Higher prices are burdening household budgets and threatening the margins of leading manufacturers.
'Election years tend to see high government expenditure on unproductive schemes, though that money sloshing around can boost private consumption.' 'Again, it can mean higher inflation,' explains Devangshu Datta.
Another priority in the first 100 days could be the launch of an e-platform -- Trade Connect -- to help exporters connect with stakeholders of international trade.
'The private sector believes that some enablers in labour-intensive sectors like apparel, toys, tourism, and media retail, can unlock a lot of jobs.'
Rediff.com spoke to registered investment advisors to figure out how best the extra Rs 17,500 saved ever year can be invested to create a decent corpus in the years ahead. This is what they said.
The National Testing Agency, however, denied any irregularities and said the changes made in the NCERT textbooks and grace marks for losing time at the examination centres are some of the reasons behind the students scoring higher marks.
Interview with former Reserve Bank of India governor by Duvvuri Subbarao.
Now that the economy is growing at a higher-than-expected rate, it is time to accelerate the pace of fiscal consolidation, and the Budget could be a good starting point, argues Rajesh Kumar.
'Your decisions should not be driven by your view on the market, but by your objectives, risk appetite, and time horizon.'
The ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia is unlikely to have any major impact on the Indian rupee and the forex volatility in the country (USD/INR) has been much less now as compared to the global financial crisis which took place in 2008, SBI said in its Ecowrap research report. The report said that though the conflict between the two CIS nations may drag on for now, it is expected that the USD/INR, the most tracked pair in the local forex market, will trade at an elevated zone. But ideally, the expected average range of the rupee is expected to be in the band Between Rs 76 to Rs 78 to the USD with an appreciated bias.
The former bureaucrat said he will take measures which the economy requires in a timely manner and as the first step, will meet the heads of public sector banks.
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
BofA Securities has revised its year-end Nifty target from its earlier projection of 16,000 to 14,500 now - down over 6 per cent from the current levels. Fast tightening monetary conditions, slowing growth/fears of US recession and the likely Nifty EPS (earnings per share) cuts, BofA Securities said, are the key headwinds for the markets in the near-term. However, clarity on macro and monetary policy outlook in the US/India, it said, is the silver lining that could see markets bottom out by August/September 2022.
Deloitte India on Friday said it estimates India's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent in the current fiscal helped by consumption expenditure, exports rebound and capital flows. In its India's economic outlook report, Deloitte said the rapid growth of the middle-income class has led to rising purchasing power and even created demand for premium luxury products and services. With the expectation that the number of middle-to-high-income segments will be one in two households by 2030/31, up from one in four currently, we believe this trend will likely become further amplified, driving overall private consumer expenditure growth, it said.
Dabur India has been the worst performer in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space this year (CY23), posting a 1 per cent decline even as its peer index, the Nifty FMCG, has delivered returns of over 29 per cent in this period.
RBI retained the GDP growth for the financial year 2018-19 at 7.4 per cent.
'The Indian government is better prepared this time and has reached out to all contenders and not putting all eggs in one basket.'
Marico's January-March quarter (Q4) results were slightly better than consensus. Revenue was up by 1.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 2,280 crore. Ebitda grew by 12.5 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 440 crore. Adjusted PAT was up 10.3 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 320 crore.
Rate cuts are unlikely to be aggressive, in our view.
Foreign investors have pulled out a massive Rs 22,000 crore from Indian equities so far this month, due to uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections and outperformance of Chinese markets.
During the month, inflation in vegetables shot up to 35.99 per cent, as against 26.10 per cent in October. Likewise, the prices of cereals and eggs grew at a faster pace of 3.71 per cent.
All eyes will be on whether Sitharaman will deliver a populist budget leaving more money in hands of the common man or push the reform agenda by staying on the fiscal glide path to lower the fiscal deficit to 4.5 per cent of GDP by 2025-26.
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The central bank will come out with two measures on restructuring to tackle financial stress, Rajan said.
The Budget should use the extra RBI surplus to better effect, suggests A K Bhattacharya.
