The excise duty cut will translate into a reduction of Rs 9.5 a litre on petrol and Rs 7 a litre in diesel after taking into account its impact on other levies.
The employment situation remains dire. Whatever can be done to promote greater low-skill employment should be pursued aggressively, advises former chief economic adviser Shankar Acharya.
India is one of the few countries in the region that enjoys good relations with both Israel and Saudi Arabia, and IMEC would allow it to recreate the old Spice Route to Europe. All this is in jeopardy now, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
Despite admitting to price pressures both from food items and input prices, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday hoped that a normal Southwest monsoon will have a "soothing impact" on inflation pressures and ruled out any wide variations in medium-term inflation forecast from what was given in April. In an unscheduled address earlier in the day amidst the raging pandemic, Das said the overall outlook for the economy is highly uncertain and is clouded with downside risks. He offered a slew of relief and liquidity measures to individuals and small businesses apart from a Rs 50,000 crore special liquidity window to the healthcare sector.
'The spurt in demand for Ayurvedic products has exhausted our production capacity.'
Reliance Industries has put together an aggressive plan to build its drone business which includes expanding manufacturing capacity five-fold, participating in the new drone production linked incentive scheme, and experimenting with limited logistics payloads to deliver goods. The target is to become a key player in the expected $5 billion market in India by the end of the decade. The drone business is being carried out through a Bangalore-based start up, Asteria Aerospace, in which Reliance has taken a majority stake. Asteria is a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Ltd.
Retail inflation remained above the RBI's comfort level for the second consecutive month despite slipping slightly to 6.26 per cent in June while the factory output recorded a growth of 29.3 per cent in May, mainly on account of the base effect, the government data showed. The marginal slippage in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation was noticed despite little firmness witnessed in the food inflation which inched up to 5.15 per cent in June from 5.01 per cent a month ago. Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 6.3 per cent in May 2021 and 6.23 per cent in June 2020.
'Periods of high volatility are usually bad for mid-caps and this is something that has to be kept in mind.' 'Focus on quality is of paramount importance.'
'It is building the country's infrastructure, and delivering it very efficiently.'
A hallmark of some new businesses today is that they seek to use the brute force of capital, combined with smart technology and operations, to create new needs that you didn't even know existed, the chairman of Aditya Birla group said in a blog post on the trends for the new year.
'In the next one-and-a-half, two months you'll get decent amount of opportunities in the mid-cap and small-cap sector at lower levels.'
'EV-charging is the next big opportunity after fuelling'
The agency welcomed the Rs 1.70-lakh crore package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier in the day but said more measures like loan forbearances for small businesses and households are necessary.
While the US-Iran conflict leading to a spike in global oil prices and trade war between the US and the EU topped the chart with 25 per cent, other major risks to the global economy include coronavirus, debt burdens causing a recess across emerging markets and Hong Kong protests causing an exodus from Asia's biggest financial centre.
India's factory output climbed 22.4 per cent in March, benefiting from the base effect of the lockdown-marred month a year back as well as a turnaround in the manufacturing sector, while retail inflation slipped to a three-month low of 4.29 per cent in April. The high positive annual growth in the index of industrial production (IIP) in March 2021 came on back of a contraction of (-)0.9 per cent and (-)3.4 per cent in January and February 2021 respectively, according to the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday. This turnaround was led by recovery in the mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors.
With the world's worst pandemic outbreak scarring nascent economic recovery, the government may at the beginning of the unlock phase announce another stimulus package for the most hit sectors such as small business and self-employed, Bernstein said. The brokerage in a note said its macro index suggests a deterioration in economic activity during April/May. "Energy consumption has moderated, with power down over 4 per cent and oil consumption down over 16 per cent in May so far (all 2-year CAGR). "E-waybills are down 16 per cent, suggesting the impact of scale down in factory production for some product categories, owing to the shut down in retail outlets.
Inflation in food articles during June stood at 2.04 per cent, as against 1.13 per cent in May.
India's goal of self-reliance has been paramount in the policy and practice of the country. The COVID-19 crisis gave us lessons on how to speed up efforts in that direction, he said.
The centre in Riyadh will be staffed by Saudi females and will start by catering to Saudi Aramco and GE as anchor clients.
If they can sit together and hammer out 'Black Sea Initiative' deal for much needed food shipments, surely, they should be able to address the madness of the larger military conflict?
Given the impact Covid-19 pandemic had over the world economy, analysts expect global central banks, especially the US Fed, to keep the liquidity tap open, which, in turn, is likely to keep the equity markets, especially those in the emerging markets, buoyant.
'We would love to have more players entering the market because that is how the business will grow.'
'For the next two years, we expect the bulk of earnings growth contribution from sectors like financials and energy, where the outlook remains positive, while the sectors which are linked to domestic consumption and are currently witnessing strains on margins have low salience for Nifty earnings.'
10 high dividend paying stocks across sectors that are expected to maintain or even increase their pay-outs in FY23 thanks to faster earnings growth in the last four quarters.
he government is examining a plan of bank recapitalisation and considering an urban version of MNREGS.
Barring rice, spices, iron ore and pharmaceuticals, all the remaining 26 key sectors registered negative growth in May. Imports too plunged 51 per cent to $22.2 billion in May.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her third Budget on February 1.
'There will be positive growth, but if you ask me whether we are going to have the original growth rate of 8%, the answer will be, no.'
Singaporean brokerage DBS said in a report that it expects exports to pick up once the GST-driven distortions subsided, but it warned that the traditional product mix will hinder its ability to participate in the ongoing trade upturn.
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.
'Higher than expected inflation in the US or the European Union, faster than expected tightening by the major central banks, break out of a war in Europe, and withdrawal of portfolio equities from the emerging markets are factors which can result in equity market corrections.'
India's biggest firm, Reliance Industries, has decided to cut salaries by 10 per cent in its oil and refining divisions. Several smaller companies like Kajaria Ceramics have followed suit with cuts as high as 40 per cent for those earning more than Rs 50 lakh.
Softening inflation, Das said would make available more policy space to the central bank to address risks to the growth going forward.
Global growth should have a large impact on the poor, says World Bank.
'I have personally been very keen on investing in lithium ion battery technology for some time.'
With economic activity buoyed by expectations from the new elected government of "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is benefiting from a 'Modi dividend'," the Bank said in its twice-a-year South Asia Economic Focus report on Monday.
However, the government's draft policy on e-commerce companies has forced consumer companies to also adapt to the changes. For Dabur India, e-commerce channel continues to be a key driver of growth in urban India. The contribution of online sales to its entire portfolio is at six per cent compared to 1.5 per cent before the pandemic.
Reliance Industries Ltd's focus on the next hypergrowth opportunities in clean tech and its path to decarbonisation has the potential to spur re-rating, raises clarity on investment cycles and reduces investor worry, brokerages said. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company's 'Green AGM' on Thursday committed Rs 75,000 crore over the next three years to set up an integrated Green Energy Giga Complex across 5,000 acres in Jamnagar, Gujarat which will contain four giga factories. The complex, which would be one of the world's largest renewable manufacturing facilities, would have an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory, an energy storage battery factory, electrolyser manufacturing for hydrogen production, and manufacturing of fuel cells so that hydrogen can be used in transportation.
Some of Modi's biggest reforms have met with fierce political opposition.
Conventional wisdom is that when the US sneezes, emerging markets like India catch a cold. And yet the Indian stock market went up last year, points out Debashish Basu.
