RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that early containment of the pandemic could impart an "upside" to the economic growth outlook.
In the Sensex pack, HDFC, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Titan, Asian Paints, Mahindra and Mahindra and TCS were the prominent gainers. On the other hand, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, NTPC, UltraTech Cement, Tech Mahindra and SBI were among the major laggards. On the other hand, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, HUL, Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank were trading in the red.
The laggards in the Sensex kitty were Vedanta, Tata Steel, M&M, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, L&T, Asian Paint and HDFC
According to Korn Ferry Global Salary Forecast, India's salary growth for 2020 stood at 9.2 per cent. down from 10 per cent last year, while real-wage after adjusting inflation may remain constant at 5 per cent in 2020.
Tata Motors was the biggest loser in the Sensex pack, tumbling 2.47 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries (2.44 per cent), Maruti (1.84 per cent), SBI (1.76 per cent) and Bajaj Finance (1.23 per cent).
The cost of not vaccinating the entire population quickly will be far higher than bearing the entire cost of vaccination, points out Prosenjit Datta.
The government's second round of stimulus will spur consumer spending in the near term but support to economic growth will be minimal, Moody's Investors Service said.
India will also play an increasingly important role as one of the Asia-Pacific region's major economic growth engines, helping to drive Asian regional trade and investment flows.
'RBI is already late in addressing inflation pressures.'
Fitch Solutions on Thursday said the new climate targets announced at the COP26 summit by Prime minister Narendra Modi pose an upside risk to its outlook for renewable growth in the country. With the new targets, it expected to see attempts to alleviate the issues regarding supply chains, manufacturing and project development that have long plagued renewable proliferation.
Former President A P J Abdul Kalam kindly answered rediff.com's questions for an exclusive interview.
The BJP still does not have a majority in Upper House of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, and this will pose hurdles to the party's legislative reform agenda
Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said India's economy will witness a decline in the current fiscal, but the drop will be limited if there is an economic recovery in the October-March period.
Many years during which monsoons were poor saw high returns, while normal or excess rainfall has also coincided with poor calendar year gains.
India's gold demand increased by 19.2 per cent to 76.1 tonne during the April-June quarter this year, largely due to low base effect, owing to the nationwide lockdown that hit economic activity last year, the World Gold Council (WGC) said in a report. The overall gold demand during the second quarter of 2020 calendar year stood at 63.8 tonnes, according to the WGC's 'Gold Demand Trends Q2 2021' report. In value terms, India's gold demand witnessed 23 per cent growth during April-June quarter at Rs 32,810 crore, compared to Rs 26,600 crore during the corresponding period of 2020.
'We have lived through 10% plus inflation in India and we are aware of the economic pitfall.' 'With the RBI now having formally adopted an inflation target range, they cannot turn a blind eye to the impending risks.'
For 2021-22, it projected the economy to clock a growth of 10.6 per cent.
After sinking 586 points during the day, the 30-share index ended 503.62 points, or 1.29 per cent, lower at 38,593.52. The broader NSE Nifty plunged 148 points, or 1.28 per cent, to 11,440.20.
Portfolio returns, say analysts at Morgan Stanley, are more likely to be driven by bottom-up stock-picking rather than top-down macro forces.
Moody's Investors Service on Friday projected India's growth at zero per cent for the current fiscal and said the negative outlook on sovereign rating reflects increasing risks that GDP growth will remain significantly lower than in the past. The outlook also partly shows weaker policy effectiveness to address economic and institutional issues, it noted in the update to its November 2019 rating forecast.
India's services sector activities contracted further in June as the intensification of the COVID-19 crisis and reintroduction of containment measures restricted demand, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted India Services Business Activity Index fell from 46.4 in May to 41.2 in June, as new work intakes and output contracted at the fastest rates since July 2020, which prompted companies to reduce employment again. Subdued demand conditions resulted in a second successive monthly drop in new business received by services firms.
S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday affirmed India's sovereign rating at the lowest investment grade of 'BBB-' for the 14th year in a row with a stable outlook, and said that the country's strong external settings will act as a buffer against financial strains despite elevated government funding needs over the next 24 months. The sovereign credit ratings on India reflect the economy's above-average long-term real GDP growth, sound external profile, and evolving monetary settings, S&P Global Ratings stated. "India's democratic institutions promote policy stability and compromise, and also underpin the ratings. "These strengths are balanced against vulnerabilities stemming from the country's low per capita income and weak fiscal settings, including consistently elevated general government deficits and indebtedness," it said in a statement. S&P Global Ratings has forecast economic activity in India to begin to normalise throughout the remainder of fiscal 2022, resulting in real GDP growth of about 9.5 per cent.
