With Sanjay Malhotra at the helm, RBI could shift towards a more dovish monetary policy, but the conventional policy response of rate cuts will not be a given with rising pressure on rupee.
Corporate tax collections saw modest growth of just 1.2%, but a 20.2% rise in income tax collections helped strengthen the government's overall revenue position.
The rupee has been depreciating lately due to FPI outflows, dollar strength & weak corporate performance. The slide, however, is less steep compared to other emerging markets.
India posted healthy growth in exports in October, even as imports grew sequentially. Donald Trump’s policy stance will have significant impact on India’s trade balance with US.
Sales revenue of manufacturing firms saw weak growth in September quarter. Rural demand indicators performed better than urban. Capex must rapidly pick up in 2nd half of the fiscal.
Maharashtra has headroom to spend, but committed expenditure is expected to rise. In Jharkhand, optimistic revenue projections may limit the state govt’s ability to fulfill the promises.
For India, IMF has maintained its growth estimate at 7% for 2024-25, followed by 6.5 per cent next year. Slowdown from 8.2% growth in 2023 is attributed to exhaustion of pent-up demand.
If many market participants tend to use similar models, correlated risk & herding behaviour can amplify stability risks. Regulatory guardrails are important.
Rating analyses by global agencies, like Fitch, S&P & Moody’s, have faced flak for opacity of methods, over-reliance on perception. The space often witnesses ‘convergence’ of methodologies.
Haryana has seen good growth, keeping its deficit within limit in recent years. Inclusive development, fixing unemployment, bridging rural-urban inflation gap should be new govt’s priorities.
In its first advance estimates for the current financial year, govt predicts growth to be slower than RBI’s prediction of 6.6% & much lower than 8.2% seen in FY24.
Defence ministry has declared 2025 a ‘Year of Transformation’ with expectations that new, lighter and simpler Defence Acquisition Procedures (DAP) will be rolled out.
Manmohan Singh’s success lay in making a decisive and historic shift towards the West. It was also audacious, in my book even more so than the 1991 reform, given how little support it had within Congress and UPA.
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