The jury is still out on the decision to demonetise high value currency notes on November 8, 2016, with the government claiming it has helped greater formalisation of the economy while critics saying it has failed to curb black money and reduce dependence on cash. On November 8, six years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the demonetisation of old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 banknotes and one of the key objectives of the unprecedented decision was to promote digital payments and curb black money, besides eliminating terror funding. As per a Reserve Bank data, currency with the public has jumped to a new high of Rs 30.88 lakh crore an October 21, indicating that cash usage is still substantial even six years after the demonetisation move.
'I cannot afford to go to court. I cannot afford to lose a case. I will fight the Gandhi way -- peacefully, non-violently, and with determination,' Purshottam Chauhan, a resident of the Sabarmati Ashram, tells Rosamma Thomas. Around him, the homes of former neighbours are rubble. About 300 Dalit families resided within the premises of the Sabarmati Ashram till 2021. Only about 40 now remain.
'... and without necessarily calling them Economic Surveys.' 'One should stick to the main focus, which is to give people a good perspective on how the economy is doing.'
As it readies for its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, digital payments firm Paytm is honing its strengths to remodel itself from being a payment wallet to becoming a financial services provider, and is working towards narrowing its losses, evident from its most recent Annual Report. Unlike many of its peers, Paytm has started expanding its merchant payment ecosystem. It has realised that though it can take the maximum share of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transactions, from a revenue generation point of view it will not have any impact.
The government will start working on selling the ground-handling arm of erstwhile national carrier Air India and the Expression of Interest (EoI) is expected in the next fiscal, an official said. "We already have the Cabinet approval for selling the subsidiaries of Air India. "So we will come out with an EoI inviting bids for one of the ground-handling arms in the next fiscal," an official told PTI.
Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund has said its six shut schemes have received Rs 15,272 crore from maturities, coupons and pre-payments since closing down in April 2020. The fund house had shut six debt mutual fund schemes on April 23 last year, citing redemption pressures and lack of liquidity in the bond market.
The regulator is more carefully scrutinising applications by infrastructure investment vehicles that have a limited number of investors. They have been asked to broaden their investor base before application approval, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Securities and Exchange Board of India is concerned about the structure being used for getting around tax requirements, according to one of the sources.
Reliance Jio's aggressive target to reach 100 million households through the launch of the 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) could make it one of the world's largest players in this space. But this also marks a change from its earlier strategy of offering fibre-to-the home (FTTH) broadband to households. Despite its best efforts, in two years Jio has been able to connect only 7 million households with FTTH, as permission for right of way for the last mile became a major impediment and the process of laying ducts for the roll-out was slow and cumbersome.
Bharti Airtel promoter Bharti Telecom will buy a 3.33 per cent Airtel stake from Singtel for 2.25 billion Singapore dollars or about Rs 12,895 crore in 90 days' time, the telecom operator said on Thursday. Bharti Group chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal's family and Singtel are co-investors in Bharti Telecom (BTL). Singtel in a statement said that after the transaction, Singtel Group is expected to own an effective stake of 29.7 per cent in Bharti Airtel, which is estimated to be worth SGD 22 billion (about Rs 1.26 lakh crore).
Ailing telecom operator Vodafone Idea has flagged the industry's "unsustainable financial duress" in its latest annual report and hoped that the government would provide the necessary support to address "all structural issues" faced by the sector. In the chairman's letter to shareholders, Himanshu Kapania cited persistent challenges in the operating environment, amid "unsustainable pricing" and "hyper-competition" during FY21. Kapania expressed hope that government will support efforts to generate reasonable returns on massive investments.
'We are worried for the workers because in the private sector, jobs are not secure, there is no decent work condition and there is no social security.' 'That's why we are opposing the economic policies of this government.'
Indian economy is expected to grow 10.5 per cent or more in the current fiscal, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Thursday. Speaking at a virtual conference organised by the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI), he also said that modernisation of the retail sector is very much on the cards. "India Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for both manufacturing and services has shown a very smart uptick last month. "This (Indian economy) will strengthen even further," he said. "I expect Indian economy to grow 10.5 per cent or higher in FY 22," he noted.
Reliance Jio may not ask for a premium for its 5G services in the initial stages of the launch, according to sources in the company. The company will roll out 5G commercial services in four cities -Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata - around Diwali this month and slowly ramp up the processes for other cities, too. A senior executive, when asked whether Jio will charge higher tariffs for 5G against 4G, said: "In the initial stages, customers have to adopt 5G, then they will have to find value in the service, and then one can look at monetisation."
With six airports handed over to the Adani group for 50 years, the government is now all set to hand over another 25 airports to private players in a bid to 'monetise' them. Official figures reveal that since 2017-18, the government has spent and will be spending Rs 14,500 crore on significantly revamping infrastructure at most of these airports before handing them over to private players. The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which operates these airports for the government, has spent billions of rupees in building new terminal buildings, runways, reinforcing taxiways, upgrading aircraft landing systems, radars and a host of other heavy duty and capital intensive infrastructure works.
Strategic direction post-COVID-19 and further details on asset monetisation are key expectations from the 43rd AGM of RIL, analysts said.
...but when they awaken, it's going to be overly optimistic to assume everybody will walk off the sleeping bed and come back to full life, Rajan noted.
