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Food inflation drops from 9.1 pc to 8 pc - India News - IBNLive

Food inflation witnessed a sharp moderation to 8 per cent for the week ended November 19, though prices of most agricultural items, barring potatoes, onions and wheat, continued to rise on an annual basis.
Food inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), was 9.01 per cent in the previous week ended November 12. It stood at 9.03 per cent in the corresponding week of the previous year.
According to data released by the government on Thursday, onions became cheaper by 40.65 per cent year-on-year during the week under review, while potato prices were down by 10.98 per cent. Price of wheat also fell by 4.71 per cent

However, all other food items grew more expensive on an annual basis.
Pulses became 13.80 per cent costlier during the week ended November 19, while milk grew dearer by 11.41 per cent and eggs, meat and fish by 13.55 per cent.
Vegetable prices were up by 5.13 per cent year-on-year. However, this marked a substantial slowdown in the inflation rate in comparison to the past few months, when prices of vegetables had witnessed double-digit growth.
Fruits also became 7.98 per cent more expensive on an annual basis, while cereal prices were up 1.97 per cent.
Inflation in the overall primary articles category stood at 7.74 per cent during the week ended November 19, as against 9.08 per cent in the previous week. Primary articles have over 20 per cent weight in the wholesale price index.
Inflation in non-food articles, which includes fibres, oilseeds and minerals, was recorded at 2.14 per cent during the week under review, as against 4.05 per cent in the week ended November 12.
 
50 million Africans dial Airtel

The implementation of India’s low-cost telecom model in the African market seems to have paid dividends for the country’s largest company in the sector, Bharti Airtel, with the company crossing 50 million subscribers in mobile operations.

Bharti acquired Zain’s assets in 16 African countries in June 2010, with a subscriber base of 42 million, brought down to an active user base of 36 mn. In these 17 months, it has got 14 million users, on the back of low and innovative rate plans, it said. It has 173 million subscribers in the Indian market.
 
Carmakers sans Maruti post sales growth in November

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Barring passenger car market leader Maruti Suzuki, whose car sales dropped 17 per cent in November over the same month last year, the other manufacturers have posted double digit growth.
 
Caterpillar plans Perkins engine plant

Caterpillar Inc., a leading maker of construction and mining equipment, is setting up a greenfield project to produce Perkins branded 4000 series engines in an yet-to-be identified location in India.

The project will involve an investment of $150 million. The proposed project will be the first Perkins engine plant for Caterpillar outside the U.K.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Rich Lavin, Group President and Executive Office Member of Caterpillar Inc., said the proposed Perkins engine plant would have an initial capacity of 3,000 numbers a year. This would be scaled up to 5,000 a year subsequently.

He said the engine project would be implemented through a new legal entity. To a question, he said Caterpillar would be hoping to export half the number produced at the proposed plant to serve the needs of countries in and around the region. Hitherto, the requirements of these nations were met through supply from the U.K. plant, he added.

Mr. Lavin said Caterpillar would primarily focus on industrial clients to hawk its Perkins engines. The plan was to produce a range of Perkins engines — from 750 kVA to 2500 kVA.

Caterpillar would also be pumping in an additional investment of $62 million into its existing off-highway truck manufacturing facility near here. The new investment was to expand the truck capacity. This investment was over and above the $108 million fund infusion announced by the comp any in 2010 to double the capacity, he added. Thus far, he said, Caterpillar had invested $1 billion into India (excluding the just-announced one).


The Hindu : Business / Companies : Caterpillar plans Perkins engine plant
 
Hyundai plans to launch commercial vehicles in India


Korean auto major Hyundai Motor on Thursday said it is currently studying the Indian market to launch commercial vehicles as part of its global plan to strengthen the segment.

To begin with, the company that mainly sells compact cars in India is considering introducing high-end and premium trucks in the country.

“There are lots of possibilities to launch commercial vehicles in India...we are currently studying the Indian market...So, we are planning,” Hyundai Motor Company Deputy General Manager (Commercial vehicle Marketing team) J.D. Lee told PTI on the sidelines of the Tokyo Motor Show.

Asked by when the company could launch the commercial vehicles in India, he said: “We hope to launch it very soon.”

