Manufacturing revival
Bikky Khosla | 31 Dec, 2018 |
Two important sets of economic data were released recently: first, on manufacturing growth and second on fiscal deficit. According to the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, manufacturing sector activity improved in November and touched an 11-month high. |
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Loan waivers vs. good economics
Bikky Khosla | 25 Dec, 2018 |
Immediately after taking charge, the new Congress government in Madhya Pradesh announced a farm loan waiver and thus delivered on its poll promise to the state’s farmers. |
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Fresh prescription for a healthy economy
Bikky Khosla | 18 Dec, 2018 |
Amid rising debates over agrarian and job crises, which have emerged as a major concern in 2018, a group of 13 economists from academia came out last week with a concise strategy paper, which not only sheds valuable light on these burning issues... |
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GDP growth, debate and development
Bikky Khosla | 04 Dec, 2018 |
GDP growth for the second quarter of 2018-19 fell to 7.1% from 8.2% in the previous quarter. While this growth is higher than the 6.3% rate registered during the corresponding quarter of last year and also faster than that of China during the same period |
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Credit flow to MSMEs
Bikky Khosla | 27 Nov, 2018 |
Credit flow to the MSME sector in September fell for the first time in the past 14 months. According to recent data published recently by the central bank, credit outstanding to the sector witnessed 1.4 percent y-o-y fall for the month. |
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Good news: RBI-Centre conflict cools down
Bikky Khosla | 20 Nov, 2018 |
Finally the ice is broken and we can now heave a sigh of relief as the tension between the government and the RBI eased, with the two sides finding a somewhat middle ground on some contentious issues in a much-awaited board meeting that began on Monday. |
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Rs 1 crore loan just in 59 minutes!
Bikky Khosla | 13 Nov, 2018 |
The government recently launched a 'Support and Outreach Initiative' for micro, small and medium enterprises. As part of this programme, 12 key initiatives have been launched. |
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India's rise in ease of doing business
Bikky Khosla | 06 Nov, 2018 |
The latest Ease of Doing Business report published by the World Bank has brought a pleasant surprise for India. Climbing 23 places in the ranking from the 100th place previously, we now stand at the 77th rank. |
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US-China tariff war: Opportunity for India
Bikky Khosla | 30 Oct, 2018 |
Ever since the possibility of a full-blown US-China 'tariff war' had come to the fore, reports began flowing in on how India should capitalize on this new global trade dynamics. And today, when the much talked-about 'war' is more a reality than a mere anticipation |
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Startup India: Much more needs to be done
Bikky Khosla | 23 Oct, 2018 |
Startup India, a flagship initiative by the government, first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 15 August 2015 address from the Red Fort, was later launched in 2016 with much fanfare. |
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Exports still doing well
Bikky Khosla | 16 Oct, 2018 |
Merchandise exports declined by 2.15 percent in September on a year-on-year basis, according to figures released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Monday. It happened despite the ongoing sharp depreciation of the Rupee. |
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Rupee fall: What awaits us
Bikky Khosla | 09 Sep, 2018 |
For the first time ever, the Indian Rupee closed at a record low of 74.06 against the greenback on Monday. Some experts are of the view that outflow of foreign funds from the equity segment and global market volatility may further pull the currency to the 75-mark in the coming days. |
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Fiscal dilemma
Bikky Khosla | 02 Oct, 2018 |
Fiscal deficit for the April-August period climbed to Rs 5.91 lakh crore, accounting for 94.7% of the full year's target, according to data released by the Controller General of Accounts last week |
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Awareness drives on MSME benefits
Bikky Khosla | 25 Sep, 2018 |
How many government schemes are currently in place to support our MSMEs? ? You may find this question a little difficult to answer! The same thing applies to the scores of skill development programmes offered by the Skill Development ministry. |
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Rising fuel prices, falling Rupee
Bikky Khosla | 18 Sep, 2018 |
Of late, there has been a growing concern about fundamental of the economy. Fuel prices are going up and the Rupee’s value is tumbling down, both like never before, thereby dominating headlines across the country. |
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A GeM of opportunity
Bikky Khosla | 11 Sep, 2018 |
Last week saw the launch of a national mission on Government eMarketplace (GeM). The objective is to promote inclusiveness by empowering MSMEs, start-ups, domestic manufacturers, women entrepreneurs, and self-help groups |
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All is not well with GDP growth
Bikky Khosla | 04 Sep, 2018 |
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first quarter of the current financial year registered a robust 8.2 percent growth, according to official data released last week. |
