There has been a stellar rise for the Indian markets this far in calendar year 2021 (CY21) with the S&P BSE Sensex surging over 19 per cent. The gain in mid-and small-cap indices on the BSE has been sharper with both these indexes surging around 38 per cent and 54 per cent, respectively during this period. Rampant spread of Covid pandemic's Delta variant and the ensuing lockdown and mobility curbs across India, rising prices key commodities, including crude oil and its impact on inflation, possibility of tightening of policy stance by major global central banks, especially the US Federal Reserve (US Fed) have been some of the key headwinds that the markets successfully negotiated during this period.
The growth momentum that started during the festival season is likely to sustain in the new year, reports Arindam Majumder.
The National Clinical Registry for COVID-19 will collect systematic data on clinical signs and symptoms, laboratory investigations, management protocols, the clinical course of COVID-19, disease spectrum and outcomes of patients.
Adapting to the new hybrid normal of remote and office work, cautiously optimistic corporate are looking to hire more people and provide better appraisals in the new year as they step out of the pandemic-ravaged 2020. The coronavirus pandemic emerged as the biggest inflection point for the Indian job landscape. For the corporates, work-from-home and remote workers became the new normal and for the professionals, online learning and digital skills took centrestage.
Leading automakers Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and Tata Motors reported sales growth in the domestic market in November, aided by robust offtakes amid the festival season. While Maruti Suzuki India reported marginal growth, Hyundai logged in its highest ever monthly sales in November. Others like Honda Cars India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Mahindra & Mahindra and MG Motor India also reported sales growth in November as compared with the same month last year.
The facility, which will manufacture nicotine and nicotine salts, will conform to stringent US and EU pharmacopoeia standards that define purity levels at 99.2 per cent for nicotine meant for pharmaceutical products. ITC will leverage the institutional capabilities of its century-old leaf tobacco business for this. ITC's cigarettes business saw disruptions across the value chain with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The company mentioned in its annual report that with easing of restrictions and improvement in mobility from September 2020 onwards, the business recovered progressively over the remainder of the year to reach nearly pre-Covid levels towards the close of the year.
Ahead of India's annual budget presentation next week, IMF's chief economist Gita Gopinath has favoured the extension of the pandemic support measures, thrust on investment in infrastructure and expanding health sectors programmes like Ayushman Bharat, and a very credible divestment path for commercially viable companies. The Indian government has provided a lot of schemes for small and medium enterprises, most of which is in the form of liquidity support, Gopinath told PTI on Tuesday. "And you want to revisit it and see how effectively that is working and see whether additional support may need to be provided," she said while responding to a question on her recommendations to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ahead of her presentation of the annual Union Budget on February 1. It would be a good time for banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) to raise capital given the attractiveness of financing conditions at this point, she said.
Bringing a local or non-Chinese partner onboard opens up the possibility of legal recourse to have the ban diluted or revoked. However, the process of going through a review committee and setting up local servers might take at least 3-6 months.
India achieved a major milestone in its vaccination programme against COVID-19 as the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 200-crore mark on Sunday.
India has been reporting over 60,000 cases daily since August 7, barring August 11 when the country registered 53,601 new instances of the infection.
The official also said the government's official app helped generate information about 697 potential hotspots in the country.
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?
This is the seventh consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 50,000.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) might punish police personnel in charge of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's security for a lapse leading to her injury during campaigning in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district, a senior election official said.
In spite of a severe second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and a widespread disruption in public life therefore, India's fast-moving consumer goods (FMGC) sector seems to have emerged as one of the most resilient segments of the economy. The early numbers and estimates for the April-June quarter indicate a steady recovery in FMCG players' business, which is now set to exceed the pre-pandemic level. Amid nationwide lockdowns because of the first Covid wave, FMCG revenues had been severely affected in mid-2020.
Bharti's ratings headroom is likely to improve with an equity infusion, planned asset sales and growing EBITDA from Africa.
Two members of the small delegation accompanying External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to the UK have tested positive for Covid-19, forcing him to rework his official schedule in London.
FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd on Thursday reported a 10.7 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 2,100 crore for the first quarter ended June, 2021 led by a volume-based growth despite challenging circumstances due to the second wave of the pandemic. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,897 crore in the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal. Net sales during the quarter under review stood at Rs 11,996 crore, up 13.49 per cent, as against Rs 10,570 crore in the corresponding period a year ago, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) said in a regulatory filing.
Japanese auto major Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) on Wednesday said its long-serving chairman Osamu Suzuki will retire and assume the role of senior advisor subject to shareholders' approval in the ordinary general meeting to be held in June this year.
But after those events, Federer will take a training break, the paper reported.
While lenders create a hype around the services offered on digital platforms, customers think otherwise, given that frustration due to the quality of service has only increased, over the years.
