The GST Council on Wednesday approved a two-tier rate structure of 5 and 18 per cent, which will be implemented from September 22.
Gold prices are likely to remain in a consolidation phase in the near term, but the overall bias will continue to stay positive amid heightened expectations of a US Federal Reserve rate cut in its September policy meeting, analysts said. Traders will closely track US macroeconomic data, such as Q2 GDP, PCE inflation, and speeches from Fed officials, which will provide more insights into the monetary policy stance of the Federal Reserve and the trajectory of the bullion sentiment, they added.
India's economic growth accelerated to 8.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2023-24, mainly due to good performance by the manufacturing, mining & quarrying and construction sectors. The Indian economy recorded a growth of 8.4 per cent in the third quarter of this fiscal (October-December 2023), according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Thursday.
The deal fell through over unresolved disagreements over contentious issues, mainly on agriculture and automotive sector tariffs.
'It must become faceless, just as the entire direct tax assessment system has already become fully online, without any human intervention in the normal course,' recommends A K Bhattacharya.
Continuing on the fiscally prudent path, the Modi government in the interim Budget refrained from announcing populist measures, which will help it trim the fiscal deficit to 5.1 per cent of the GDP next fiscal and 4.5 per cent in FY26.
'What India has done will surely embolden more countries to stand up to Trump.'
France today increasingly resembles the Italy of the past, when governments fell with bewildering regularity, prime ministers came and went in rapid succession, and political instability became the norm rather than the exception, point out Krishnan Srinivasan and Manoj Mohanka.
In Professor Sulochana Gadgil's passing, India has lost a scientific giant, a fierce intellect, and a compassionate soul, remembers Dr Madhavan Nair Rajeevan.
The next generation GST reforms would 'absolutely' set an economy open and transparent with further reduction in compliance burden and benefiting small businesses, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday.
Among Sensex firms, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Asian Paints, NTPC, Infosys, Nestle, Sun Pharma, and Tata Steel were the major laggards. Eternal, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries and Bajaj Finserv were the gainers.
In trade negotiations, as in chess, sometimes you need to accept a temporary disadvantage to secure a better long-term position, points out Sonal Varma, chief economist (India and Asia ex-Japan) at Nomura.
Discrepancies in computation of advance estimates of the country's Gross Domestic Product for 2023-24 stood at Rs 2.59 lakh crore as against (-) Rs 3.80 lakh crore in 2022-23 and (-) Rs 4.47 lakh crore in 2021-22, according to National Statistical Office (NSO). On Friday, the NSO released its first advance estimates of national accounts which showed that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Indian economy will grow at 7.3 per cent in 2023-24, slightly higher than 7.2 per cent in 2022-23.
Foreign investors continue to exhibit confidence in the country's equity market, injecting Rs 19,860 crore in May driven by favourable global economic indicators and strong domestic fundamentals. This positive momentum follows a net investment of Rs 4,223 crore in April, data with the depositories showed.
Russia has a "special mechanism" to confront any challenge arising out of the US slapping punitive measures against India for its procurement of Russian crude oil, Russian charge d'affaires Roman Babushkin said on Wednesday.
India will become the world's third largest economy by 2026 as its GDP in current dollar terms will reach $5 trillion in that year and further rise to $5.5 trillion in 2027, former Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya said on Friday. Delivering the 18th C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture titled 'India at 125: Reclaiming the Lost Glory and Returning the Global Economy to the Old Normal', he said it is unlikely that GDP in current dollar terms of either Germany or Japan will cross $5 trillion-mark in the coming three years. Japan will have to sustain a growth rate of 3.5 per cent in current dollar terms to reach $5.03 trillion in 2027 from its 2022 level of $4.2 trillion, he said.
'India has the potential to grow at more than 7%, with the monetary policy providing a supportive hand.'
From the 30-share blue-chip pack, Adani Ports, UltraTech Cement, Larsen & Toubro, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, NTPC and State Bank of India were the major laggards. Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, ITC, Asian Paints, HCL Tech and Maruti were among the gainers.
The disbursement of the second tranche comes on a day when the International Monetary Fund is holding virtual discussions on Pakistan's upcoming budget, as the visit of its mission to Islamabad was delayed due to security concerns in the region.
'That is going to have an impact on literally every one, whether you buy a toothpaste, a safety pin, a car, shoes or medicines or you go to a diagnostic centre.'