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Need of a new export strategy
Bikky Khosla | 28 Aug, 2018 |
Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu on Monday chaired a meeting of different exports stakeholders to discuss a strategy for doubling India’s exports by 2025. |
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Bank, FinTech tie-ups a boon for MSMEs
Bikky Khosla | 21 Aug, 2018 |
Over the last few years, India has witnessed a FinTech revolution. 'Funding for financial technology' or 'FinTech' in short is basically about using technology to improve financial services, and with its ability to touch nearly every aspect of the financial value chain, the scope of this model is enormous. |
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RBI rate hike
Bikky Khosla | 07 Aug, 2018 |
Citing upside risks to inflation, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week raised the policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 percent. |
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Exports must be priority
Bikky Khosla | 31 Jul, 2018 |
In an article published in a national daily last week, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has viewed that the Indian economy cannot survive without exports. |
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GST rate cut, easier compliance norms
Bikky Khosla | 24 Jul, 2018 |
The GST Council last week announced reduction of rates on a list of 100 items, including sanitary pads, small TVs and footwear. The new rates are to be implemented from July 27 |
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Review of Companies Act 2013: A welcome step
Bikky Khosla | 17 Jul, 2018 |
The Centre is setting the ground for another overhaul of the Companies Act 2013. According to a press statement released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs last week, the government has constituted a committee to revisit several provisions of the Act. |
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MSP hike
Bikky Khosla | 10 Jul, 2018 |
The Union Cabinet last week cleared a big jump in minimum support prices (MSPs) for Kharif crops. It gives farmers a fixed margin of 50% over their input costs. This marks the highest increase in MSP since 2013. |
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Rupee downslide
Bikky Khosla | 03 Jul, 2018 |
The Indian Rupee slumped to an all-time low of 69.09 against the dollar last week, surpassing its previous record-low of 68.86 hit in November 2016, and though there was an immediate recovery from those lows on expectations of possible intervention by the Reserve Bank of India |
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One year of GST
Bikky Khosla | 26 Jun, 2018 |
The first anniversary of rollout of Goods and Services Tax is approaching. It all started way back in 1986, when the then finance minister VP Singh put forward a Budget proposal for overhauling the excise taxation structure, and after three decades, GST was finally rolled out on July 1, 2017. |
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Macro data relief!
Bikky Khosla | 19 Jun, 2018 |
Exports increased by over 20 percent in May. According to official data released last week, the value of merchandise shipped out in the month stood at $28.86 billion, rising from $24.01 billion in May last year. Total value of exports for the April-May 2018-19 period now stood at $54.77 billion. |
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RBI's surprise rate-hike
Bikky Khosla | 12 Jun, 2018 |
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent. This is the first rate hike since the NDA government came to power in May 2014. |
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Fiscal deficit, GDP data: Is it a turnaround
Bikky Khosla | 05 Jun, 2018 |
In a big relief, the government has broadly met its fiscal deficit target of 3.5 percent for the financial year 2017-18. According to provisional data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), fiscal deficit for the period stood at 3.53 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. |
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IBC fine-tuning
Bikky Khosla | 29 May, 2018 |
The Union Cabinet last week approved, via an ordinance, amendments to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), allowing promoters of companies with turnover of up to Rs 250 crore to bid for their companies against which insolvency proceedings have begun. |
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Oil, Rupee concerns
Bikky Khosla | 22 May, 2018 |
First, the good news. Exports rose 5.17 percent in the month of April this year, compared to the same month last year. Definitely it’s good news for the economy. But meanwhile two major challenges have emerged. |
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Inflation shocker
Bikky Khosla | 15 May, 2018 |
The government came out with inflation figures for April on Monday, and while the recent data sets on manufacturing and services sector output had come as a relief, the latest inflation figures, both retail and wholesale, came as a dampener, raising question whether now the debate |
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Manufacturing, services data fuels optimism
Bikky Khosla | 07 May, 2018 |
In a positive development India’s manufacturing growth rose in April. Though marginal, the growth, as reflected by the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), is encouraging. |
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Bank credit
Bikky Khosla | 01 May, 2018 |
There is a dire need to increase credit availability to the Indian industry, but the current scenario hardly offers much hope. Our public banks are saddled with mammoth non-performing assets, incidents of banking frauds are coming to light every next day |