Bangladesh is in turmoil, which is not good news for India, which shares a porous 4000 km border with it. There is a danger of fundamentalism growing there, and India has to move in to reset its ties with the new dispensation before China and Pakistan make capital out of it, alerts Ramesh Menon.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said underlying economic activity in India continues to be strong, but external factors will cause some "dent" to the economy. Speaking at the BFSI Insight Summit 2022 organised by Business Standard, Das said the RBI tracks 70 fast moving indicators and most of them are in the "green box". It is the external sector, mired by a fear of recession or clear visibility about slowing growth in a large part of the world, where the challenges lie, he said, adding that the impact of external demand will "dent" the economy.
Currently, the retail inflation is well below the RBI's comfort level. The government has asked the central bank to keep inflation in the range of 4 per cent.
Prices of food items like cereals, pulses, and edible oils rose or remained steady in May, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report said, indicating there could be another higher inflation print. However, it observed that the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC's) surprise move to increase interest rates bodes well for its credibility. The RBI's monthly State of the Economy report, released on Tuesday, citing high frequency food price data from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs for the period May 1-12, said the increase in the prices of cereals was primarily because of the surge in wheat prices.
Vegetable rates may ease from September, led by tomato prices, which have started showing signs of correction on the back of increased supply, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Wednesday. "Looking ahead, the spike in vegetable prices in July is starting to see a correction, led by tomato prices. "New arrivals of tomatoes in mandis are already softening the prices, coupled with proactive supply management in the case of onions.
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Food and fuel inflation in India have remained high for several years, the paper said, adding to durably reduce the current high inflation, the monetary policy stance needs to remain tight for a considerable length of time.
S&P Global Ratings on Monday retained India's GDP growth forecast at 6 per cent saying it will be the fastest growing economy among Asia Pacific nations. The GDP growth forecast for the current and the next fiscal has been kept unchanged from the forecast made in March partly on account of domestic resilience. "We see the fastest growth at about 6 per cent in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines, S&P Global Ratings said in its quarterly economic update for Asia-Pacific.
Volkswagen Passenger Cars is targeting a volume sales growth of about 15 per cent in the country in 2024, even as it expects the Indian passenger vehicle (PV) industry to grow by 5-7 per cent in the current year, its India brand director, Ashish Gupta, said on Thursday. This means the company is expecting to grow 2-3 times faster than the Indian PV industry in 2024. But globally, the German automaker is expecting just 3 per cent rise in sales this year, down from 12 per cent last year.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has been pursuing hawkish monetary policy stance to keep inflation under check.
India will drive growth in the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region as the growth engine is likely to shift from China to South and Southeast Asia in the coming years, S&P Global Ratings said in a report on Tuesday. The rating agency's report projected China's growth to slow down to 4.6 per cent by 2026 from an estimated 5.4 per cent in 2023. India is likely to clock 7 per cent economic growth from 6.4 per cent estimated for 2023.
While India won't be immune to global spillovers, we need to create the macro preconditions for sustained growth. Policy agility, prudence, and resilience will be key, suggests Sonal Varma.
Looking under the hood, I see India on the terrible, but commonplace, road to prosperity failure, warns Rathin Roy.
India's industrial production grew by 1 per cent in December, official data showed on Friday. According to the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data, the manufacturing sector output grew by 1.6 per cent in December 2020.
Senior citizens and others depending upon income from bank fixed deposit (FD) schemes will be at the receiving end with the retail inflation exceeding the interest rates. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest monetary policy review has projected retail inflation at 5.3 per cent for the current financial year. Last week, the RBI said that the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation is now projected to be at 5.3 per cent for 2021-22 with risks evenly balanced.
India's economic growth is now 'extremely fragile' and needs all the support that it can get, as private consumption and capital investment are yet to pick up, RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Jayanth R Varma said on Friday. Varma further said out of the four engines of growth for the economy, exports and government spending supported the Indian economy through the pandemic, but other engines need to pick up the baton now. " I like to think in terms of the four engines of growth for the economy: exports, government spending, capital investment and private consumption. "...while exports cannot be the main driver of growth because of the global slowdown, government spending is necessarily limited by fiscal constraints," he told PTI.
Even as Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is eyeing a decline in inflation to 5-6 per cent by the year end, Planning Commission member Dr Narendra Jadhav said only a good monsoon and augmentation of agriculture production could help achieve the target.