While freight traffic has gone up, the Google location data shows more people are stepping out of their homes.
In an address at the Council of Heads of Government meeting of the eight-member SCO, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said the most important challenge faced by the region is terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and that India remained concerned about threats emerging from ungoverned spaces as well.
Natt, who had allegedly shot the inspector during the violence, was arrested on December 18 from Sikandrabad and is in jail.
A day after the Delhi Police's crime branch reportedly traced murdered teen Aarushi Talwar's mobile phone, her parents on Tuesday said its recovery provides a ray of hope for bringing the murderers to justice.
Opinion on likely cause of the death of Mansukh Hiren, who is said to be the owner of the vehicle with explosives found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's residence in Mumbai last month, is reserved in his post-mortem report on Saturday, a Thane police official said.
The hoarding of cash accentuated from the very start of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic started taking hold the world over, and fear of the pandemic prodded people to remain liquid for emergency use.
Surge in UPI transactions is because of an increased consumer interest in making bill payments and recharging mobile phones online, and purchase of non-essential goods on e-commerce platforms.
The first firing which killed six civilians, occurred when army personnel mistook coal mine workers returning home in a pick-up van singing songs on Saturday evening, to be insurgents belonging to the Yung Aung faction of the banned outfit National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K), about whose movements they had been tipped-off.
Vardhan said the fatality rate is 3.2 per cent while the recovery rate is progressively increasing and stands at 31.74 per cent.
The first leg of the 35-day festive period, which ended with Dussehra, failed to bring any cheer for auto companies. While makers of passenger vehicles struggled to meet demand due to the persistent shortage of semiconductors, a recovery in demand remained elusive for two-wheeler manufacturers despite offers and schemes. The overall season, which ends two days after Diwali, is unlikely to bring any turnaround in either the supply or the demand scenario, said dealers and officials at auto companies.
The total value of India's top 100 brands has increased by 2 per cent, from $162.1 billion in 2020 to $164.9 billion in 2021, according to the latest Brand Finance India 100 2021 report. This uplift in brand value over the course of the first year of the pandemic is an impressive feat given the global economic crisis following the implementation of national lockdowns in March 2020, when business activity was brought to a halt, affecting both production and consumption. Among the brands that came on the top of the list include Tata Group, Reliance Industries, and Mahindra Group.
The number of participating automakers has fallen from 50 in 2018 to 30 this year. The count of exhibitors, including technology companies, has come down from 119 to 112. And showstopper luxury and supercar brands, including Toyota, Jeep, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Volvo will be missing. Similarly, the commercial vehicle makers also gave the show a miss -- a prolonged economic slowdown has dented their fortunes and near chances of any recovery.
Amid the ongoing festival season in the country, the hiring of gig workers has zoomed across sectors as the businesses have begun opening up leading to an uptick in consumer sentiments and rising pent-up demand, according to experts. "In the third quarter, with the onset of festive season, we are witnessing a 400 per cent spike in the hiring for gig workers. Earlier, in the first quarter of this year, as many businesses and companies were not operating at full strength, growth was muted. "However, things began picking up and became more promising from the second quarter, as the demand for gig workers across sectors grew," Taskmo, a subsidiary of Quess Corp, co-founder Prashant Janadri told PTI.
In a bull-case scenario it sees the Sensex at 61,000 levels, while it's bear case scenario pegs the Sensex at 41,000 levels by December 2021.
After staging a strong recovery from COVID-induced slowdown in 2021, India's exports are likely to extend the growth story to the New Year also on increased demand in the global markets, boost in domestic manufacturing due to production-linked incentive schemes and implementation of some interim trade pacts. Expectations of positive growth in the country's exports are also backed up by the outlook of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which predicts a 4.7 per cent expansion in the global merchandise trade volume in 2022. Exporters believe that the outbound shipments would cross $400 billion mark in this fiscal going by the current momentum and may reach $475 billion in 2022-23.
Since April, India has seen multiple strains of the coronanavirus sweep the nation, upending life and businesses alike. Out-of-home retail and discretionary categories such as durables, auto, fashion, lifestyle, hospitality, food services, travel, and tourism have been the worst-hit as Covid cases remain high, leaving state governments with no option but to curtail mobility and economic activity.
Stating that COVID-19 has not yet been contained in India, the rating agency in a statement said the government stimulus package is low relative to countries with similar economic impacts from the pandemic. "The COVID-19 outbreak in India and two months of lockdown -- longer in some areas -- have led to a sudden stop in the economy. That means growth will contract sharply this fiscal year (April 2020 to March 2021)," it said. "Economic activity will face ongoing disruption over the next year as the country transitions to a post-COVID-19 world."
In the new decade, the scene will change because the banks till recently had been challenged by the fintechs, but the techfins have now entered the arena, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