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Delay in dealing with GST refund delays
Bikky Khosla | 24 Apr, 2018 |
Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu last week promised to address the problem of delayed refunds faced by exporters under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and take up the issue with the Finance Ministry. |
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Exports growth: No time for complacency
Bikky Khosla | 16 Apr, 2018 |
The commerce ministry last week came out with exports figures for the month of March. The data shows that there was a 0.66 percent dip in overseas shipments to $29.11 billion in the month. |
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Three years of Mudra
Bikky Khosla | 10 Apr, 2018 |
In his Budget Speech for Financial Year 2015-16, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed the creation of a Micro Units Development Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank, with a corpus of Rs.20,000 crore, and credit guarantee corpus of Rs.3,000 crore. |
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RBI policy review
Bikky Khosla | 02 Apr, 2018 |
The Reserve Bank of India will review its monetary policy on 4-5 April. In its last review in February, which took place against the backdrop of fiscal slippages, pressure on inflation and rising oil prices, the policy rate was left unchanged at 6 percent. |
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Draft agriculture export policy
Bikky Khosla | 20 Mar, 2018 |
The government has launched a draft Agriculture Export Policy. It aims at doubling agricultural exports and integrate Indian farmers and agricultural products to the global value chain. |
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Another MSME portal: will it serve its purpose
Bikky Khosla | 13 Mar, 2018 |
The MSME ministry last week launched a web portal for women entrepreneurs of the country. Called ‘Udyam Sakhi’, the platform is designed—according to official claims—to be "a network for nurturing entrepreneurship and creating business models for low-cost products and services in order to empower women and make them self-reliant and self-sufficient". |
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GDP surprise
Bikky Khosla | 06 Mar, 2018 |
It was unexpected but obviously pleasant. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Indian economy grew 7.2 percent in the October-December quarter of 2017-18, the fastest in five quarters. |
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India's biggest bank fraud
Bikky Khosla | 27 Feb, 2018 |
The banker-borrower nexus is not new to India, but the current episode, involving a high-profile businessmen and by far the biggest ever banking scam in the country’s history, shows that the nexus is far deeper than we have ever imagined. |
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Exports: Time for govt to step in
Bikky Khosla | 20 Feb, 2018 |
Exports for the first month of the calendar year 2018 stood at $24.38 billion. The latest data released by the Commerce Ministry can be interpreted in two ways. |
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New MSME definition
Bikky Khosla | 13 Feb, 2018 |
The Union Cabinet last week approved a proposal to change the definition of Micro, Small and Medium enterprises. |
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Budget boost to MSMEs
Bikky Khosla | 06 Feb, 2018 |
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Budget in the Lok Sabha last week. This is the current government’s last full Budget and therefore its focus on agriculture and the rural sector is quite expected. |
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Exports on the right track!
Bikky Khosla | 23 Jan, 2018 |
Export figures for the month of December, 2017 came as a pleasant surprise again. It is the second consecutive month of growth. In November, the sector, after a fall in the previous month, had registered a whopping 30.55 percent y-o-y growth to $26.19 billion |
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Manufacturing relief
Bikky Khosla | 15 Jan, 2018 |
In a signal that the economy is in a recovery mode, industrial production jumped a 25-month in November. In the previous month, the IIP index had hit a three-month low of 2.2 percent |
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Centre-states partnership in exports
Bikky Khosla | 09 Jan, 2018 |
The Union Commerce Minister has chaired the 3rd meeting of the Council for Trade Development and Promotion in New Delhi. The underlying objective is to enhance the Centre's cooperation with the states and union territories in making the latter active partners in boosting India's exports. |
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Fiscal concerns
Bikky Khosla | 02 Jan, 2018 |
India's fiscal deficit at the end of November, 2017 breached the total Budget estimate, touching 112 percent of the full year's target. While the total deficit was estimated at Rs 5,46,532 crore, at the end of November it now stood at 6,12,105 crore. |
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Index
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Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
US Dollar
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84.35
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82.60 |
UK Pound
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106.35
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102.90 |
Euro
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92.50
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89.35 |
Japanese
Yen |
55.05 |
53.40 |
As on 12 Oct, 2024 |
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Daily Poll |
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