Tata Sons revokes pledges on five group cos’ stocks

Mumbai: Tata Sons, the holding company for the Tata Group, has revoked pledged shares in five of its listed firms, including some stock of the crown jewel — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).The pledges were revoked last week, customary filings showed.About 67 million shares of TCS, worth Rs 21,285 crore at the current market price, were pledged with Centbank Financial Services. These were released upon redemption of debentures. Currently, 12.6 million shares of TCS are pledged with the NBFC.Tata Steel said 7.56 million shares out of 14 million pledged have been released on March 25. Tata Motors, in a separate regulatory filing, said 23.7 million out of the pledged 51.7 million shares were released on March 25.On March 26, the Supreme Court upheld Tata Sons’ decision to replace Cyrus Mistry as group chairman while refusing to entertain Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) group’s plea for a fair compensation of its equity shares in Tata Sons. The court said the value of SP group shares will depend on the valuation of Tata Sons’ equities and that the SC would not get into determining what should be a fair value.Among the other companies in which Tata Sons has revoked the pledged shares include Tata Consumer and Tata Power. In Tata Consumer, about 4.83 million out of 8.67 million shares pledged to Centbank were released. In Tata Power, the promoters have revoked 17.7 million shares out of its 38.9 million pledged.

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Strict lockdowns likely if Covid nos. rise: JP Morgan

Mumbai: Indian authorities may be forced to impose lockdowns if the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise sharply, said JP Morgan.India is currently seeing a record daily surge in coronavirus cases amid the second wave of the pandemic that has plagued the world for over a year now.“The authorities have imposed some local restrictions to contain the proliferation of Covid-19, but they seem to be reluctant to impose hard lockdowns due to the economic costs,” said JP Morgan in a note. “However, if cases continue to rise sharply and medical infrastructure gets overwhelmed then the authorities may be forced to impose stringent lockdowns,” said the note.India's benchmark indices are down nearly 6 per cent from all-time high levels hit in mid-February. Rise in the US dollar, US 10-year treasury yields and a surge in coronavirus cases have been the key factors behind this fall.JP Morgan said the spike in new cases so far has been concentrated in a few states, particularly Maharashtra which accounts for 60 per cent of the daily new cases. “...the impact of second wave on economic activity remains localised for now. However, we remain concerned about further sectoral divergence in economic momentum, with contact-based services likely to suffer more due to the second Covid wave,” said JP Morgan.The brokerage said the new cases have also increased in several other states though from a low base. The firm noted that till now there does not appear to be a material impact on national mobility and activity. A ramping up of vaccination drive could effectively break the link between mobility/activity and the proliferation of Covid-19 cases, said JP Morgan.

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बचत पर राहत: 24 घंटे में ब्याज दर घटाने का फैसला वापस, वित्त मंत्री बोलीं- गलती से जारी हो गया आदेश

केंद्र सरकार ने ब्याज दर घटाने का फैसला वापस ले लिया है। 24 घंटे के भीतर वित्त मंत्रालय ने अपना आदेश वापस ले लिया।

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महाकुंभ 2021: कोरोना के बीच आज से कुंभ मेले का श्रीगणेश, बिना कोविड निगेटिव रिपोर्ट के स्नान नहीं कर सकेंगे श्रद्धालु

हरिद्वार में आज से महाकुंभ-2021 का श्रीगणेश हो गया है।

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कोविड-19: कोरोना ने पांच माह के बाद फिर पकड़ी रफ्तार, अगले 45 दिन में क्या होगी देश में स्थिति

कोविड से होने वाली मौतों की संख्या में भी भारी इजाफा हुआ है। महाराष्ट्र, पंजाब और मध्यप्रदेश समेत कई राज्यों में हालत बेहद खराब हैं। ऐसे में देश में आगामी 45 दिनों में स्थिति क्या होगी, यहां जानें...

