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Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to keep interest rates unchanged and reiterate its accommodative stance in this week’s monetary policy review, buoyed by good news on the economic front, said investors and traders. But it could also cite concerns about inflation, which has stubbornly remained above the prescribed target range. The monetary policy committee (MPC) is scheduled to meet on December 2-4.Bankers will watch out for any guidance on how the RBI plans to manage the record excess liquidity in the financial system, which has distorted market conditions and led to a drop in short-term rates. Some companies are borrowing at rates lower than the RBI benchmark.“Liquidity is in an excess territory and frankly gone out of hand and could lead to inflation in the future,” said DBS Bank head of treasury Ashish Vaidya. “A part of this is due to the dollar buying by the RBI which has infused cash into the system.”79483825‘Downside Risks to Growth Remain’“It will help if they...

Large lenders may soon impress upon the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the need to tweak a rule to make it easier to rejig loans to companies impacted by the pandemic-induced slowdown. In several cases, such a change will spare companies hit by Covid-19 the stigma attached to a nonperforming asset (NPA) as well lower provisioning for banks. This would call for recognising the months between the ‘invocation of the resolution framework’ (for one-time restructuring of a loan) and its ‘implementation’ as a standstill period.“This may help more banks as well as borrowers to take up one-time restructuring of loans… It will be all the more relevant once the Supreme Court lifts the stay on classification of loan assets,” a senior banker told ET.According to the regulations, the loan resolution process announced by RBI to address Covid-related stress is invoked when lenders representing 75% by value and 60% by number agree to restructure a loan. Unlike normal restructuring under earlier regulation...

The Indian car market has closed its best ever festive season with retail sales of 1-1.1 million passenger vehicles since August.After recording the highest ever dispatches in October, the industry is likely to close November with the highest ever dispatches for the 11th month of the year at 2.80-2.85 lakh units, witnessing a growth of 8-9%. Moreover, retail sales are expected to be even better at over 3.1 lakh units - further trimming the inventory in the system to less than one month.The cumulative April-November passenger vehicle sales in FY-21 is estimated to be very close to 1.5 million, a 20% decline from last year, despite losing almost two months of sales and production to the most severe phase of the pandemic.While refusing to confirm or comment on this month’s volumes, Shashank Srivastava , ED, sales and marketing at Maruti Suzuki said the demand during the festive season of 2020 was one of the better ones seen in recent years. And the current offtake in the industry surely h...

The Indian car market has closed its best ever festive season with retail sales of 1-1.1 million passenger vehicles since August.After recording the highest ever dispatches in October, the industry is likely to close November with the highest ever dispatches for the 11th month of the year at 2.80-2.85 lakh units, witnessing a growth of 8-9%. Moreover, retail sales are expected to be even better at over 3.1 lakh units - further trimming the inventory in the system to less than one month.The cumulative April-November passenger vehicle sales in FY-21 is estimated to be very close to 1.5 million, a 20% decline from last year, despite losing almost two months of sales and production to the most severe phase of the pandemic.While refusing to confirm or comment on this month’s volumes, Shashank Srivastava , ED, sales and marketing at Maruti Suzuki said the demand during the festive season of 2020 was one of the better ones seen in recent years. And the current offtake in the industry surely h...

NEW DELHI: Union minister for railways Piyush Goyal on Sunday inaugurated the newly electrified Dhigawara-Bandikui section of North Western Railway and flagged off the first train on this newly electrified route. After the electrification of this line, the route from Rewari to Ajmer has been electrified and now the electrified trains from Delhi to Ajmer will start soon, the railway ministry said in a statement on Sunday. After running of these trains, the diesel trains will be stopped, which will eliminate pollution as well as the dependence on the fuel imported from outside and trains will be operated from the electricity produced in self-reliant India, and will also save significant revenue, the ministry said. The electrification work is being done by the Central Organization for Railway Electrification (CORE), Prayagraj. The electrification of Delhi Sarai Rohilla-Madar (Ajmer) section was sanctioned by CORE and handed over to rail electrification project, Jaipur. A total of 23,418 f...

By David E. SangerWASHINGTON: The assassination of the scientist who led Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon for the past two decades threatens to cripple President-elect Joe Biden’s effort to revive the Iran nuclear deal before he can even begin his diplomacy with Tehran.And that may well have been a main goal of the operation.Intelligence officials say there is little doubt that Israel was behind the killing — it had all the hallmarks of a precisely timed operation by Mossad, the country’s spy agency. And the Israelis have done nothing to dispel that view. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long identified Iran as an existential threat and named the assassinated scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, as national enemy No. 1, capable of building a weapon that could threaten a country of 8 million in a single blast.But Netanyahu also has a second agenda.“There must be no return to the previous nuclear agreement,” he declared shortly after it became clear that Biden — who has proposed exactly...

KOLKATA/MUMBAI: India's largest consumer companies Hindustan Unilever, Amul, Britannia, ITC, LG, Marico, Emami, Parle Products and Dabur said their spending on advertising and promotion is reaching normalcy of pre-Covid levels with demand picking up and due to high number of new launches.Most of these companies said they will hike their advertising spending in the second half of the fiscal and are going forward to continue demand generation now that several of them have also entered multiple new categories during the pandemic.As per Nielsen, a record 9700 new products were rolled out during April-September period with most companies entering new categories like health and hygiene, home care and packaged food.One of India’s largest advertiser, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), has increased advertising spending which also includes promotion on the rebranding of Glow & Lovely and brands acquired from GSK Consumer.Similarly, Britannia has increased advertising spending on brands which had...