While efforts are being mounted on a war footing to arrest its spread, COVID-19 will impact economic activity in India directly through domestic lockdown. The second-round effects, it said, would operate through a severe slowdown in global trade and growth.
The finance minister is ready to present a second financial package. The Centre has ruled out a mega stimulus and will rely on targeted, incremental packages. Industry is clamouring for a bailout, the liquidity upheaval in capital markets is nowhere close to being sorted out, and all budgetary forecasts now stand irrelevant, reports Arup Roychoudhury.
Production grew by a mere 0.5 per cent year-on-year, a significant comedown from the 3.5 per cent clocked in June.
Consumption of gold is the highest among middle-income households - those with annual income between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh - who account for an average of 56 per cent of gold sales over the last five years, according to a nationwide survey conducted by India Gold Policy Centre (IGPC) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). "Per capita consumption is highest among the rich, but total volume still rests with the middle-income group. "With increasing income, there is an increasing propensity to consume gold, although the share of gold in the portfolio does not increase with the same proportion of income," the survey report says.
Retail inflation slowed to 4.29 per cent in April from 5.52 per cent in March, mainly due to easing food prices, government data showed on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank mainly factors in the retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) while arriving at its monetary policy. As per the data released by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, inflation in the food basket was 2.02 per cent in April, down from 4.87 per cent in the preceding month.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to grow at 5.8 per cent in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, according to an SBI's research report- Ecowrap. The country's economy expanded by 8.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2021-22, to cross pre-pandemic levels. However, the GDP growth in July-September period was slower than the 20.1 per cent expansion in the previous quarter.
RBI Governor would like to wait till Budget before taking any action on rate front.
India's GDP is estimated to contract by a record 7.7 per cent during 2020-21 as the COVID-19 pandemic severely hit the key manufacturing and services segments, as per government projections released on Thursday. Amid overall decline in economic activities, some respite was provided by the agriculture sector and utility services like power and gas supply, which have been projected to post positive growth during the current fiscal ending March 2021.
The states will forego around Rs 44,000 crore of tax revenue after they reduced VAT on petrol and diesel in the reminder of the fiscal but higher central tax devolution of Rs 60,000 crore will offset the losses, according to a report. After months of calls for lowering the taxes on the fuels, the Centre on November 4 cut excise duty on diesel by Rs 10 a litre and by Rs 5 on petrol. Following this, as many as 25 states and Union territories have lowered value-added tax (VAT) on these fuels.
It had upped India's rating to Baa2 from Baa3 and changed its rating outlook to 'stable' from 'positive', saying the reforms would help stabilise rising levels of debt.
Nirmala Sitharaman is proving to be a better finance minister than her initial rookie status might have led people to expect, observes T N Ninan.
Fitch Ratings on Monday cautioned that the Indian government has little fiscal headroom at its disposal to respond to possible shocks to growth given the country's lowest investment grade credit rating with a negative outlook. "India's public debt/GDP ratio, at about 87 per cent in FY21, is well above the median of around 60% for 'BBB' rated sovereigns. "We revised the Outlook on India's rating to Negative, from Stable, in June 2020, partly owing to our assumptions about the impact of the pandemic on public finance metrics. "The government has little fiscal headroom at its current rating level to respond to possible shocks to growth," it said in a report.
The World Bank on Tuesday projected India's economy to grow at 8.3 per cent in 2021 and 7.5 per cent in 2022, even as its recovery is being hampered by an unprecedented second wave of the COVID-19, the largest outbreak in the world since the beginning of the deadly pandemic. The Washington-based global lender, in its latest issue of Global Economic Prospects released here, noted that in India, an enormous second COVID-19 wave is undermining the sharper-than-expected rebound in activity seen during the second half of Fiscal Year 2020/21, especially in services.
Most forecasts do not have a track record of transparency and accuracy
The rising COVID-19 infections across the country are a matter of concern, but it may not impact the ongoing economic revival as one does not foresee lockdowns, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday. The economic revival will continue "unabated", Das said, asserting that there is no need for a downward revision of RBI's 10.5 per cent GDP growth forecast for FY22. Speaking at Times Network's India Economic Conclave, Das said, "We have 'insurance' to protect economic revival like a fast-paced vaccination drive, greater ability among people to follow COVID protocols", and one does not see lockdowns as well.
Population is a touchy issue in India. Anybody will notice the crowded rat race we live in, notes Shyam G Menon.
IMF said in 2017, India is likely to grow at the rate of 7.2 per cent instead of the earlier projected 7.6 per cent.
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