Amid the funding winter, 128 Indian startups have raised over $995 million (around Rs 8,000 crore) venture capital funding in August, GlobalData said on Thursday. The funds raised in August are 9.7 per cent more than that in the previous month, the data and analytics company said in a statement. Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, said: "Although the total VC funding amount still remains below $1 billion akin to July, August managed to reverse the decline in fundraising, despite a 2.3 per cent fall in deal volume."
India's indigenously developed, beyond visual range air-to-air missile 'Astra' was successfully test-fired on Saturday from the integrated test range at Chandipur in Orissa.The single stage, solid fuelled 'Astra' missile "is more advanced in its category than the contemporary BVR missiles and it is capable of engaging and destroying highly manoeuvrable supersonic aerial targets," the source added.
Banks are likely to see their net interest margins (NIM) - broadly the difference between interest earned on loans and paid on deposits - shrink by another 30 basis points (bps) over the next few quarters. After hitting a peak of 3.3 per cent in the third quarter (Q3) of the financial year ended March 31, 2023 (FY23), NIMs have been on a downward trajectory, touching 3.13 per cent in Q2FY24 on higher cost of funds, according to capital markets firm CARE Ratings. Banks are still grappling with the Reserve Bank of India's policy rate increases - that have made deposits costlier as the interest payable to customers has increased - and the regulatory actions on unsecured lending.
Companies spent less money buying back their shares from the public last year than at any time since 2015. They announced buybacks of up to Rs 14,341 crore, show numbers from primary market tracker Prime Database. The total amount spent was Rs 13,597 crore. Both the amounts are lower than what was offered (Rs 39,564 crore) and spent (Rs 36,517 crore) in 2020.
rediffGURU and financial planning expert Colonel Sanjeev Govila (retd) answers your personal finance-related questions.
Most applicants of the H1-B visas, much sought-after by hi-tech professionals including Indians, are 'average' workers and not the 'innovators' as portrayed by industry lobbyists, a report has said, opposing the extension of the popular guest worker programmes. New data analysis shows that the vast majority of H1-B workers, including those at most major tech firms, are not the innovators industry portrays them to be, the Centre for Immigration Studies said in a statement.
PM2.5 pollution in the national capital has reduced by over 7 per cent in four years, from 108 micrograms per cubic metre in 2019 to 99.71 micrograms per cubic metre in 2022, the report by NCAP Tracker said.
India has expressed concern about the movement of the Xiang Yang Hong 03 vessel in Indian Ocean waters and also prevailed on Sri Lanka to refuse permission for the ship to dock at Colombo port.
The recent rally in small and midcap (SMID) stocks is not backed by fundamentals and is a case of irrational exuberance, analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities said in a recent report. The fundamentals of most of these companies have, in fact, worsened over the last few months, they noted. Yet, some analysts expect the bull run in these stocks to continue amid intermittent corrections.
Apart from these six deaths, 22 others died of heart attacks in the state during this period.
There is no association between the Covid-19 vaccines used in India -- Covishield and Covaxin -- and increase in the risk of heart attacks, according to an observational study which emphasises the protective effect of the jabs.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
Researchers conducted the first ever large-scale and systematic study of exactly how the trusty apps on Android phones are able to talk to one another and trade information
Between 1990 and 2019, Alzheimer's-related deaths increased almost five times, data available on the Global Burden of Disease has found.
Black boxes from the jet that crashed and killed Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine other people have also been recovered by Russian investigators.
Just 6.4% of branches owned by new private sector banks are in the rural areas
Aaftab Amin Poonawala will be taken to different locations in south Delhi on Saturday as the Delhi Police are trying to locate more body parts which he had allegedly disposed of after killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, officials said.
Venture capital (VC) investments in Indian startups plunged over 38 per cent in 2022 as economic uncertainty and market volatility affected fundraising and investment activities, GlobalData said on Tuesday. In a statement, GlobalData said an analysis of its financial deals database reveals that "a total of 1,726 VC funding deals worth $20.9 billion were announced in India in 2022 compared to 1,715 deals worth $33.8 billion in 2021." "The ongoing economic uncertainty and market volatility continue to affect the fundraising and investment activities in India and subsequently VC investment in the country startups suffered a massive year-on-year 38.2 per cent decline in value terms during 2022," the data and analytics company said.
