A long crisis with a lack of sound short-term, long-term actions can result in sluggish growth in India, similar to that in Japan.
The Centre is pushing for bilateral trade with Cuba and its settlement in rupee as a part of its strategy to internationalise the domestic currency. A delegation from Cuba, including officials from its central bank, met Indian government officials and banks last month to discuss bilateral trade and settlement using the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) payment mechanism in rupee, said people aware of the matter. Since the Cuban nation has opened up its economy and is looking to implement reforms to attract investments from India, Cuban banks have evinced interest in opening special rupee vostro accounts (SRVAs) with Indian banks.
'Markets could face uncertainty in the short to medium term.' 'It would be prudent to invest in alternative asset classes, especially debt, for about a year.' 'Bank fixed deposits are offering rates as high as 9 per cent per annum and these can be used as a great hedging tool until equity markets stabilise.'
Fuelled by the $57.8-billion merger of HDFC twins (HDFC Ltd and HDFC Bank), M&A (merger and acquisition) transactions in India touched a record high of $124.2 billion in the first half of 2022-23. Bankers said with several transactions, including the government's stake sale in IDBI Bank and Hindustan Zinc in the pipeline, the ongoing financial year will end up as the best year for M&A activity in the country. Apart from the HDFC transaction, the $6.5-billion acquisition of Holcim stake by the Adani family and L&T's $3.2-billion acquisition of Mindtree added to the record transactions in the first half of FY23.
Says GDP growth rate from 2014-15 to 2015-16 will be greater than that of 2014-15 from 2013-14
Amid the ongoing festival season and ahead of the elections for five state assemblies, the Centre is closely monitoring inflation, particularly in food items, to enable it to take steps to increase their supplies. "There is a complete no-nonsense attitude when it comes to food inflation, and instructions have been issued at all levels to be very sensitive to any possible price movements in any commodity," a senior official explained. Sources have said that all departments dealing with food items have been instructed to keep a close eye on all commodities and maintain a weekly record of their price movements.
The move is aimed at improving margins.
This includes distancing themselves from the new and emerging super-critical technology.
Elevated food price-led inflation could become a sore point for markets, which they seem to be ignoring at current levels, observe analysts. Retail inflation in India - as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - came in at a three-month high of 6.52 per cent in January 2023, compared with 5.72 per cent in December and 5.88 per cent in November 2022. The inflation print for February, according to Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, will be critical for the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy committee.
Public sector Corporation Bank has evolved a strategy to push its business to Rs 1 lakh crore in 30 months from the present Rs 55,000 crore (Rs 550 billion), a top bank official said on Tuesday.
Will a caste census make tens of millions desert Mr Modi?, asks Shekhar Gupta.
The meeting is expected to chart a road map for cleaning up their balance sheets and boost credit flows, reports Somesh Jha.
rediffGURU Sunil Lala answers your MF-related queries.
'In 2022, active management, long-short strategies, multi-asset strategies, and asset allocation strategies need to be considered to meet long-term investment goals.'
'We have not seen too many large deals compared to last quarter.'
BSE's fresh shot at cracking the derivatives market is off to a promising start. However, Asia's oldest bourse is facing resistance from brokerages with nearly 10 large brokers yet to offer the relaunched Sensex and Bankex derivatives on their platforms. Many brokers maintain that they are working on the back end to enable BSE derivatives on their apps and websites. Some said while volumes are picking up, they are still miniscule compared to bigger rival NSE, which is the most-preferred venue for derivatives trading. Only a few brokers responded to formal queries sent by Business Standard on the issue of allowing BSE derivatives on their platform.
After two years of growth in the 4 per cent to 5 per cent range, the gross domestic product is expected to increase more robustly in 2015, growing to an expected 6.4 per cent.
'The upper caste elite's belief that they are casteless is a belief that is available only to the upper castes. Because all the lower castes are reminded by society every day what their caste is.'
However, the Indian economy is expected to bounce back in 2021, the World Bank said.
The government is considering a proposal to privatise some state-owned banks in phases.
Embattled billionaire Gautam Adani on Thursday spoke publicly for the first time since his ports-to-energy conglomerate publicly battled a short seller's accusation of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, saying the abrupt move to withdraw a fully-subscribed share sale at his flagship firm was due to market volatility. His group continued to lose on the stock market, with the cumulative rout now nearing $108 billion in a week -- one of the biggest wipeouts in India's history. "After a fully subscribed follow-on public offering (of Adani Enterprises Ltd), yesterday's decision of its withdrawal would have surprised many.
The minister plans to reinstate the Railways as the backbone of the economy
On Friday, Biden announced his intent to appoint 14 people to the advisory committee, which provides overall policy advice to the United States trade representative on matters of development, implementation, and administration of the US trade policy.
What is the wider political strategy behind Mr Modi's concerted attack on black money, asks Subir Roy.
India's ailing banks need immediate attention.
If you don't have a specific goal, but want intermittent liquidity, then ladder your FDs, that is, invest in FDs of varying maturities, such as one, two, three, five or even 10 years. Laddering ensures FDs mature at regular intervals.
'The Israeli government is saying, "OK, leave northern Gaza, because we're going to fight Hamas there".' 'But Hamas is not stupid. They are going to put militants in southern Gaza too. And then what's Israel going to do?' 'At some point are they going to say, 'Leave southern Gaza too because we want to fight Hamas there? Go across the border to Egypt"'? 'That's what people are worried about. Because they fear that once they cross the border into Egypt there will be no coming back.'
"Opening up will give us new opportunities such as greater freedom to open branches. On the inorganic side, there could be opportunities to take larger stakes in banks or to take management control. If anything of that happens, we will be interested," says Standard Chartered's regional chief executive for India and South Asia Neeraj Swaroop.
Benchmark indices continued their downtrend for the fifth session on the trot on Thursday, with the Sensex tumbling nearly 817 points in early trade, tracking weak global trends and selling in index majors Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank. Unabated selling by foreign institutional investors also weighed on the sentiment. The 30-share BSE Sensex was trading 816.78 points lower at 53,271.61. The NSE Nifty declined 234.05 points to 15,933.05.
A moratorium 'for now' on Bt brinjal is a healthy breathing space. It could still turn toxic if any one technology is pushed at the cost of a multi-dimensional approach to securing our food future, says Rajni Bakshi.
While a wallet is convenient, payments bank offers interest on deposits and ATM facility.
Foreign banks were ahead in terms of technology, but that is no longer the case as Indian private banks steal the innovation march.
If India grows at 8 per cent, the Indian banks will grow much faster.
Embattled Adani Group on Monday said it has repaid loans aggregating $2.65 billion to complete a prepayment programme to cut overall leverage in an attempt to win back investor trust post a damning report of a US short seller. In a Credit Note released on Monday, Adani Group said it has made a full prepayment of $2.15 billion of loans that were taken by pledging shares in the conglomerate's listed firms and also another $700 million in loans taken for the acquisition of Ambuja Cement. "The prepayment was done along with interest payment of $203 million," it added.
The introduction of more technology platforms has also helped.
Rising crude oil prices, traction in China equities and inflation concerns back home are casting a shadow on the Indian equity markets in the short term, believe analysts at Jefferies. They said this could see the markets remaining range-bound in the near term before the next leg up.
'The long maturity of these funds makes them well-suited for long-term financial goals such as saving for retirement or children's education or marriage.'
There will be a lot to repair and rejuvenate -- if that opportunity even presents itself, warns Rathin Roy.
In the absence of clear incentives for subsidiaries, foreign banks logically prefer the branch mode; but now, those who see India as a long-term growth opportunity have the basis for deciding between the two modes.