Amid prolonged uncertainty, continued policy support will be crucial for sustained economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said at the recent meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee. "In this period of prolonged uncertainty, it would be wise to remain agile and respond in a gradual, calibrated and well telegraphed manner to the emerging challenges," opined Das, according to the minutes of the MPC meeting released by the Reserve Bank on Thursday. Observing that economic recovery from the pandemic remains incomplete and uneven, he said, "continued support from various policies remains crucial for a sustained recovery." The governor said the renewed surge in international crude oil prices, however, requires close monitoring.
Severe sluggishness in demand in Europe hit India's merchandise exports, which fell for the third consecutive month this financial year. Compared with $26.3 billion in the corresponding period last year, exports fell 14.8 per cent to $22.4 billion in July. This was the steepest fall in 35 months (exports had declined 23.59 per cent in August 2009).
Declining prices of food items like vegetables pulled down retail inflation to 5.59 per cent in July, bringing it back within the RBI's comfort zone after two months, official data showed on Thursday. The retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had remained above 6 per cent during May and June. The government has mandated the RBI to maintain retail inflation at 4 per cent, with a margin of 2 per cent on either side. The CPI based inflation stood at 6.26 per cent in June 2021 and 6.73 per cent in July 2020.
On the Sensex chart, NTPC, SBI, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv and Bjaja Finance were among the major laggards, shedding as much as 1.63 per cent.
Sharad Pawar reckons that the NCP has value as a united, going concern, not as a gaggle of leaders in search of followers, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Stuffed rice paper rolls are light, nutritious, unusual and yum.
Gearing up for the upcoming state assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Partyon Wednesday named its organisational spearheads for the elections, putting Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Bhupender Yadav in charge for the contest in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur respectively.
HCL Tech was the top loser in the Sensex pack, skidding over 4 per cent, followed by Tech Mahindra Dr Reddy's, Wipro, TCS, Titan and Infosys. NSE Nifty plunged 167.80 points to 17,110.15.
A reception often reserved for rockstars came the way of mining mogul Anil Agarwal when he started revealing nuggets of his ascent from a scrap-metal dealer to one of India's most prominent self-made industrialists on social media. And now he has been flooded with booking writing proposals and has even been offered money for a biopic. In February this year, Agarwal, 68, started tweeting his journey from Bihar to Mumbai first and then to London to head a globally diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, iron ore, steel, copper, aluminium, power, oil and gas.
The dreary, cold months from December to February may prove to be the undoing of many a nation as they grapple with sky-high fuel prices - a result of the Ukraine conflict and the pandemic. Many - Europe, South Korea, Japan, and China - will still pull through on the strength of their wealth or because of strong storage infrastructure. But India will have its back to the wall. Signs of liquefied natural gas (LNG) rates hitting new records this winter are already evident.
Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is a masterpiece, and like most masterpieces of the cinema, it's a great act of folly, observes Sreehari Nair.
Russia has been grappling with sanctions slapped by the US and its allies over Moscow's invasion of Crimea.
Trade deficit marginally widened to $9.85 billion as against $9.72 billion in February 2019.
Members of the G-23, who had shown courage to point out the flaws in the party's functioning, have allowed themselves to be co-opted by the Family to go through the motions of a post-mortem, notes Virendra Kapoor.
While Ishan Kishan has done well so far, Ruturaj Gaikwad (23, 1) has pulled the team down with questions being raised over his technique against quality pacers and his ability to force the pace early on.
'There is more to life than sport and anything can happen in sport, so you need something to fall back on'
The value of the foreign portfolio investors' (FPI) holdings in the domestic equities reached $667 billion in three months ended September 2021, a surge of 13 per cent from the preceding quarter, according to a Morningstar report. This was largely on the back of strong performance by the Indian equity markets along with net inflows from FPIs at the later part of the quarter. "At the end of the quarter ended September 2021, the value of FPI investments in Indian equities shot up sharply to $667 billion, which was considerably higher than the $592 billion recorded in the previous quarter, a spike of around 13 per cent," the report noted.
'China is a friendly country and we welcome it for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan'
The ballooning of crude prices has significantly increased the country's oil import bill and it can also lead to a worsening of the current account deficit and fiscal deficit for the domestic economy.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc plans to bring lawsuits in the US and other countries to pierce the corporate veil between the Indian government and its owned companies such as in oil and gas, shipping, airline and banking sectors, to seize their overseas assets to recover $1.2 billion ordered by an international arbitration tribunal. The firm has moved courts in the US, UK, Canada, France, Singapore, the Netherlands and three other countries to register the December 2020 arbitration tribunal ruling that overturned the Indian government's Rs 10,247 crore demand in back taxes and ordered New Delhi to return $1.2 billion in value of shares it had sold, dividends seized and tax refunds withheld to recover the tax demand. With the government so far refusing to honour the arbitration award and instead choosing to challenge it, Cairn is looking to enforce it by seizing overseas Indian assets, Dennis Hranitzky, head of the sovereign litigation practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a law firm representing the company, told PTI.
President Trump, in a move that could have implications on India's energy security, on Monday decided not to grant sanctions exemptions to any oil customers of Iran, further squeezing Tehran's top export commodity.
Want to feature almonds in a dessert? Here's some inspiration.
Dr Dinesh Jain shares some valuable tips.
'Investors should keep them on their radar and invest over a longer time frame, and expect some of these companies to bite the dust.'
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
'The prospects for both India and the global economy is that we are headed towards a very difficult time.' 'I see very uncertain at least 8-10 months for both India and the rest of the world.'
Trai data show the company has no subscribers in Uttar Pradesh East & West and Bihar
Trump has repeatedly blamed countries like India and China for not doing enough on climate change, labelling them as regions with air that is impossible to breathe.
ONGC was the top loser in the Sensex pack, cracking over 16 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, TCS, SBI, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto.
On Tuesday, Trudeau called up United States President Barack Obama to convey that he would make good on a campaign promise to withdraw Canada's jets from the United States-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Analysts attribute this withdrawal trend to the nervousness ahead of US presidential elections and the fact that the markets raced ahead even as the economic recovery remained fragile back home.
Dollar's strength against some currencies overseas and firming crude oil prices also put pressure on the rupee, dealers said.
India is the second largest buyer of Iranian crude, after China.
Top gainers in the Sensex pack were TCS, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, Axis Bank, L&T, ITC, PowerGrid, HCL Tech and Tata Steel, ending up to 2.39 per cent.
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 Reserve Bank's rate-setting panel began its three-day deliberations on Monday to decide the next monetary policy amid expectations that the central bank will maintain status quo on the benchmark interest rate in the backdrop of global scare due to the new coronavirus variant Omicron. Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das headed six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is scheduled to announce the policy resolution on Wednesday. If the RBI maintains status quo in policy rates on Wednesday, it would be the ninth consecutive time since the rate remains unchanged.
'We would have faced many more Galwans had Indian troops not reacted and retaliated the way they did.'
After more than two decades and three attempts, the government has finally sold its flagship national carrier Air India, and it is deja vu for Maharaja as it returned home to its founding father the Tata group. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata founded the airline in 1932 and named it Tata Airlines. In 1946, the aviation division of Tata Sons was listed as Air India, and in 1948, the Air India International was launched with flights to Europe. The international service was among the first public-private partnerships in India, with the government holding 49 per cent, the Tatas keeping 25 per cent and the public owning the rest. In 1953, Air India was nationalised and for the next over four decades it remained the prized possession for India controlling the majority of the domestic airspace.
'There is a cost to war.' 'The West knows that and so does Putin.' 'The point is, how much of the cost are both sides willing to pay?'