For the first time, consumers, including those at the so-called bottom of the pyramid, are monetising gold by taking loans from banks, offering the yellow metal as collateral, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Global investment firm Blackstone-sponsored Nexus Select Trust has filed the draft paper with market regulator Sebi to launch India's first public issue of retail REIT to raise around $500 million (about Rs 4,000 crore), sources said. Nexus Select Trust has a portfolio of 17 operational shopping malls across 14 major cities, covering about 10 million square feet of area valued at around $3 billion. As per the sources, Nexus Select Trust has on Thursday filed the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and is looking to hit the capital market with India's first retail REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) public issue in the first half of the 2023 calendar year.
Talking to PTI Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said, "The two-day nationwide strike by the joint forum of central trade unions has begun this morning". About the impact of the agitation, she said that the entire coal belt (mining area) is affected in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. She also said that there is a good response in industrial areas of Assam, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The AITUC official noted that the banks and insurance sectors are affected all over India, while steel and oil sectors are also seeing partial impact due to the strike. Kaur said that she has got preliminary reports that markets are closed in Odisha.
Only NIIF has stayed the course as a viable infrastructure financing institution.
The Congress on Monday strongly criticised the Union budget, saying Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's speech was oblivious to the declining GDP and the budget was a case of "wrong diagnosis and prescription".
The company, which claims to have an annual revenue rate of US$7 million and is targeting to touch US$35 million in 2022, will also be investing in creator growth and monetisation opportunities.
For over a year Sanjay Chandra, managing director of the Unitech group, has been under a cloud for various reasons.
'India seems to be on a relatively better wicket compared to other emerging markets.'
Veteran banker K V Kamath on Friday said it is "time to be brave" for the government, and it should stretch the fiscal deficit target set in the budget if need be, to push growth. He said benign interest rates of under 8 per cent and abundant liquidity are also necessary to seize what he called as a 25-year growth runway opportunity awaiting the country. The government has targeted to get the fiscal deficit at 6.8 per cent for FY22 in the Budget presented early this year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors. "It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".
The government has already crossed the fiscal deficit at 132 per cent of the estimate as of December end.
The government has no plan to print currency notes to tide over the current economic crisis triggered by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed Parliament on Monday. To a question on whether there is any plan to print currency to tide over the crisis, the finance minister said, "No Sir". Many economists and experts have suggested to the government to print more currency notes to tide over the difficult economic situation with a view to support the economy ravaged by the spread of COVID-19, and protect jobs.
RBI director S Gurumurthy the package of more than Rs 20 lakh crore announced by the central government can be described as an interim measure.
After IPL 2021, which players offer the best value for money?
A joint forum of central trade unions has given a call for a nationwide strike on March 28 and 29, to protest against government policies affecting workers, farmers, and people. The Joint Platform of central trade unions held a meeting in Delhi on March 22, 2022, to take stock of the preparations in various states and sectors for the proposed two-day all India strike on 28-29 March 2022 against "the anti-worker, anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-national policies" of the central government, a statement said. The statement said that roadways, transport workers and electricity workers have decided to join the strike in spite of the impending threat of ESMA (Haryana and Chandigarh, respectively). Financial sectors, including banking and insurance, are joining the strike, it stated.
India's economic growth is likely to reach pre-COVID-19 levels by the end of the 2021-22 fiscal as the GDP contraction in this financial year is expected to be less than 8 per cent, Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Sunday. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also revised its forecast of economic growth for the current fiscal year (2020-21) to (-)7.5 per cent as against its earlier forecast of (-)9.5 per cent.
The number of times public sector undertakings (PSUs) have held conference calls with investors, their capital management, and debt financing are among the parameters that the Centre will use to judge their performance for the first time, a senior official in the know said. The government will evaluate PSUs for FY22 based on new parameters that were finalised by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) in consultation with the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) last year, the official said. The government had included more conditions in the memorandum of understandings (MoUs) - used to set annual targets - that public sector enterprises sign with the DPE every year. These included a consistent dividend policy, which seeks to transfer dividends by PSUs every quarter; and market capitalisation or share price improvement over the sectoral index on an annual average basis for listed companies.
Instead of conceding the demand for a cut in personal income-tax rates, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman should phase out many exemptions in both personal and corporation taxes, suggests A K Bhattacharya.
The central bank can directly print money and finance the government, but it should avoid doing so unless there is absolutely no alternative, former RBI governor D Subbarao on Wednesday said while pointing out that India is 'nowhere' near such a scenario. In an interview with PTI, Subbarao suggested that to deal with the second wave of COVID-19 induced slowdown in the economy, the government can consider Covid bonds as an option to raise borrowing, not in addition to budgeted borrowing, but as a part of that.
Political controversies aside, Twitter's business in India is expanding, and creating opportunities for Indians, reports Neha Alawadhi.
As the country moves towards creating a spot gold exchange, markets regulator Sebi's whole time member G Mahalingam on Wednesday suggested routing all the imports of the precious metal through the exchange ecosystem in the future. Such a "funnelling" would ensure that gold monetisation takes place right at the source as the metal enters the country, he said while addressing a conference organised by industry lobby Ficci. However, he also noted that the issue has not been dealt with in the papers floated by Sebi.
The fund house had offered two options to affected investors -- either monetisation of assets by trustees or hiring a third party to conduct the process.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday highlighted "significant reforms" undertaken by the government including National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) and National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) as she met institutional investors in Boston. Sitharaman arrived in the US on Monday for a week-long trip to attend the annual meet of the World Bank and IMF in Washingon as well as G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting. During the official visit to the US, Sitharaman is expected to meet US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Bajaj Finserv was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, soaring around 8 per cent, followed by Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank and SBI.
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