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बंगाल: मतदान से ठीक पहले टीएमसी कार्यकर्ता की हत्या, धारदार हथियार से काट डाला

पश्चिम बंगाल में आज (1 अप्रैल) 30 विधानसभा सीटों पर दूसरे चरण का मतदान हो रहा है, लेकिन उससे ठीक पहले पश्चिमी मिदनापुर में टीएमसी कार्यकर्ता की हत्या कर दी गई।

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नीतीश कैबिनेट का फैसला: बिहार में बंपर बहाली को मिली स्वीकृति, 5437 पद होंगे सृजित

मुख्यमंत्री नीतीश कुमार की अध्यक्षता में बुधवार को बिहार कैबिनेट की पहली बैठक हुई। इसमें राज्य की 35 कार्य सूचियों (एजेंडों) पर मुहर लगाया गया।

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भारत को झटका: ओलंपिक में खेलने की दावेदार लिफ्टर डोप में फंसी, अंतरराष्ट्रीय पहलवान भी निकला पॉजिटिव

ओलंपिक में खेलने की दावेदार लिफ्टर डोप में फंसी, अंतरराष्ट्रीय पहलवान भी निकला पॉजिटिव

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"Orders Issued By Oversight": Interest Rate Cuts On Small Savings Dropped

The government has rolled back cuts on interest rates on small savings schemes, including National Savings Certificates or NSC and Public Provident Fund or PPF, announced last evening.

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Nearly 500 Children Tested Positive For COVID-19 This Month In Bengaluru

Karnataka's capital, Bengaluru, is seeing a huge surge in the COVID-19 numbers and children are not being spared in this spike. As per the data released on Tuesday evening, Of the nearly 2,000...

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Priyanka Gandhi Takes On PM Modi For Quoting From Bible At Rally

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "quoting" from the Bible at a poll rally and nothing for the nuns harassed by "goons" belonging to his party...

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Home appliances, smartphone sales continue to surge

The post-lockdown surge in purchases of home appliances and smartphones continued in the January to March quarter with many brands seeing high double-digit growth in sales. However, most companies are cautious about the June quarter, fearing wider curbs amid rising Covid-19 infections.Top white goods brands such as LG, Bosch, Siemens, Voltas, Panasonic, Lloyd and Godrej said their sales went up by up to 40% in the March quarter over the same period in 2019. In comparison to 2020 March quarter, sales growth was even higher for most brands since the national lockdown was enforced in March last year.In smartphones, market researcher Counterpoint said the January to March shipments in India will hit a new high for this period at about 34-36 million, growing by 13-16% over 2019 same quarter. If new 5G handset launches is driving smartphone sales, consumers are also upgrading their home appliances and automating daily chores as they are spending more time at home. Pent-up demand and rising temperature are pushing demand for ACs and refrigerators.81810502Companies said the 3-7% price hike that brands undertook in the quarter had no major impact on demand.Some including LG India and Bosch Siemens said they posted their highest ever revenue and sales growth in March quarter.“In January and February, we have grown by 41% and 28% over the same period last year,” said Vijay Babu, vice president at LG India, the country’s largest home appliances maker. “In March, we grew by 98% over 2020 and 35% over 2019. The pent-up demand continued, including for premium products,” he said.As per researcher GfK India, which tracks actual sales, washing machine sales went up by 26% in January over last year, refrigerator by 22% and AC by 58%. Sales figures for February and March are still not available. Nikhil Mathur, MD of GfK India, said there are continued positive sentiments from the October-December quarter.“However, there is cautious optimism given the interplay of variables of supply, pricing and changing Covid-19 situation in the country.”Counterpoint’s associate director Tarun Pathak said a part of the smartphone demand shifted from 2020 towards 2021 aided by new 5G launches.

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Auditors ask cos to change software to rule out fraud

Auditors have asked companies using bespoke and standalone accounting software to shift to applications that wouldn’t allow them to change or delete any accounting entries, because auditors are now responsible for any such anomalies.Auditors are required to flag any transaction that is changed, tweaked or deleted by companies they audit as per new regulations applicable from April 1. Auditors will also be responsible for investigating and flagging certain accounting entries where companies may be dealing with related entities or individuals, according to the regulations notified by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA).Many companies in India tend to delete old accounting entries and insert new ones as they come close to the end of a quarter. While often this is done for technical reasons, many suspect that some companies may be indulging in manipulating financial statements.81809951The government has said that from April, companies can only use an accounting system which has the feature of an audit trail that records all the changes done. This would mean that no accounting entry should be deleted and only a rectification entry can be passed with an explanation.“Most large companies that work on ERP systems do have controls whereby they can make sure that an audit trail of accounting entries and a log is available (to check if they made any correction),” said Sudhir Soni, partner at SR Batliboi, an audit firm. “The challenges may be on standalone or bespoke applications and for medium and small companies that may be using software without such features enabled or available. Auditors will need to use technology skills to make sure that companies follow these guidelines,” he said.

