While she primed up spending on infrastructure to create jobs and boost economic activity, Sitharaman did not tinker with income tax slabs or tax rates. Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 proposed a massive 35 per cent jump in capital expenditure to Rs 7.5 lakh crore, coupled with rationalisation of customs duty, an extension of time for setting up new manufacturing companies and plans for starting a digital currency and tax crypto assets.
India Ratings and Research on Friday revised down India's FY22 real GDP growth forecast to 10.1 per cent, from earlier projection of 10.4 per cent, citing the second wave of COVID-19 infections and slower pace of vaccination. At a time when large parts of the country are experiencing tremendous pressure on medical infrastructure, the agency said it expects the second wave to start subsiding by mid-May. Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank maintained its 10.5 per cent GDP growth estimate, but Governor Shaktikanta Das has flagged the rising cases as the biggest impediment to recovery.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unravel in various parts of the country, the World Economic Forum on Monday announced the cancellation of its high-profile annual meeting for 2021 after postponing it at least twice along with two changes in venue. The next annual meeting will now take place in the first half of 2022, while the location and date would be determined after assessing the situation later this summer, said the Geneva-based organisation that has been hosting a yearly congregation of the rich and powerful from across the world in Swiss ski resort town of Davos for 50 years. This year's Davos summit was originally scheduled for January 2021, but was later moved to a different location in Switzerland, Lucerne, and then to Singapore with an August 2021 schedule.
'Chup is the work that I'm most satisfied with; it won't bore me or make me cringe later.'
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.
Will Empire strike back to prevent a game changing election result, asks T P Sreenivasan.
The statement said that the global economy is being held back by a shortfall in demand, while addressing supply constraints is key to lifting potential growth.
S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday raised India's growth projection for the current fiscal to -7.7 per cent from -9 per cent estimated earlier on rising demand and falling COVID infection rates. "Rising demand and falling infection rates have tempered our expectation of COVID's hit on the Indian economy. S&P Global Ratings has revised real GDP growth to negative 7.7 per cent for the year ending March 2021, from negative 9 per cent previously," S&P said in a statement. The US-based rating agency said its revision in growth forecast reflects a faster-than-expected recovery in the quarter through September. For the next fiscal, it projected India's growth to rebound to 10 per cent.
The prime minister in his intervention at the session on "global economy and global health" also flagged the issue of facilitating international travel and talked about the mechanism of mutual recognition of vaccine certification as a means of achieving this, according to the text of his intervention shared by his office.
The US is ready to respond "decisively" to a Russian attack on Ukraine which is still very much a possibility, President Joe Biden has said, urging Moscow to step back from the brink of war.
Over the next three - six months, UBS believes earnings will be the main driver for EM equities outperformance.
'It's time to change this system of randomly giving stars and the right to bad critics to run down our products.' 'Two films, even if both get three stars, are very different from each other.' 'I can understand if these stars indicated a level of enjoyment or engagement, but the current rating system is flawed because there are no parameters.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to pitch for a united global approach in dealing with the situation in Afghanistan and combating challenges of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic at the two-day G-20 Summit in Italy beginning October 30, people familiar with the development said on Sunday.
US Vice President Kamala Harris would host a separate meeting with the prime ministers of three Quad countries -- India, Australia and Japan -- at the White House to discuss with them the important factors for democracies to go forward, officials said.
Stressing that the Covid virus may continue to transmit for a "very long time", senior WHO official Poonam Khetrapal Singh says the level of immunity in a community, through vaccination and previous infection, will determine whether it will become endemic in the long run.
In his address at an extraordinary video conference of the G-20 leaders, Modi also urged the grouping to come out with a concrete action plan to fight the pandemic and said human beings rather than economic targets should be put at the centre of its vision for global prosperity and cooperation.
The IMF on Tuesday projected an impressive 12.5 per cent growth rate for India in 2021, stronger than that of China, the only major economy to have a positive growth rate last year during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Washington-based global financial institution, in its annual World Economic Outlook ahead of the annual Spring meeting with the World Bank, said the Indian economy is expected to grow by 6.9 per cent in 2022. Notably in 2020, India's economy contracted by a record eight per cent, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said as it projected an impressive 12.5 per cent growth rate for the country in 2021.
Terming investment in infrastructure "quintessential" to boost growth, the Economic Survey on Friday said post unlocking of the economy, infra sectors are poised for growth and construction of roads is expected to return to the high pace attained before COVID-19. The infrastructure sector will be the key to overall economic growth and macroeconomic stability, the Survey said emphasising that the year after the crisis (2021-22) will require sustained and calibrated measures to facilitate the process of economic recovery and enable the economy to get back on its long-term growth trajectory. "Basic infrastructure facilities in the country provide the foundation of growth. In the absence of adequate infrastructure, the economy operates at a suboptimal level and remains distant from its potential and frontier growth trajectory.
TCS was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 4 per cent, followed by ONGC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Dr Reddy's, HDFC and HCL Tech. NSE Nifty advanced 76.65 points to 14,581.45.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone and Adani Green Energy are the other two Adani Group firms to have crossed the Rs 1-trillion mark in m-cap.
He added that the risks can increase if the Chinese slowdown gathers more speed.
