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Austerity is the not the solution for an economy that steps into a new year soaked in red ink. 2021 is believed to begin on a good note as the low base of GDP growth in lockdown-hit Q1 of 2020 — a massive shrinkage of 23.9% — will help India put out a better Q1 number in 2021. But that's where the real test begins. In an interview with ET Now, former RBI governor Duvvuri Subbarao, emphasised on the need for the government to loosen its purse strings more and meet the RBI's ample monetary policies with adequate fiscal measures, instead of leaving the central bank to do all the heavy-lifting."In India, the burden has fallen disproportionately on the Reserve Bank and the government has not done its share," Subbarao said, saying that even though the fiscal deficit, which is budgeted at 3.5%, may double to 7% or perhaps even higher, not much of that has gone to make up for the revenue lost and very little has been budgeted by way of fiscal spending -- just about 2%.Finance...

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday extended the interim bail of Unitech promoter Sanjay Chandra, who was arrested for allegedly cheating home buyers, till January 21 on medical grounds. A vacation bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru granted the relief to Chandra, who was earlier released on interim bail by a trial ground for four weeks, on the same terms and conditions as imposed by the chief metropolitan magistrate (CMM) in the December 3 order. "It is not disputed that interim bail granted to various prisoners is now being extended uniformly. In view of the medical condition of the applicant (Chandra), this court considers it apposite to allow the present application and the interim bail of the applicant is extended till January 21, 2021," the judge said while dictating the order. Chandra was lodged in jail under judicial custody since August 2017 for allegedly siphoning off home buyers' money. Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, representing Chandra, sought extension of ...

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the drug regulator tasked with vetting the coronavirus vaccines will meet today to examine Serum Institute of India’s application seeking marketing authorisation for its potential Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield. The SEC was called soon after the UK regulator authorised Oxford University/AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine for use. The approval by UK regulator to Oxford/AZ vaccine has brightened chances of approval to Serum’s vaccine in India. The SEC in its earlier meeting on December 9 had not cleared the Covid 19 vaccine market approval applications of SII and had sought updated data from the companies. The ten member panel said Serum Institute should submit the outcome of the assessment of the AstraZenca Oxford University trials done by the UK drug regulator. “Since the approval by MHRA is for two doses, and the trial in India is also on two doses, the chances to get approval in India are bright,” the official further said. In its earlier meeting, the ...

MUMBAI: Office space absorption across India’s six major cities in 2020 stood at 27.4 million sq ft, led by Bengaluru in regions and information technology among sectors showing strong resilience amid the global pandemic that severely impacted business activities across sectorsAfter a record high in 2019, overall office leasing in 2020 saw a drop of almost 51% as compared to the previous year. While office absorption in 2019 stood at 55.7 million sq ft and 57.7 million sq ft including pre-commitments, the previous year saw around 47.3 million sq ft, said international property consultancy firm Savills India.Interestingly, of the total office leases in 2020, around 57% comprised large deals of more than 1 lakh sq ft a deal.Bengaluru posted maximum office absorption with 6.8 million sq ft space take up in 2020. Despite a drop of 56% as compared to last year, the city led the overall leasing across the top six cities. Following Bengaluru closely, Hyderabad registered leasing of 5.4 millio...

New Delhi: The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) on Wednesday allowed Banking Units (BUs) to transfer assets to/from other financial institutions, persons resident in India and persons resident outside India through any internationally recognised standard risk participation agreement. The above dispensation is expected to encourage risk participation of foreign currency assets through BUs in IFSC instead of banks in foreign jurisdictions, IFSCA said in a statement. The first IFSC in the country has been set up at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) in Gandhinagar. Transfer of assets through the risk participation agreement route is a common practice in many jurisdictions especially in the field of trade finance, it said. "Such risk participation is undertaken as a bilateral contract under a standard document called a risk participation agreement between the two institutions (buying and selling entity). One of the common standard risk particip...

NEW DELHI: Small stocks made a dashing comeback in 2020 after delivering negative returns in the last two years as increased retail investor participation in pandemic times saw small cap index surging up to 31 per cent and outperforming the bigger benchmark gauge. This year turned out to be eventful for the equity market, witnessing bearish and bullish sentiments at different points of time. While the initial part of Covid-ravaged 2020 saw the bears in full force amid concerns related to the pandemic and lockdowns hurting economic activities, bulls made a comeback towards the latter half of the year. As the market swayed with many lows as well as highs, small and mid cap indices emerged as markets favourites in 2020. "During March lows, many mid and small cap companies were trading at extremely attractive valuations as compared to large cap stocks. Hence, valuations coupled with ample liquidity in the markets took the mid and small cap stocks to higher levels. "Also, in the l...

This year has also been a challenging year for the workforce as well as for employers due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government imposed a nationwide lockdown from March 25, which had an adverse impact on economic activities and resulted in the exodus of migrant workers from large cities to their homes in the hinterland.