India's extreme poverty rate declined sharply to 5.3 per cent over a decade from 27.1 per cent in 2011-12 even as the World Bank revised upwards its threshold poverty line to $3 per day.
Economies of Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana may have grown at a slower pace than the national economy during 2022-2023.
India needs Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council-like common platforms between states and the Centre in areas such as land clearances, power, and water to fast-track infrastructure projects to achieve double-digit growth going ahead, said Praveer Sinha, chief executive officer and managing director of The Tata Power Company.
India's current account deficit declined sharply to 1 per cent of the GDP or $8.3 billion in the second quarter of this financial year, mainly due to lower merchandise trade deficit and growth in services exports, according to a RBI data released on Tuesday. The current account deficit (CAD), which represents the difference between the total amount of money sent abroad and money received from overseas across the economy, was 3.8 per cent of GDP or $30.9 billion in the July-September quarter in 2022-23. CAD was $9.2 billion or 1.1 per cent of GDP in the first quarter (April-June) of the current financial year 2023-24.
Siam argues that a 2040 ban could destabilise ongoing and future investments and threaten millions of jobs in the automotive value chain.
Global home decor and furniture retailer IKEA has ambitions to increase sourcing from India to 50 per cent, Swedish trade minister Benjamin Dousa said on Wednesday. IKEA's sourcing basket includes textiles, plastics, and metals, among others, and the company plans to add more items.
Since February 2025, the RBI has reduced the policy rate by 100 basis points. In its previous policy review in June, it had trimmed the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5 per cent.
The crisis may not be as visible this time, but the stakes are just as high, points out Rajeswari Sengupta.
GST, net of refunds, now yields close to 20 trillion to both the Centre's and states' exchequer.
GST 2.0 may cushion consumers against US tariffs, but like the 2019 corporate tax cut, it risks being another tactical fix rather than a structural growth strategy, expects Debashis Basu.
'What the US appears to be doing is to force India to be "the buyer of last resort", on whom their products can be dumped, 1.4 billion people have to eat something, so why not eat American corn?' 'What is exercising the Trump lot is the fact that most of the farms are in solidly Republican Midwestern states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin,' points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
President Droupadi Murmu addressed the nation on the eve of Independence Day, praising the response to terrorism, highlighting achievements in defense self-reliance, and emphasizing unity and progress.
The economy may grow by around 7 per cent this financial year as estimated by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), say economists with various organisations. The first advance estimates for 2023-24 will be released on Friday by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), an exercise done for calculating ratios such as the fiscal deficit. The interim Budget will be presented on February 1.
Stock markets are in for an event-heavy week ahead with a raft of Q1 earnings from blue-chips, the US Fed interest rate decision and foreign investors trading activity driving investors' sentiment, analysts said. Macroeconomic data announcements, monthly auto sales numbers and global market trends would also guide movement in the domestic equities, they said.
India's 18 largest states, accounting for over 90 per cent of the country's gross state domestic product (GSDP), are likely to record a marginal uptick in revenue growth to 7-9 per cent this year, from 6.6 per cent clocked in 2024-25 (FY25), rating agency Crisil said in a report on Tuesday. This growth, slower than the decadal average of about 10 per cent, would lift these states' cumulative revenue to around Rs 40 trillion in FY26 from Rs 37.26 trillion in FY25.
The point to note for India is that we must not panic. The United States may be our largest export destination, but high tariffs will not exactly mean gloom and doom. Sure, we can throw some morsels as we continue negotiating, but we must be firm that some red lines cannot be crossed, no matter what, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Fitch Ratings on Thursday raised its forecast for India's economic growth to 6.3 per cent for current fiscal year 2023-24 from 6 per cent it had predicted previously. This is primarily because of a stronger outturn in the first quarter and near-term momentum. The growth forecast compares with 7.2 per cent GDP expansion in FY23. In the previous fiscal year (FY22), the economy had grown 9.1 per cent.
India has decided to submit a dossier at the upcoming Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting, calling for Pakistan to be placed back on the grey list of the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
The Indian services sector growth touched an 11 month high in July, supported by a pickup in new exports orders and sharp rise in overall sales, a monthly survey said on Tuesday. The seasonally adjusted HSBC India Services PMI Business Activity Index was at 60.5 in July, little-changed from 60.4 in June, and the rate of expansion was the best seen since August 2024.
'One Chinese interlocutor said India should realise that "China can do without India, but India could not do without China", pointing to its inability to do without Chinese intermediates and components,' former foreign secretary Shyam Saran discovers on a visit to China.