Without giving much detail, Mr. Lee said the company is looking at high-end and premium trucks for the Indian market initially. Besides, it is also considering at introducing buses as well. “We are trying to launch high-end and premium trucks... As far as the models that we have, I think it is not a problem. We have many models all over the world,” he added.

He said the company took time to enter the Indian commercial vehicles market as the low-cost ones used to be more attractive there, which is changing now.

“Premium model truck is attractive (now) for the Indian market but we think bus is also profitable,” Mr. Lee said, adding the company is deciding which model will be launched.

“Then, we will decide how many units...It is not enough to just launch a product, we have to think about the service part also and that is taking time,” he added.


The Hindu : Business / Companies : Hyundai plans to launch commercial vehicles in India
 
Essar Steel commissions 2.5-mtpa furnace at Hazira

Essar Steel commissioned its second unit of Conarc Furnace with a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per annum, taking total capacity of steel melt shop to five mtpa.

The Conarc furnace will be fed with inputs from blast furnace with a capacity of 1.73 mtpa (commissioned recently), DRI (direct reduced iron) with a capacity of 1.74 mtpa and two Corex units of 0.87 mtpa of which one is already commissioned and the second unit is scheduled to be commissioned this month.

Barring a Corex unit, Essar Steel has commissioned all steel making units including iron making and rolling units that are part of 10 mtpa expansion project. The Corex unit is slated for commissioning later this year.

Business Line : Companies News : Essar Steel commissions 2.5-mtpa furnace at Hazira
 
The biggest tax reform in independent India’s history : GST

Once GST replaces all multiple taxes, it is going to be the biggest tax reform in independent India’s history,” it said in a recent study titled ‘GST — Beyond Growth' by Assocham .GST bill will make goods 10% cheaper and will increase the competitiveness of India's exports.A simplified tax structure will lead to annual savings of R1.2 lakh crore at the current nominal rate of GDP. Reduction in tax cost will lead to a favourable impact on tax compliance, economies of scale, supply chain efficiencies and thus higher economic growth.The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will lead to buoyancy in government revenues by R1.5 lakh crore and increase the country’s GDP by 2%
The tax GDP ratio too may go up by 1.5% to 2% with net revenue jumping by R1.5 lakh crore a year. The GST will create a single Indian common market and there will be no distinction between goods and services with seamless input tax credit allowed throughout the supply chain.


GST will bring 10% GDP growth for 10 years in row: Godrej

GST holds key to India’s growth: Vijay Kelkar - Mumbai - DNA

India can hope for double digit growth with GST implementation



But for last 2 years BJP "Pro reform party" is opposing the move for cheap political gains


GST hits political roadblock, BJP continues opposing the draft

ET Awards' Agenda for Renewal 2011: India Inc's darling CM Narendra Modi obstacle to GST, says Jairam Ramesh - Economic Times

Why BJP-ruled states are opposing GST, asks Maha CM Chavan
 
^^^
GST is a very good reform...I hope GST and FDI is retail should be passed soon. FDI in retail and agriculture is also more thing which if controlled properly can turn around India's growth story. We need to set up a controlling body like TRAI which will keep an eye on big companies that will enter in retail or those are already in this sector. Yeah its true alot of small shops will be closed but lot of small shops will also be able to remain there because Supermarkets can't be opened in every Gully-Muhalla and most of the time people don't have time to go to supermarket. The good points due to retail will be :
1) Farmer's way of living will improve.
2) More money will come for storage and those it will prevent the huge wastage of food items that happens in India.
3) Good roads from villages to towns and cities and also good transportation media will develop. Companies like Walmart can set up rail link if they want to.
4) More money will there for research in agriculture to increase productivity.
5) More than a 1 million people can get new jobs because of retail.
6) Because of competition people will get better product at better price along with better service.
 
ONGC reports two discoveries

Flagship explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Thursday announced two "significant oil discoveries", even as the government told Parliament that the state-run company is to spend Rs 25,000 crore in bringing about a dozen marginal fields into production by 2014.

ONGC has told authorities that it made a strike in North Kadi area of Gujarat's Mehsana district, which is the company's major production centre. The discovery is a new layer, called 'play" in industry parlance, and will add to the company's output. The exact size of the reserve will be known after further tests.

