural and semi urban has grown by a mere 4,000 while for private sector banks, it doubled from 9,673 to 18,437.
The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday retained its growth projection at 7.2 per cent for the current fiscal on the back of improvement in urban demand and gradual recovery in rural India. Unveiling the third monetary policy for the current fiscal, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the Indian economy remained resilient, and the central bank will continue to support growth. The RBI expects growth in the first quarter of the current fiscal at 16.2 per cent, which will taper to 4 per cent by the fourth quarter.
'It could tempt investors to pick stocks that are not fundamentally sound.'
Chief economist at State Bank of India has revised downward the full-year growth forecast to a low 6.8 per cent from 7.5 per cent earlier for FY2023, citing "the way below GDP numbers for the first quarter". The National Statistical Office on Wednesday released the Q1 growth numbers which showed a consensus growth of 13.5 per cent, pulled down by the poor show of the manufacturing sector, which reported a paltry 4.8 per cent expansion in the first three months of FY23, negating the robust show by the services sector. Consensus forecast was 15-16.7 per cent of which the RBI made the highest forecast of 16.7 per cent.
While many of the lost jobs will come back, the current loss is huge and its impact on the households that have suffered because of this cannot be captured in the comfort that jobs will come back eventually, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Manufacturing companies have been outperformers on the bourses in the current year, leading to a rise in their weighting in the benchmark index. Companies in sectors such as FMCG, automobile, pharmaceuticals, metals, cement, and agrochemicals now account for 25.43 per cent of the Nifty 50 index, up 88 basis points from 24.55 per cent at the end of December last year and a record low of 23.1 per cent at the end of CY20. The manufacturing sector is now dominated by FMCG majors such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Asian Paints, Nestle, and Britannia, accounting for 45 per cent of the combined market cap of all manufacturing companies in the index.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has begun the process of freezing at least five bank accounts of Arpita Mukherjee, the associate of arrested West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee, where they have found at least Rs 2 crore, a senior official said on Saturday.
The most important institutions have been and are being undermined with almost no resistance, warns Aakar Patel.
The richest one per cent in India now own more than 40 per cent of the country's total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of wealth, a new study showed on Monday.
Economists on Tuesday are not convinced about the latest monthly unemployment data released by the Centre for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE), particularly about the statistics of the rural areas. They asserted that it is difficult to get the real picture of unemployment from the methodology used by the CMIE to get the data. The overall unemployment rate in India has increased to 7.83 per cent in April 2022 as compared to 7.60 per cent in the previous month, CMIE said in its report.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman on Monday announced a Rs 12,000 crore interest-free 50-year loan to states for spending on capital projects in a bid to boost economy. The loan is over and above borrowing ceilings of the states and the repayment will be one bullet payment after 50 years, she said.
Could it have been more reformist? Of course, but this is an election year Budget, observes Akash Prakash.
Indian companies are expecting generous tax incentives from the Union Budget that will help them invest more in building capacities in the coming years. While the productivity-linked incentives (PLIs) are a good start to spur local manufacturing, the government should also take steps to boost consumer demand, which is not showing encouraging signs, say chief executive officers (CEOs) of India Inc. Statistics released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that Indian banks had sanctioned loans worth Rs 75,558 crore in 220 new projects - a record low - in the pandemic-hit financial year ending March 2021. This is not showing any signs of a significant pick up in the last nine months of the ongoing financial year.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani has set targets for his three kids whom he has identified for takeover of telecom, retail and new energy business. Speaking at his father Dhirubhai's anniversary, celebrated as Reliance Family Day, he said the oil-to-telecom-to-retail conglomerate Reliance industries Ltd has embarked on a journey of comprehensive self-transformation. "The end of 2022 is when Reliance will have crossed the half-way mark of its Golden Decade.
The week ended October 17 was remarkable as it saw a fall in the unemployment rate. We have not seen such a level in any monthly estimate of the employment rate since March 2020, Mahesh Vyas points out.
India has the best hiring outlook globally, second only to Brazil, with 54 per cent of companies surveyed planning to hire in the December quarter as against 51 per cent in the September quarter, according to a report by global staffing firm ManpowerGroup. The report titled "ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey" showed that India has the strongest net employment outlook for the December quarter in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by China (46 per cent), and Australia (38 per cent). The global net employment outlook in the December quarter would stand at 30 per cent, down by three percentage points from the June-September quarter, yet six percentage points higher than the same period last year, the staffing firm said.
That means a manufacturer looking at a market like India needs to decide whether small, cheap cars or small, expensive cars or both will work better for them, says Pavan Lall.
India Inc on Thursday pitched for continuation of reforms while ensuring tax and policy stability in the forthcoming Budget to prop up the economy hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the virtual pre-Budget consultation held with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, industry chambers said that government measures will help firmly entrench the nascent signs of recovery being currently seen in private investment. Capital expenditure by the government through enhanced infrastructure spending should in the meantime continue to support growth, CII president TV Narendran said.
Vasan Bala's Cinema Marte Dum Tak shines the spotlight on Vinod Talwar, Dilip Gulati, Kishan Shah and J Neelam. All of them are articulate, witty, and expressive -- talking of their passion for films, the rise and fall of their cinema, observes Deepa Gahlot.