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झुका पाकिस्तान: रमजान में ‘सस्ती चीनी’ के लिए फैसला पलटने को मजबूर हुआ पाक

जम्मू-कश्मीर का विशेष दर्जा खत्म होने से भड़के पाकिस्तान ने अगस्त 2019 में भारत के साथ कारोबारी रिश्ते तोड़ लिए थे और भारत से कई सामानों के आयात पर प्रतिबंध लगा दिया था।

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Opinion: Reading Mamata's Letter Seeking Opposition Unity In Midst Of Election

Have Opposition leaders finally realised that a single party can't stop the BJP juggernaut, and to dislodge the BJP, and for their own survival, it is important to come together?

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India Vaccine Net Widens Today To All Those Who Are 45 Or Older: 10 Facts

India enters the third phase of the world's largest inoculation drive today as vaccine net extends to people who are 45 and older. By vaccinating more people, the centre aims to give a boost to Covid...

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Bengal Election Phase 2 Voting Live: दूसरे चरण में 30 सीटों के लिए मतदान शुरू, सभी की नजरें नंदीग्राम पर

पश्चिम बंगाल विधानसभा चुनाव के दूसरे चरण के तहत बृहस्पतिवार को 30 सीटों पर मतदान होंगे, जिसमें 75 लाख मतदाता 191 उम्मीदवारों की किस्मत का फैसला करेंगे।

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1 अप्रैल: आज से महंगे हो जाएंगे एलईडी टीवी, फ्रिज, दूध और कार

महंगाई से जूझ रहे उपभोक्ताओं पर बोझ और बढ़ जाएगा। 1 अप्रैल से टीवी, एसी, फ्रिज और स्मार्टफोन महंगे हो जाएंगे। कार और बाइक की कीमतें भी बढ़ जाएंगी। दूध खरीदने के लिए भी ज्यादा पैसे देने पड़ेंगे।

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Assam Vidhan Sabha Chunav Phase 2: दूसरे चरण के तहत 39 सीटों पर मतदान शुरू, 345 उम्मीदवारों की किस्मत होगी ईवीएम में कैद

भारतीय जनता पार्टी के लिए असम का चुनाव काफी अहम है। यहां सत्तासीन भाजपा के सामने अपना गढ़ बचाने की चुनौती है।

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1 अप्रैल : आज दिनभर इन खबरों पर बनी रहेगी नजर, जिनका होगा आप पर असर

हर रोज हम अलग-अलग खबरों से दो-चार होते हैं। हमारी आंखों के सामने से कई सारी खबरें गुजरती हैं। इनमें से कुछ ऐसी अहम खबरें होती हैं, जिनका हमारे जीवन पर असर पड़ता है...

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कोरोना का कहर: चुनावी राज्यों में रैलियों से कई गुना बढ़ा, विशेषज्ञ चिंतित

पूरे देश में कोरोना के गंभीर हालात के बावजूद चुनावी राज्यों की रैलियों में नियमों की धज्जियां उड़ने का दुष्परिणाम दिखने लगा है।

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2nd phase polling in WB, Assam: Important details

The second round of polling in 2021 state elections in Assam (39 seats) and West Bengal (30 seats) will be held Thursday. The high point of this round in West Bengal is the contest between CM Mamata Banerjee and ex-colleague Suvendu Adhikari for the Nandigram seat. While TMC and BJP are contesting in all the 30 seats, CPM is in the fray in 15 and its alliance partners of Sanjukta Morcha, the Congress and ISF, are competing in nine and two seats, respectively. In Assam, there is a direct contest between the NDA and the Congress alliance in 25 constituencies, while the rest are witnessing triangular fights. 81806709 81806734

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Elon Musk’s satellite net plan in India hits a bump