The company made another strike in the Panna area, 40 km from its bread-and-butter Mumbai offshore field and 140 km from the country's financial capital. This discovery will make incremental addition to the output from a cluster that the company is developing.


ONGC reports two discoveries - The Times of India


Indian households hold over $950 bn of gold: Report

India's innate fascination with gold continues as Indian households hold gold worth over 950 billion which in turn is around 50% of the country's GDP in dollar terms, says a report. Gold consumption is part of India's culture and tradition and the country is the world's largest consumer of gold, followed by China.

Indian households hold 18,000 tonnes of gold which represents 11% of the global stock and worth more than 950 billion, around 50% of India nominal GDP in dollar terms, says global research firm Macquarie.

indian-households-hold-over-950-bn-of-gold-report
 
India's Silicon Valley moves with the times

BBC News - India's Silicon Valley moves with the times

Please watch on the above link a wonderful video about young entrepreneur (go-getter) of Bangalore and how the city is changing with time...

For more than two decades the city of Bangalore has been growing as an international technology hub, but now new challenges are facing the sector.

The BBC's Nidhi Dutt has been finding out how India's Silicon Valley is evolving with the times.
 
India inches closer to crisis as rupee retreats

(Reuters) - India may face its worst financial crisis in decades if it fails to stem a slide in the rupee, leaving the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with a difficult choice over how to make best use of its limited reserves to maintain the confidence of foreign investors.

If the RBI is too timid, it risks adding fuel to the ire of portfolio investors, which India relies on heavily to cover its imports tab.

Aggressive intervention would leave the central bank open to criticism that it is wasting precious money on problems that are beyond India's control anyhow, noteably Europe's debt crisis.

Unlike most of its Asian peers, India has recently been running large current account and fiscal deficits. That means it must attract sufficient foreign money -- namely U.S. dollars -- to close the gap, and a weaker home currency makes that costlier.

This is a perennial problem for India. The current situation is so worrisome because India is grappling with big internal and external economic threats simultaneously. Growth is slowing. Inflation remains high. Political paralysis has stymied domestic reforms.

The RBI, the last line of defence against a currency meltdown, has cautiously begun to support the rupee, but its firepower may be more limited than its $300 billion in reserves would suggest.

Beyond India's borders, Europe is the biggest worry. As its banks deleverage, investment money has flooded out of India's markets. If Europe's debt troubles deteriorate, India could be hit with a balance of payments crisis as severe as the one that forced a sharp devaluation in 1991.

The rupee, which has dropped 16 percent in the past four months, got a reprieve last week after the world's big six central banks banded together to try to ease dollar funding strains, helping it to snap a four-week losing trend.

But analysts widely expect the rupee, trading on Monday at 51.26 per dollar, to resume its slide.

"The Indian currency will be the first casualty of a deterioration in the euro zone crisis," said Rupa Rege Nitsure, chief economist at Bank of Baroda in Mumbai.

If Europe's crisis deepens, India's trade deficit would widen even more rapidly, and it would have even more trouble attracting foreign capital.

"Risk appetite will obviously collapse and gradually the currency crisis is likely to take the shape of a balance of payments crisis," Nitsure said.

Worries about India have spiked in tandem with concern over Europe. UBS hosted a client conference call about India on November 29, which it announced with an email headlined "India explodes." Deutsche Bank sent out a report on November 24 entitled, "India's time of reckoning."

"Suddenly everything seems to be coming to a head in India," UBS wrote. "Growth is disappearing, the rupee is in disarray, and inflation is stuck at near-record levels. Investor sentiment has gone from cautious to outright scared."

India's current account deficit swelled to $14.1 billion in its fiscal first quarter, nearly triple the previous quarter's tally. The full-year gap is expected to be around $54 billion.

Its fiscal deficit hit $58.7 billion in the April-to-October period. The government in February projected a deficit equal to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product for the fiscal year ending in March 2012, although the finance minister said on Friday that it would be difficult to hit that target.

India relies heavily on portfolio inflows -- foreign purchases of shares and bonds -- as a means of covering its current account gap. Those flows are fickle.

Foreign portfolio investors have sold a net $50 million worth of equities so far in 2011 , in sharp contrast to the $29 billion they invested in 2010, data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India's website showed. In November alone, foreign funds pulled $661 million out of Indian stocks.