With billionaire Elon Musk closing the deal to buy Twitter and firing the social media firm's four top executives, twitterati in India on Friday seemed divided with many who were vocal against content moderation on the platform hailing the development while others sounding a note of caution. Musk has completed his $44 billion (one billion=100 crore) takeover of Twitter and fired the social media company's four top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde, according to the New York Times. Musk singled out Gadde, 48, criticising her for her role in content moderation decisions at the company, the report said.
The ever-astute Ravi Matthai, Director of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1971, offered me a basic salary of Rs 1,000 per month on my return from the United States. I doubt if IIMA could hire a faculty member at Rs 55,000 per month today! points out Dr Shreekant Sambrani.
Fast-moving consumer goods major Dabur India is set to enter the branded spices and seasoning category. It has signed an agreement to acquire 51 per cent in Badshah Masala for a cash consideration of Rs 587.52 crore. The acquisition, the company says, is in line with its strategic intent to expand its food biz to Rs 500 crore in three years.
Russia has welcomed India's decision to not support the price cap on Russian oil announced by G7 and its allies and offered it cooperation on leasing and building large-capacity ships to overcome the ban on insurance services and tanker chartering in the European Union and Britain to continue buying discounted oil. The offer came as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak held a meeting with the Indian Ambassador to Moscow, Pavan Kapoor, on Friday. "The Deputy Prime Minister welcomed India's decision not to support the price cap on Russian oil, which was imposed on December 5 by the G7 countries and their allies," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
'The signal is crude oil prices will rise, I am cutting my subsidy. Be prepared, prices will rise.'
This season, the nature of the advertising game has changed dramatically with TV and digital rights going to different entities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched 5G technology services in India and said that technology has become democratic in its truest sense since even the poor of the country have always come forward in adopting new technologies. He said that this is a major step in the vision of Digital India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat. "Talking about Digital India, some people think that this is just a government scheme.
Industry body CII has pitched for a reduction in personal income tax rates, decriminalisation of the goods and services tax and a relook at the capital gains tax rates as part of its agenda presented to the government for the forthcoming Budget. Arguing that the GST law already contains adequate penal provisions for deterrence against evasion of taxes, CII has suggested decriminalisation of GST law. Also, the applicability of prosecution provisions should not be based on the absolute amount of tax evasion but should be based on real intent to evade the taxes and a certain percentage of the tax payable, it stated.
Other than Kapoor, the complaint, running into more than 10,000 pages, named his wife, Bindu; three daughters Rakhee, Roshini, and Radha; and three firms, Morgan Credits, RAB Enterprises, and Doit Urban Ventures, allegedly controlled by them.
Retail investment demand for gold bars and coins as well as central bank purchases pushed the global gold demand by 28 per cent to 1,181.5 tonnes in the September quarter, according to the World Gold Council report. The total global demand stood at 921.9 tonnes during the July-September quarter of 2021, the World Gold Council's 'Gold Demand Trends Q3 2022' showed on Tuesday. Investment was down 47 per cent year-on-year as gold backed Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) investors responded to a challenging combination of higher interest rates and a strong US dollar with significant outflows of 227 tonnes.
To push digital transactions in rural and semi-urban areas, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday issued a framework allowing offline payments up to Rs 200 per transaction, subject to an overall limit of Rs 2,000. An offline digital payment means a transaction that does not require internet or telecom connectivity. Under the offline mode, payments can be carried out face-to-face (proximity mode) using any channel or instrument like cards, wallets, and mobile devices.
Indian women have education, inspiration and perspiration -- but not enough employment, points out Mahesh Vyas.
Why hasn't India produced a single earth-shaking idea like Python or the World Wide Web, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
June was a memorable month for the 101-year-old Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB). Last month, the Thoothukudi-based bank witnessed two new landmarks in a history in which the last three decades could easily qualify for a Kollywood blockbuster.
Some doctors were absent from duty for 20 years, others for 15, some for 12. About 64 doctors remained absent from duty for more than five years.
Inching closer to resolving the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank issue, the Reserve Bank on Monday came out with a draft scheme for takeover of the crisis-hit bank by the Delhi-based Unity Small Finance Bank (USFB). The draft scheme of amalgamation envisages takeover of the assets and liabilities of PMC Bank, including deposits, by USFB, thus giving a greater degree of protection for the depositors, the RBI said. In September 2019, the RBI had superseded the board of PMC Bank and placed it under regulatory restrictions, including cap on withdrawals by its customers, after detection of certain financial irregularities, hiding and misreporting of loans given to real estate developer HDIL.
'In times of recovery, we may see a rural-urban divide with the urban pockets affected more by COVID-19, but the MFI business model should encourage banks to handhold them in this hour of crisis,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
With a revival in demand and consumption, FMCG companies are looking forward to 2022 with positivity and hopes of sustaining a healthy growth trend across both rural and urban markets while gearing up to cater to the ever-increasing digitally active consumers and tackle the challenge of higher commodity prices. Health and wellness and convenience are going to remain key trends and FMCG companies are strengthening their core brands, driving premiumisation across their portfolios with targeted innovations as consumers are gravitating towards trusted brands looking for quality, purity and hygiene, in continuation of the trend that started since the pandemic last year. FMCG makers are accelerating digitalisation and are investing in building capability in e-commerce and Direct-to-Consumer channels, identifying it as a key vector of their growth as the threat of a possible third wave is still not away.
'Most students find it difficult to cope with the way they are expected to learn at the IITs.' 'So, all the students face the same stress.' 'But those students who are mentally weak are more affected.'
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