Even as Russia and West Asia have been slugging it out for market share in India to sell their crude oil, the US is quietly making its moves on the sidelines. The US has doubled its share of the Indian crude market in the past few months, according to industry sources and ship-tracking data. Some of the increase in America's market share may have come at the expense of Russia, India's biggest crude oil supplier, said industry sources.
The government has allowed the Enforcement Directorate to share information about economic offenders with 15 more agencies, including SFIO, CCI and NIA, a move that will expedite nailing of law-breakers. The finance ministry notified changes to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, on November 22. Through the notification, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which deals primarily with cases of money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws, would be able to share data with a total of 25 agencies, including the 10 specified earlier.
Credit card spending in September recorded strong growth of 25 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), marking the highest increase in six months. Even as many banks saw higher slippages during the July-September quarter of 2024-25, spending growth exceeded 20 per cent for the first time since February. According to the latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), September spending reached Rs 1.76 trillion, compared to Rs 1.42 trillion in the same period a year ago. In August 2024, credit card spending was Rs 1.68 trillion.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
'There is simply too much to watch, read and absorb.' 'Just online consumption (news, entertainment, social media) in India was 2.5 hours a day in November 2024.' 'Add TV (just under 4 hours), other media, and the figure is closer to 7 to 8 hours a day for over one-third of Indians,' points out Vanita Kohli Khandekar.
From the 30-share pack, Adani Port, Bharti Airtel, Asian Paints, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance Industries, Infosys, UltraTech Cement, HDFC Bank, HCL Technologies and ICICI Bank were among the laggards. Tata Motors, Axis Bank, Maruti, Larsen & Toubro, ITC and Tata Steel were among the gainers.
In 2023, the number of kindergartens fell by 14,808 to 274,400, the annual report by the Chinese education ministry stated. It is the second consecutive annual decline in the latest indicator of China's falling birth rates.
It is similar to top-up health insurance plan, but provides for one or more claims cumulatively crossing the threshold limit.
Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, NTPC, JSW Steel, Power Grid, UltraTech Cement, HCL Technologies and HDFC Bank were among the major gainers. Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever, Axis Bank, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were among the laggards.
Whether nominal or real, India's investment rate needs to increase by 3 to 4 percentage points of GDP to support 8 per cent real growth, recommends Nikhil Gupta.
The growing decline of MTech applicants in Indian colleges is due to multiple factors, including outdated curricula, poor return on investment and lucrative non-engineering alternatives, say experts.
India's manufacturing sector growth fell to a joint 11-month low of 56.5 in November, restricted by competitive conditions and inflationary pressures amid a softer increase in factory orders, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell from 57.5 in October to 56.5 in November, signalling a softer improvement in the health of the sector. However, the pace of growth remained above its long-run average.
Amid low growth elsewhere, gross value added (GVA) growth in agriculture and allied activities recovered during the second quarter of the current financial year (Q2FY25) to 3.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) due to strong monsoon. Experts feel that the rains have laid the foundation of an even better GVA performance in subsequent quarters. GVA growth in the first quarter of FY25 was 2.0 per cent.
Crude oil prices could dip to the low $60s by the end of 2025 after rising to $80 a barrel in the last quarter (October-December) of 2024 - up nearly 10 per cent from current levels, suggest analysts at JP Morgan. The main players in West Asia, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have a strong incentive to keep the conflict contained, according to the JP Morgan report.
Even as the high inflation figure for October has ruled out any possibility of a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) monetary policy committee (MPC) in December, a rate cut in February also looks uncertain due to global uncertainties. Economists told Business Standard that unless domestic growth slows markedly, the outlook on rate cut remains unclear. India's headline inflation touched a 14-month high of 6.2 per cent in October, breaching the MPC's upper tolerance band of 6 per cent.
The short-term inflation outlook for India is benign, and the expectation of a normal monsoon and moderating global prices of key imported items give credence to the projections made by the RBI and IMF, the Economic Survey said on Monday. However, to ensure long-term policy stability, the Survey 2023-24 suggested making focused efforts to increase the production of major oilseeds, expanding the area under pulses, and assess the progress in developing modern storage facilities for specific crops.
The automobile sector is considered a good indicator of economic health. It has a very long value chain, from primary materials, like metals, glass and plastic, to value-added high-end electronic components, specialised alloys, and software.
'If the period between 1991 and 2014 was about laying the foundations and building the runway, the period from 2014 to 2024 has been about the aircraft taking off.'
India added nearly 4.7 crore jobs during 2023-24, taking the total number of employed people to 64.33 crore spread over 27 sectors covering the entire economy, according to Reserve Bank data. The number of employed people was 59.67 crore at the end of March 2023, said the RBI's update on 'Measuring Productivity at the Industry Level-The India KLEMS [Capital (K), Labour (L), Energy (E), Material (M) and Services (S)] Database'.
Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty settled lower for the sixth straight session on Monday due to heavy selling in bellwether stocks including HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries amid mixed trends in the global markets and outflow of foreign funds. Falling for the sixth consecutive session, the BSE Sensex tumbled 638.45 points or 0.78 per cent to settle at 81,050. During the day, it plummeted 962.39 points or 1.17 per cent to 80,726.06. The NSE Nifty slumped 218.85 points or 0.87 per cent to end at 24,795.75.
There's an average aggregator premium of Rs 46 per dish (in hidden costs) compared to delivery orders placed on restaurants' own channels. Conservatively, this translates into an additional annual financial burden of at least Rs 12,000 for the average Indian household in major metro/Tier-I cities.
'There were two options before the government -- create a complex, cumbersome law, which will cause a tremendous amount of compliance challenges for startups or say let's go back and do a clean slate, where we do a framework of laws and policies'
