The Indian economy is projected to grow 9.6 per cent in the next year. But, growth in real terms may be just 1 per cent, according to a report by India Ratings.
The government on Thursday kept the interest rates on small savings schemes, including public provident fund (PPF) and national savings certificate (NSC), unchanged for the January-March quarter amid moderating bank deposit rates.
Equity investors grew richer by Rs 32.49 lakh crore in 2020 on the back of smart returns in the stock market which had a roller-coaster ride during the year hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The Covid-19 outbreak ravaged lives and livelihoods on a global scale, shuttering businesses and jolting world equities.
The Union government's fiscal deficit soared to Rs 10.75 lakh crore, or 135.1 per cent of the 2020-21 Budget Estimates (BE), at the end of November 2020, mainly on account of low realisation of revenue due to disruption in business activities amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The output of eight core industries dropped for the ninth consecutive month in November, government data released on Thursday showed. The production of eight core sectors contracted by 2.6 per cent in November as against a growth of 0.7 per cent recorded in the same period last year.
Key stock indices sensex and Nifty closed almost flat on the last trading day of 2020 on Thursday as investors tracked news related to Covid-19 vaccines rollout across the globe for further bets. In choppy trade, the 30-share BSE sensex inched up by 5.11 points 0.01 per cent to its new closing record of 47,751.33.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has urged the government to put more money in the pockets of middle-income families in the next budget and cut the costs of raw material for small and medium-sized businesses. “The middle-income group is feeling a lot of pinch, and they need some support,” said Gopal Krishna Agarwal, who handles the BJP’s communication and coordination on economic affairs.
The government has directed the Enforcement Directorate and Reserve Bank of India to take necessary action against Amazon and Walmart-owned-Flipkart. The Centre has taken strong cognizance of various complaints made by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) for blatant violation of FDI Policy and Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) by these companies.
Come January 1, 2021, all voice calls from Reliance Jio to other networks in India will be free as interconnect usage charge (IUC) regime ends on Thursday (December 31, 2020). "As soon as IUC charges are abolished, Jio will once again make all off-net domestic voice calls free, starting January 1, 2021. On-net domestic voice calls have always been free on the Jio network," the company said in a statement.
Total liabilities of the government increased by 5.6 per cent to Rs 107.04 lakh crore at end-September 2020, according to official data on public debt. At the end of the first quarter, the outstanding total debt of the government stood at Rs 101.3 lakh crore.
The fight for dominance in digital payments has caused a collective loss of nearly $900 million (Rs 6,500 crore) for Paytm, PhonePe and Amazon's payments unit in India for the year ended March 2020. Two of these firms reduced cashbacks, but marketing & promotional spends and other costs remained high.
IRCTC e-ticketing website upgrade: Indian Railways passengers can look forward to a more personalised, faster and seamless ticket booking experience. Check features here:
Equity indices were flat on the final trading day of 2020 as losses in IT stocks were offset by gains in Reliance Industries, while the benchmark Nifty index was set to finish the year 15% higher.
Zhong Shanshan is a private billionaire who’s rarely quoted in the press. Now, after an improbable career spanning journalism, mushroom farming and health care, he’s become Asia’s richest person, eclipsing India’s Mukesh Ambani and a group of Chinese tech titans including Jack Ma.
Facing heat from GST officials for evading taxes on the pretext of adding fruit juice or pulp to their carbonated beverages, local soft drink companies are set to shift to the 40% levy, said people familiar with the development.
Starting on January 1, ties between the European Union and Britain will be determined by their post-Brexit trade deal that was finalised last week after ten months of fierce negotiations.
Progressive companies understand the importance of diversity and inclusion (D&I) beyond gender. But even while India Inc is still scratching the surface with respect to gender diversity, some organisations like EY and Fujitsu India have begun to transform their work culture to embrace neurodiverse talent too.
The massive shortfall in the Rs 2.1-lakh-crore disinvestment target has triggered unease within the government. The department for investment and public asset management (Dipam) is blaming the department of financial services for imposing an additional Rs 90,000-crore target through the sale of the Centre's stakes in LIC and IDBI Bank, which may not realise this year.
After intense lobbying by chartered accountants and tax professionals, the government has granted a fresh extension to those who have not filed their returns, citing Covid-19 as the reason.
Hyderabad-based firm IVRCL along with its managing director (MD) and other executives have been charged by the CBI for an alleged fraud worth over Rs 4,800 crore against a consortium of banks. The agency has booked the firm for non-repayment of loans and cheating consortium of lenders.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) acted proficiently during the year to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy. From extending rate cuts, to announcing three-month repayment moratorium on loan repayments and an assured liquidity support through the targeted long term repo operations, the central bank undertook various measures to maintain growth.
Britain's House of Commons has voted resoundingly to approve a trade deal with the European Union, paving the way for an orderly break with the bloc that will finally complete the UK's years-long Brexit journey. With just a day to spare, lawmakers voted 521-73 Wednesday to approve the agreement sealed between the UK government and the EU last week.
The government on Wednesday further extended the deadline to file income tax returns for the financial year 2019-20 (assessment year 2020-21) for individual taxpayers by 10 days till Jan 10, 2021, in wake of the ongoing Covid-19. In addition, the deadline for filing ITR for the financial year 2019-20 by companies has also been extended by 15 days till February 15 from Jan 31.
