Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, sea or air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy losses, the UK's ministry of defence said on Thursday.
So far, the drones that were considered important for the agriculture sector were nature-made winged-insects - a key component of the bee-based natural pollination cycle. The new-age drone is a whirring machine with rotors that can help farmers plan and grow and manage their crops. For the farm sector in India, which has had low levels of mechanisation, the impact of drones can be tremendous. The use of drones can help it leapfrog to modernisation in the same way that mobile phones helped India overcome its traditional lack of connectivity.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 46 per cent jump in net profit for the three months ended June on the back of bumper earnings from oil and telecom businesses. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit rose to Rs 17,955 crore during April-June period -- the first quarter of 2022-23 fiscal year -- from Rs 12,273 crore in the year-ago period, it said a stock exchange filing.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after talks in Beijing between officials from the two rival Middle East powers, Iranian state media reported on Friday.
The sharp correction in the Indian markets from their peak levels has made valuations attractive, say analysts, who advise buying selectively, but only from a long-term perspective. Fifty-six of the Nifty 100 stocks, according to Mahesh Nandurkar, managing director at Jefferies, now trade below the 10-year historical averages, including stocks in financial, select auto, and pharma sectors. "Valuation (one-year forward consensus price-to-earnings, PE) has declined 25 per cent from October 2021 peak, almost matching the 33 per cent price-earnings contraction during the 2011 tightening cycle when repo rates went up by 375 basis points (bps) versus 250 bps this cycle.
India is unlikely to join the ongoing negotiations for a plurilateral deal on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization (WTO), notwithstanding a change in stance on data localisation and cross-border flow of data. Under the new draft digital personal data protection (DPDP) Bill, put out on Friday for public consultation, the government has proposed free cross-border flow of data with 'friendly' nations, significantly easing its earlier stance on data localisation. India has so far stayed out of a group of 87 countries, including the US, European Union, China, and Japan that are negotiating trade-related aspects on e-commerce since December 2017.
Telecom gearmaker Nokia will boost its manufacturing capacity in India by 1.5x over the next few years to support the 5G services roll-out, said Tarun Chhabra, the company's country head of mobile networks business. Nokia is supplying network equipment to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio for their 5G networks from its plant in Chennai. Vodafone Idea is yet to finalise its contract as it awaits fresh funding.
The earnings of India Inc hit a record high in the 2022-23 (FY23) January-March quarter (fourth quarter, or Q4), compared with their poor showing in the previous two quarters of the financial year. The rise in earnings, however, is exclusively led by banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) companies. A better-than-expected showing by banks and non-bank lenders in Q4FY23 more than compensated for the earnings contraction in the non-BFSI space.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday flew a sortie in a Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) after a fleet of the highly agile choppers was inducted into the Indian Air Force.
Diversified entity ITC Ltd on Thursday reported a 22.66 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 5,225.02 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2023, led by a strong growth momentum across operating segments. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 4,259.68 crore a year ago, ITC Ltd said in a regulatory filing. Its revenue from operations increased 7 per cent to Rs 18,799.18 crore in the period under review against Rs 17,754.02 crore in the year-ago period.
The defence ministry said 10 helicopters will be for the Indian Air Force and five will be for the Indian Army.
Black Friday sales in India received a good response as brands dropped their prices making customers queue up outside stores where discounts were steeper. Discounts were offered both online and offline. Most of the international brands in India offered discounts under the Black Friday Sale banner. The Black Friday Sale started in the US on the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday. The day typically marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season ahead of the festival.
The two-wheeler sector has been underperforming its peers on the volumes front for over five quarters now. Even in the March quarter, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp posted a 17-24 per cent YoY decline in volumes, the sharpest in the listed auto universe. The ongoing impact of frequent price hikes, all-time high fuel prices, and muted rural sentiment has led to the lacklustre showing by two-wheeler makers. What has aggravated the situation for two-wheeler companies, which get almost all their sales from the internal combustion engine or ICE-based units, is the traction for electric two-wheelers (EV).
The pharmaceutical and the consumer durables sectors, which depend on China for imports, have not been impacted yet due to unrest in China with people protesting against lockdowns. But the lockdown could have an impact on the supply of components used in consumer durables if it continues for the next fortnight. In the pharmaceutical industry, Indian players import 66-70 per cent of their bulk drug requirements from China.
IT companies see this as a huge opportunity.
Benchmark indices turned highly volatile in the last hour of trade on Monday, with the Sensex falling 86.61 points after three days of gain amid heavy selling in IT counters and weak trends in global markets. The 30-share BSE benchmark declined 86.61 points or 0.16 per cent to settle at 54,395.23. During the day, it fell by 391.31 points or 0.71 per cent to 54,090.53.
Equity benchmarks shrugged off lacklustre global cues to clock smart gains on Tuesday, buoyed by strong buying interest in index heavyweights Reliance Industries and HDFC twins. However, a depreciating rupee and unabated foreign fund outflows capped the gains, traders said. The 30-share BSE Sensex rallied 562.75 points or 0.94 per cent to settle at 60,655.72.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked private sector companies to clear dues to small businesses within 45 days and admitted that the central departments and enterprises are also not making payments to them on time. She conceded that the Centre, states and state-owned enterprises too have outstanding dues to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The minister said that at a meeting with big businesses here two days ago, she had appealed to them to ensure that the dues of small businesses, who are the backbone of the economy, are cleared on time.