"The Indian economy is one of the most vulnerable to liquidity shocks in the region, not helped the least by deficits in its key balances," said Radhika Rao, an economist with Forecast PTE in Singapore.

WHERE IS THE RBI?

The drop in portfolio inflows and the hefty current account and fiscal deficits have been a key factor behind the rupee's decline.

The RBI appears to have intervened in mid-November to try to slow the decline. Between October 28 and November 25, reserves dropped by $16 billion to $304 billion, yet the currency still fell by 7 percent over that period.

Trading in rupee offshore forward contracts show traders are betting on the rupee declining a further 1.7 percent over the next three months, and 4.5 percent in a year.

Many economists argue the RBI has been too timid, and deserves part of the blame for the rupee's weakness.

A deputy governor said on Saturday that the central bank would use "all available instruments" to stem a downward spiral.

Other officials have insisted the RBI should avoid "undue" intervention, especially when the currency depreciation is caused by external forces, a message economist Rajeev Malik says could backfire.

"The biggest mistake RBI has made is that it has almost given an open invitation to speculators to short the rupee," said Malik, who is with CLSA in Singapore.

"It is really bizarre for any central bank to openly keep on saying that it will not intervene when there is already pressure on the currency to weaken and globally things are so uncertain."

Contrast that with Indonesia, which burned through 8 percent of its foreign exchange reserves in a single month in September to defend the rupiah from a global bout of market volatility.

The rupiah has weakened in recent weeks after Bank Indonesia twice lowered interest rates. RBI, however, has been among the most hawkish central banks in the world, raising rates 13 times since early 2010. Normally, higher interest rates boost currencies, so the rupee's weakness is all the more significant.

KEEPING POWDER DRY

If the RBI decides to step in more aggressively, its manoeuvring room is more limited than its reserves tally would suggest.

After covering the current account deficit, short-term debt and foreign investment flows, there would be less than $20 billion left over.

J. Moses Harding, head of market and economic research at Indusind Bank in Mumbai, said the RBI's immediate concern would be arresting the spread of currency woes into the money market.

India's banking system already borrows more than $19 billion from the central bank to meet reserve requirements, so if the RBI moved to prop up the rupee, it would drain more liquidity out of an already tight market.

Companies make quarterly advance tax payments around mid-December, which puts an added strain on liquidity.

In addition, a glut of foreign currency convertible bonds, issued when the rupee was much higher, falls due in the first quarter. They include a $1 billion Reliance Communications bond.

The bonds are too expensive at current levels to be converted into stock and the sharp depreciation of the rupee will leave issuers with a heavy redemption bill.

The central bank could boost liquidity by cutting the cash reserve ratio, the proportion of deposits banks must set aside with the central bank as cash. Talk of a cut has circulated in Indian markets in recent days, although some economists argue that such a move could stoke already hot inflation.

"It would be extremely difficult for RBI and the government to arrest simultaneous downward pressures from equity, currency and money markets while struggling to address low growth and high inflation issues," Harding said.

That argues in favor of RBI keeping its ammunition dry in case conditions worsen. If India is indeed heading for a 1991-style balance of payments crisis, those reserves would be vital.

Back then, India rapidly depleted its reserves, forcing a currency devaluation.

But the risk is that RBI will wait too long to act.

"While it is important for RBI to not shed its FX reserves unnecessarily, the approach of allowing such a massive pace of slide in the rupee could backfire," CLSA's Malik said.

(Editing by Neil Fullick)

India inches closer to crisis as rupee retreats | Reuters
 
tereBin crosses 100 - by The Ugly Indian


Nice initiative by citizens of Bangalore city - by not depending on government for every thing, and shown the path to other cites to follow...
 
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(Reuters) - India's services sector expanded in November for the first time in two months as new business accelerated despite persistent inflationary pressures, a survey showed on Monday.

The seasonally adjusted HSBC Markit Business Activity Index -- based on a survey of around 400 firms -- stood at 53.2 in November, above the 50-mark that separates growth from contraction.

It had fallen to 49.1 in October after contracting for the first time in more than two years in September to 49.8.

Services sector rebounds in November | Reuters
 
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