India is likely to spend more next fiscal year than this year's budgeted $415 billion and prioritise infrastructure projects, relying on asset sales of around $40 billion for some of the funding, two people with knowledge of the plan told Reuters. Actual spending this year could be lower than the original target of Rs 30.4 lakh cr but higher than last year's Rs 26.86 lakh cr.
Equity indices continued to surge for the sixth straight session on Wednesday with both the BSE and NSE indices scaling fresh closing highs. After touching an intra-day high of 47,808, the 30-share BSE index rose 133 points or 0.28 per cent to close at 47,746; while the broader NSE Nifty settled 49 points or 0.35 per cent higher at 13,982.
The govt on Wednesday further extended the suspension of commercial international flights till January 31, 2021. However, restrictions will not apply to special flights and international air cargo operations, Directorate General of Civil Aviation said. “International scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis,” it said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that it will start using SupTech (supervisory technology) and RegTech — a subset of fintech that uses technology to scale up supervision — to keep up with the entities it regulates.
Economic shocks like the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 only arrive once every few generations, and they bring about permanent and far-reaching change. Measured by output, the world economy is well on the way to recovery from a slump the likes of which barely any of its 7.7 billion people have seen in their lifetimes.
Bitcoin on Wednesday hit a record $28,599.99, taking gains this year past 295% amid heightened interest from bigger investors. The world's most popular cryptocurrency was last up 3.7% at $28,375. Since breaking $20,000 for the first time on December 16 it has surged by nearly half.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and UK's BP Plc on Wednesday invited companies to bid for gas produced from the KG D6 basin. They expect to sell the gas from February.
Flights between India and the UK will now remain suspended till January 7, 2021. The government has decided to extend the December 23-31 suspension by a week more in wake of the new and more infectious strain of coronavirus.
The government is set to swing from being a cautious spender in 2020 to opening the fiscal floodgates as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to pull Asia’s third-biggest economy back from the worst of the pandemic.
It was over breakfast on the wintry morning of January 24 that Ozlem Tureci and her husband Ugur Sahin decided, "we need to fire the starting gun on this". Sahin "had concluded from a publication describing coronavirus cases in Wuhan ... that there was a high probability that a pandemic could be imminent", Tureci recounted.
The government is set to extend the deadline for 100% collection of toll charges on the National Highway (NH) network through FASTag. Earlier, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had announced to completely do away with cash transactions for paying toll charges from January 1.
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal's (ITAT) Mumabi bench passed three separate orders upholding the tax-exempt status of Ratan Tata Trust, JRD Tata Trust and Dorabji Tata Trust, which hold about 66% in Tata Sons. The Tribunal said the March 2019 revision order of the I-T department that sought to cancel tax exemption to the three trusts was "devoid of any legally sustainable merits".
The Tata Group will hike its stake in AirAsia India (AAIPL) from 51% to 83.67%. The transaction puts Tata Group firmly in command with the budget carrier which is going to be its bid vehicle for Air India.
Equity indices finished higher for the fifth straight session on Tuesday as both the BSE and NSE scaled fresh closing peaks, amid positive global cues. After scaling an intra-day high of 47,715, the 30-share BSE index rose 259 points or 0.55 per cent to finish at 47,613; while the broader NSE Nifty settled 59 points or 0.43 per cent to close at 13,933.
The temporary suspension of India-UK flights may be extended beyond December 31, aviation minister H S Puri said on Tuesday. India had last week suspended passenger flights to and from the UK between December 23 and December 31, after countries like Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Italy did the same due to a more infectious Coronavirus variant there.
Coronavirus has pushed back global air traffic by over two decades to the last millennium. Global passenger traffic was down by about 67% in pandemic 2020 compared to 2019 and was reduced to 1999 levels, according to leading aviation analytics company Cirium.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday hit out at previous governments for delaying the Dedicated Freight Corridor project of the Railways and said his government engaged with stakeholders to speed up the work.
Mukesh Ambani spent much of 2020 convincing Facebook Inc, Google and a clutch of Wall Street heavyweights to buy into his vision for one of the world’s most ambitious corporate transformations.
Around 4.37 crore income tax returns for fiscal 2019-20 (Assessment Year 2020-21) have been filed till December 28, the I-T department said on Tuesday. This includes over 2.44 crore taxpayers filing ITR-1, over 95.64 lakh filing ITR-4, over 53.12 lakh ITR-3 and over 32.30 lakh filing ITR-2.
Jack Ma's Ant Group Co is planning to fold its financial operations into a holding company that could be regulated more like a bank, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the situation.
The improvement that IT companies have been seeing after the slump in the June quarter is expected to continue in the December quarter and after. Accenture, which follows a September-August financial year, recently announced the first quarter results for fiscal year 2021 that lifted its share price by 7%.
In a bid to simplify travel insurance and expand its reach in the country, regulator Irdai on Monday issued guidelines for insurers to come up with standard travel policies to be offered from April 1, 2021. These covers will have common benefits and wordings across products launched by different insurance players.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd led a second day of frenetic selling among China’s largest tech firms, driven by fears that antitrust scrutiny will spread beyond Jack Ma’s internet empire and engulf the country’s most powerful corporations.
State Bank of India (SBI), Union Bank of India (UBI) and Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) have marked Reliance Communications' (RCom's) account as fraud, according to banking sources.
A high-profile Mumbai bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) on Monday quashed the revisionary orders passed by the commissioner (exemptions), which would have resulted in three Tata Trusts having to bear taxes running into several lakhs.