The Bombay high Court on Tuesday said the recently amended Information Technology (IT) Rules against fake news on social media give "unfettered power" to a government authority in the absence of "guidelines and guardrails".
Prasad said the probe by the CBI will determine whether Cambridge Analytica violated the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Penal Code.
The air quality is expected to improve further due to wind speed favourable for the dispersion of pollutants.
The disposal rate of PILs across 23 high courts was available was 83.7 per cent until August 2021 -- the highest in four years.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
Officials said there were no reports so far of any loss of life or damage to property.
'AI can be very useful for making analysis and especially making city-based local forecasts.'
Domestic investors are tightening their grip on the ownership of listed companies. The gap between the shareholding of domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) narrowed to 13.11 percentage points at the end of the September 2023 quarter. At the peak, the gap was nearly 50 percentage points in March 2015, according to an analysis by Prime Database, a leading provider of data on the capital market.
Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, a prominent Indian-American mathematician and statistician, will receive the 2023 International Prize in Statistics, the equivalent to the Nobel Prize in the field, for his monumental work 75 years ago that revolutionised statistical thinking.
The finance ministry has set up two committees of state finance ministers which would rework rate slabs, review GST exempt items and identify potential evasion sources. Four years after the roll out of the national Goods and Services Tax (GST), which replaced the complex indirect tax structure, the centre and states have started work on moving towards a "simpler rate structure in GST" by reviewing the current rate slabs, including special rates and merger of rate slabs. The Group of Ministers (GoM) on rate rationalisation would also review items under inverted duty structure to help minimise refund payout, and review the supply of goods and services exempt under GST with an objective to expand the tax base and eliminate breaking of input tax credit (ITC) chain.
Old ideas contained in the heads of old economists still dominate. That's not good, asserts T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
This time, Delhi saw a sharp improvement in air quality just ahead of Diwali which can be attributed to intermittent rainfall on Friday and wind speed favourable for the dispersion of pollutants.
The most common abuse happens in marriages in the confines of one's own home. Be it raising a hand on one's spouse without the slightest provocation, or abusing them without their consent, notes Aarti David.
Records of millions of car owners are mined to generate leads, pitch sales and get feedback to develop vehicles, says Ajay Modi.
In an appeal filed before the top court against the May 4 order of the high court, the state government said the stay will adversely affect the entire exercise.
Cases filed under Section 153A had one of the lowest conviction rates.
A study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has observed that COVID-19 vaccination did not increase the risk of unexplained sudden death among young adults in India, the government informed Parliament on Friday.
'The 2024 election results will lead to much intense targeting of Modi, more intense debates, many more breakdowns in Parliament and many more movements on the streets.' 'The results have hit Modi's standing, and the politics of the Opposition parties will be sharply focused to ensure that Modi doesn't get back his charisma of being 'invincible' with help of State power.' Sheela Bhatt looks at the political situation through the prism of 2024 Lok Sabha election results.
If you work for 30 years, a two per cent difference in pension returns can reduce your final retirement nest egg by 40 per cent. The Rs 9-trillion National Pension System (NPS) seems to be delivering incrementally higher returns than the twice-as-large Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), shows a Business Standard analysis of data over the last seven years for the two retirement fund bodies. An investor who put in Rs 100 in retirement savings seven years ago would have seen her NPS nest egg grow to Rs 182 by 2023, according to the analysis based on the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority's recently released Handbook of National Pension System Statistics 2023.
Assessment year 2020-2021 saw returns filed fall to 69.7 million and stood at 71.4 million in assessment year 2021-2022.
The state is also the biggest market for TVS, another incumbent player, and together with Bajaj Auto, they accounted for 88 per cent of Maharashtra's total electric scooter sales last month. As many as 8,417 units were sold in Maharashtra in September. Bajaj Auto's contribution was 4,048 vehicles and that of TVS was 3,389, according to model- and state-wise data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam).
For the startup ecosystem in India, the scorecard so far has been a mixed bag, observes Akhil Gupta.
