In Q1, India's GDP shrank by a staggering 24 per cent year-on-year amid the imposition of one of the most stringent global nationwide lockdowns.
Why does the world's fastest-growing major consumer of energy fail to attract investments in oil and gas? This is a question worth pondering after private sector conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) failed to close a $15-billion downstream asset deal with Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Aramco. It's understandable if multi-billion dollar investments in oil and gas projects or deals involving state companies that need to traverse a complex bureaucracy at state and federal levels and the corridors of ministries unravel. However, Mukesh Ambani-run RIL, India's most successful energy company, is not typically known to fumble on closing deals (Ambani closed deals worth around Rs 2 trillion early last year in telecom and retail with blue chip investors).
It said the searches that were launched on July 22 in nine cities like Bhopal, Indore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Noida and some others are "continuing and further investigations are in progress."
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 7 per cent drop in its June quarter net profit as retail business got hit by the second wave of COVID infections.
Former captain Mashrafe Mortaza and two other Bangladesh cricketers, Nazmul Islam and Nafees Iqbal have tested positive for the dreaded coronavirus. The 36-year-old Mortaza was reportedly unwell for the last couple of days and tested positive for the contagious disease on Saturday. He is currently in self-isolation at his residence in Dhaka.
What is killing the risk appetite of the bond buyers is the inconsistency in the central bank's approach. It needs to allow the yield to find its own level, gradually. To ensure that, the RBI may adopt a similar approach with which it handles a slipping rupee, asserts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what General Rawat has said,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
With an epic battle of billionaires for supremacy in one of the world's most prolific markets and a pandemic-propelled surge in online shopping in the background, India's nearly trillion-dollar retail market is hoping to touch 85 per cent of the pre-COVID business in the first half of the New Year. In a year when the COVID-19 carnage ripped apart the retail business, circa 2020 will best go down for the unravelling of the war between Jeff Bezos, the world's wealthiest man, and richest Indian Mukesh Ambani for pre-eminence in the booming market that is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. It all started with Ambani's Reliance Industries agreeing in August to buy assets of the nation's second-largest retailer for Rs 24,713 crore, just a year after Bezos' Amazon purchased an indirect stake in the indebted Future Retail.
The resurgence of COVID-19 has dented but not debilitated economic activities in the first half of Q1 of the current fiscal even though caseload of infections is much higher than before, according to an RBI article. The ferocity of the second COVID-19 wave has overwhelmed India and the world, the article said, adding that war efforts have been mounted to stop the surge in its tracks. "The impact of the second wave on the real economy seems to be limited so far in comparison with the first wave. Evidently, the localised nature of lockdowns, better adaptation of people to work from home protocols, online delivery models, e-commerce and digital payments are at work," the article on the state of economy authored by RBI Deputy Governor M D Patra and other officials said.
The sale of 10 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II air-launched missiles is estimated to cost $92 million (Rs 699 crore), while 16 MK 54 All Up Round Lightweight Torpedoes and three MK 54 Exercise Torpedoes are estimated to cost $63 million (Rs 478.8 crore), the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said on Monday in two separate notifications to the Congress.
'India needs offensive and defensive security measures to protect itself.'
While seven companies bagged orders worth Rs 42,000 crore, industry experts said most of this new order activity was a spillover, and fresh project finalisation remains weak.
Claiming that the Trinamool Congress is not perturbed over desertions by some leaders, she said politics is a solemn ideology and philosophy and one cannot change these everyday like clothes.
A witch in confrontation mode, a courtroom drama full of twists and turns, Bruce Lee's final and Denis Villeneuve's first, Sukanya Verma recommends this and more on OTT this week.
Blocked working capital worth Rs 1,500 crore, in the almost-defunct job work diamond polishing units, is expected to be released even as diamantaires will issue fresh orders to such units following the GST relief.
'Anything that couldn't be stolen they destroyed.' Saloni Dhumne and Atreya Raghavan speak to members of the Indian community in Durban -- the largest congregation of Indians outside India -- who were targeted in last month's horrific riots.
Among the handful of countries with large defence budgets and armed forces, India is matched only by Saudi Arabia in the level of its import dependence. For revenge to be served cold, go beyond import bans and correct these long-term failures -- if we're up to it, notes T N Ninan.
Building 6 conventional submarines is one of the Indian Navy's most important weapon construction programmes.
The sanctions list subjected him to a travel ban, assets freeze and an arms embargo.
'What would we feel if we found the world behaving the way it has?' 'Forced to fight our own prolonged battle; nobody from outside really demanding that the war end or actively working to make it end, and above all, a completely toothless United Nations reduced to pleading for a halt to the violence,' notes Shyam G Menon, exactly a month after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
According to the RBI's April 6 circular, cash loading companies, which take cash around the country, are supposed to increase their net worth to Rs 1 billion within 90 days.
Oil prices jumped nearly $3 a barrel and gold and safe-haven bonds rallied on Friday after the killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike by the US in Baghdad.
We must seize the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 crisis to kick-start indigenous research efforts, recommends Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Don't be surprised if Imran invites Modi and other South Asian leaders for his swearing-in ceremony, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
As tensions mount in the Gulf over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel is reported to have armed its new fleet of submarines supplied by Germany with nuclear tipped cruise missiles.
The test used now, called PCR (or polymerace chain reaction), uses a nasal or throat swab sample and identifies the virus. These tests take at least five hours to give results. The rapid test, on the other hand, uses a blood sample and gives results based on detecting the presence of certain antibodies that react to the coronavirus protein.
Indian forces are doing what they have to do to protect the country, whether it is in terms of deployment, action or counter-action, Modi told political leaders.
Referring to Kim Jong-Un, Trump said 'Rocket Man', is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.
As India holds its breath for the Covid vaccination to be begin, Sudhir Bisht provides a quick checklist of what you must know about the vaccines that will be administered to citizens.
As a model of transport, the A380 strikes a parallel -- a shared fragility -- with giant container ships, observes Shyam G Menon.
The aide, Dayashankar Agnihotri, was injured in his leg in retaliatory firing by police after he tried to attack them and flee, the official said, adding that no police personnel was hurt. Police have also taken into custody the sub-divisional officer (SDO) and another employee of the power sub-station from where electricity supply was interrupted on the intervening night of Thursday-Friday at the time of the police raid at Dubey's house in Bikru village.
'No country can ever be free to make its choices and remain independent if it continues to wear borrowed plumes,' warn Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd) and Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Sibal asked Modi to stop doing the politics of "illusion and delusion" and showing "red eyes" to China, and protect Indian territory.
The AAP chief also said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi would be to blame if Narendra Modi came back to power.
'I want to show that we are also part of this society and want to participate just as much, whether it is for security or whatever community work there.'
India is pursuing sales to South East Asian countries that are wary of Chinese aggression, including Vietnam and the Philippines.
2020 has dimmed the animated bulbs that create magical images and transform Kolkata into a mesmerising fairyland during Durga Puja.
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, run by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, on Tuesday raised Rs 5,512.50 crore from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), taking the total fundraise to Rs 37,710 crore in less than four weeks.
The United Kingdom on Wednesday became the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, paving the way for mass vaccinations against the deadly novel coronavirus.
Malaysia recently claimed it had arrested a man who was plotting major strikes in India. This is significant for India as it has links with the arrest of Sri Lankan operative Shakir Hussain in Chennai.