Large investors track high-frequency data that is immediately available today. That data has been bullish, points out Debashis Basu.
Lauding the farm sector for demonstrating resilience during the pandemic, the Economic Survey on Friday suggested the government to see farm sector as a "modern business enterprise" for which "urgent reforms" are required to enable sustainable and consistent growth. India's agricultural sector has shown its resilience amid the adversities of COVID-19 induced lockdowns, the Survey noted. The agriculture and allied activities were the sole bright spot amid the slide in GDP performance of other sectors, clocking a growth rate of 3.4 per cent at constant prices during 2020-21, it added. According to the Survey, the farm sector has got "renewed thrust" due to various measures on credit, market reforms and food processing under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat announcements.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
India's manufacturing sector activity was largely flat in April, as rates of growth for new orders and output eased to eight-month lows amid the intensification of the COVID-19 crisis, a monthly survey said on Monday. The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was at 55.5 in April, little changed from March's reading of 55.4. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion while a score below 50 denotes contraction.
With 16 start-ups gaining unicorn status in 2021, India's tally has touched the 50 mark. The newest entrant to this list include Pune-based MindTickle, which is close to finalising a $100-million funding round from Softbank's Vision Fund 2, taking the company's valuation to $1.1 billion.
There has been a "sharp decline" in collection efficiencies in retail asset pools across asset classes in May due to the second wave of the pandemic, with microlenders witnessing a dip of up to 20 per cent, a report said on Monday. "ICRA has observed a sharp decline in the collections of its rated securitisation transactions in April 2021 (i.e. May 2021 payouts), following the rise of COVID-19 cases and imposition of lockdowns/movement restrictions which has impacted the operations and collection activities of the NBFCs and HFCs," the report from domestic rating agency ICRA said. A major part of the country was undergoing localised lockdowns till May-end in the second wave, which saw new cases top 4.14 lakh and resulted in over 4,500 deaths daily at its peak.
The G-20 leaders under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia's King Salman held an extraordinary video conference in which they resolved to use all available policy tools to minimise the economic and social damage from the pandemic that has killed over 21,000 people and infected more than 470,000 globally.
The hit to economic activity will be mostly confined to the first quarter. And a third wave, if it materialises, is unlikely to be hugely disruptive for the economy, predicts T T Ram Mohan.
'While most companies were bullish before the second wave of double-digit sales growth in FY22, that may not be the case now.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday unveiled a Rs 39.45 lakh crore Budget with a view to fire up the key engines of the economy to sustain a world-beating recovery from the pandemic. This was Sitharaman's fourth Budget. While the taxpayers were left in the lurch, once again, was she able to cheer Corporate India?
Housing sales across top eight cities rose 51 per cent last year, even as the office market continued to slump due to the Covid pandemic with gross leasing witnessing a 3 per cent fall, according to Knight Frank India. Housing sales increased to 232,903 units during last year, from 154,534 units in 2020, but demand was down 5 per cent from the 2019 pre-pandemic levels and 37 per cent lower than the 2011 peak numbers. In the office segment, the gross leasing of office space fell to 38.1 million square feet in 2021, from 39.4 million square feet in the previous year, due to the adverse impact of the second wave of the Covid pandemic.
Thirteen companies have joined the Rs 1-trillion-plus market capitalisation club this year, so far. This even as the benchmark Sensex has gained less than 3 per cent on a year-to-date basis, underscoring the bullish undercurrent in the broader market. The trend shows a harsh second wave of Covid-19, subsequent lockdowns, and hit to the economic activity has made little dent into India Inc or shareholders' wealth. At the start of the year, there were 29 companies with a market value of more than Rs 1 trillion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on the sidelines of the climate summit here and discussed ways to further sustainable development, steps to mitigate climate change and vaccine research. The meeting between Modi and the American business magnate, whose foundation is focusing on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, took place after the former launched the Initiative for the Resilient Island States (IRIS) for developing infrastructure of small island nations. Prime Minister Modi expressed appreciation for the work being done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.
Prime Minister Modi, who is in Japan on a two-day visit to attend a summit of the Quad leaders at the invitation of his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida, penned an op-ed on the vibrant relations between India and Japan in the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Modi's unexpected announcement of achieving net zero by 2070 may have neatly deflected the pressures on India to sign up to an ambitious pledge but it does nothing to dispel the ecological emergency that threatens all life on the planet, , points out former forerign secretary Shyam Saran, the prime minister's special envoy and chief negotiator on climate change 2007-2010.
'The current economic contraction is certainly due to the lockdowns as a response to the pandemic, which is an act of God.' 'Nobody has seen such a thing in the last 100 years.' 'Saying that this was an act of mismanagement is largely incorrect'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called for focus on 'repair and prepare' as the nation emerges out of a devastating pandemic. "Over the past year, we have witnessed a lot of disruption in different sectors. Much of it is still there. Yet, disruption does not have to mean despair," he said at VivaTech Summit. "Instead, we must keep the focus on the twin foundations of repair and prepare," he said referring to the need to augment healthcare infrastructure in the country as well as prop up the economy.
India and Italy inked 15 pacts and finalised an ambitious action plan to further expand their ties following a virtual summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Conte that primarily focused on ramping up economic engagement.
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