Billionaire Gautam Adani on Monday said his infrastructure conglomerate will invest between $50-70 billion in organic and inorganic growth opportunities across the entire energy value chain over the next decade. Speaking at an industry event, he said the port-to-energy group will invest over $20 billion in renewable energy generation alone. "Over the next decade, we will invest over $20 billion in renewable energy generation.
Foxconn means serious business in India. Its delegation to India was led by its Chairman Young Liu who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
You increase the production, only then it is possible to reduce cost, Gadkari said.
Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors reported their highest-ever dispatches to dealers last fiscal, enabling the domestic passenger vehicle industry to log in best-ever performance to date. The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India reported its highest wholesales to date at 19,66,164 units, up 19 per cent from 16,52,653 units in 2021-22. Its domestic dispatches rose to 17,06,831 units in 2022-23, up 21 per cent from 14,14,277 units in 2021-22 fiscal.Hyundai Motor India said its overall wholesales last fiscal were the highest ever since commencing operations in the country.
Benchmark BSE Sensex rallied nearly 630 points while Nifty closed above the 16,500 mark on Wednesday after sharp gains in IT and energy shares amid positive global market trends. Buying in index majors Reliance Industries, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services and FII inflows bolstered the sentiment. Shares of firms related to oil exploration and refineries were in heavy demand, with Reliance Industries rallying 2.47 per cent and ONGC by 4 per cent, as the government slashed windfall tax on petrol, diesel, jet fuel and crude oil.
India has demanded resumption of export benefits to certain domestic products under GSP, and greater market access for its products from sectors like agriculture, automobile, auto components and engineering. On the other hand, the US wants greater market access for its farm and manufacturing products, dairy items and medical devices, data localisation, and import duties cut on some ICT products.
Earlier in May, Ford India announced that it had dropped its plans to make electric vehicles (EVs) in India, which it intended to export, under the production-linked incentive scheme (PLI). Ford was among 20 companies that had signed a Champion OEM Incentive Scheme under the PLI project with the government in February this year. The decision comes as a blow for the 4,000-odd employees at Ford India's Maraimalai Nagar plant near Chennai and in Sanand, Gujarat. In September last year, the company had announced that it would exit the India market, which it had entered in 1995 through an on-again, off-again joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra (they split in 1998, signed a JV in 2019 and split again in December 2020), retailing petrol and diesel brands such as the EcoSport, Figo, Aspire, and Endeavour.
Whether one likes it or not, services constitute the value-addition sector that the country has to build on, using its comparative advantage in infotech and related skills, suggests T N Ninan.
'With a solid investment programme and sustainable development strategy, India can exceed 7 per cent growth per year, or a doubling of high-quality national income within a decade.'
So which sectors are likely to do well in 2022? Should you focus on domestic economy-related sectors or export-oriented ones?
The government expects the rollout of 5G services to start from early October in the country, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday. "As soon as the spectrum auction ends, within a few days itself, we will allocate the spectrum. "We expect that the 5G roll-out will happen from the beginning of October and within a year or so, we should have a good rollout in the country," the Union Minister for Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden condemned Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territory on Friday.
Prime Minister Sharif will be visiting Beijing with a high-powered delegation from November 1, 2022, where minutes of the joint coordination committee meeting will be signed.
The S&P BSE Auto Index has been one of the biggest outperformers among sectoral indices over the past year with returns of 26 per cent. By comparison, the benchmarks - the National Stock Exchange Nifty50 and the S&P BSE Sensex - managed about 6-8 per cent during this period. Improving demand, falling raw material costs, and rising product realisations, led by the premiumisation of portfolios, have led to a revision of growth estimates and upgrades by domestic brokerages.
Parliament has cleared the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2023, recently. The objective of the Act is to invite investments from the private sector, including foreign companies, for mining minerals such as lithium and other critical minerals. Other than lithium, some of these minerals were classified as atomic minerals, including beryl and beryllium, niobium, titanium, tantalum and zirconium.
Should we not be creating roles in India for the talented, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Of the 23 companies, eight have raised funds after Shark Tank India.
American automaker Ford on Thursday said that it had withdrawn plans to manufacture electric vehicles (EVs) in India and it won't invest in the country under the performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. "After careful review, we have decided to no longer pursue EV manufacturing for exports from any of the Indian plants. "We remain grateful to the government for approving our proposal under the PLI and for being supportive while we continued our exploration. "Ford India's previously announced business restructuring continues as planned, including exploring other alternatives for our manufacturing facilities.
Rather, cold reactions are expected considering the contentious issues the US is bound to raise -- Taiwan, human rights, and North Korea.
Brokerages expect India Inc to report an upturn in earnings for the March quarter of 2022-23, after a relatively muted showing in the previous two quarters. This growth is expected to be led by banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) companies, FMCG firms, and automobile makers. The combined net profit of the Nifty50 companies (excluding Adani Enterprises) is expected to have grown 15.6 per cent to Rs 1.77 trillion in Q4FY23, from Rs 1.53 trillion a year ago.
The earliest ones included whistles shaped like birds, toy monkeys that could slide down a string and small carts made from materials found in nature such as sticks, clay and rocks. While there might be no disputing India's rich toy-making tradition, the industry is languishing for lack of investment and technology, and also owing to competition from cheap imports. And though it has been listed among 24 key sectors under the government's Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, the question remains: will this push help place it in the global game? Currently, 80-odd per cent of the toys sold in India are imported - nearly 60 per cent of them from China.