Elon Musk-founded SpaceX Technologies’ bid for an initial India foray into satellite broadband faces its first challenge.An industry body representing the likes of Amazon, Hughes, Google, Microsoft and Facebook has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) asking them to stop SpaceX from pre-selling the beta version of its Starlink satellite internet services in India. It claimed SpaceX didn’t have licence or authorisation from the government to offer such services in the country.“We request you to urgently intervene to protect fair competition and adherence to existing policy and regulatory norms,” Broadband India Forum president TV Ramachandran said in the letters, seen by ET.Trai to Look into IssueA senior Trai official said that the matter would be examined.SpaceX, which is set to compete in the global satcom space with Jeff Bezos-led Amazon’s Project Kuiper and Bharti Group-backed OneWeb, has started offering the beta version of its satellite-based internet service on pre-orders in India for a fully refundable deposit of $99 (above Rs 7,000).81806288The company, which already offers such services in the US, Canada and UK, expects to start offering internet connectivity to Indian users in 2022 through satellites that it will launch into orbit.The company’s website says “orders would be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis as availability is limited”.OneWeb — co-owned by Bharti Global and the UK government — too plans to launch fast satellite broadband services in remote areas of India in the middle of 2022.According to the broadband forum, SpaceX-backed Starlink did not have either its own ground/earth stations in India, nor a satellite frequency authorisation from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Isro for providing such (beta) services. Accordingly, SpaceX’s Starlink service, it said, “appeared to be non-compliant to the existing guidelines for testing of a communication service,” which stipulated that while in the testing phase, no commercial launch can take place.At press time, SpaceX did not reply to ET’s queries.A maker of advanced rockets and spacecraft, SpaceX has developed the Starlink constellation of satellites to provide high-speed broadband globally.While the likes of OneWeb are aiming to provide broadband in deserts, mountains or forests where internet access is unreliable, expensive or unavailable, SpaceX’s beta programme is offering broadband connectivity even in urban areas, such as the Delhi-Noida Direct Flyway or Delhi-Jaipur Expressway, as per its website.

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Why the world’s container ships grew so big

The traffic jam at the Suez Canal will soon begin easing, but behemoth container ships such as the one that blocked that crucial passageway for almost a week and caused headaches for shippers around the world aren’t going anywhere.Global supply chains were already under pressure when the Ever Given, a ship longer than the height of the Empire State Building and capable of carrying furnishings for 20,000 apartments, wedged itself between the banks of the Suez Canal last week. It was freed Monday, but it left behind “disruptions and backlogs in global shipping that could take weeks, possibly months, to unravel,” according to A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company.The crisis was short, but it was also years in the making.For decades, shipping lines have been making bigger and bigger vessels, driven by an expanding global appetite for electronics, clothes, toys and other goods. The growth in ship size, which sped up in recent years, often made economic sense: Bigger vessels are generally cheaper to build and operate on a per-container basis. But the largest ships can come with their own set of problems, not only for the canals and ports that have to handle them, but for the companies that build them.“They did what they thought was most efficient for themselves — make the ships big — and they didn’t pay much attention at all to the rest of the world,” said Marc Levinson, an economist and author of “Outside the Box,” a history of globalization. “But it turns out that these really big ships are not as efficient as the shipping lines had imagined.”Despite the risks they pose, however, massive vessels still dominate global shipping. According to Alphaliner, a shipping-data firm, the global fleet of container ships includes 133 of the largest ship type — those that can carry 18,000 to 24,000 containers. Another 53 ships are on order.The world’s first commercially successful container trip took place in 1956 aboard a converted steamship, which transported a few dozen containers from New Jersey to Texas. The industry has grown steadily in the decades since, but as global trade accelerated in the 1980s, so did the growth of the shipping industry — and ship size.In that decade, the average capacity of a container ship grew by 28%, according to the International Transport Forum, a unit of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Container-ship capacity grew again by 36% in the 1990s. Then, in 2006, Maersk introduced a massive new vessel, the Emma Maersk, which could hold about 15,000 containers, almost 70% more than any other vessel.“Instead of this pattern of small increases in capacity over time, all of a sudden we had a quantum leap and that really set off an arms race,” Levinson said.Today, the largest ships can hold as many as 24,000 containers — a standard 20-foot box can hold a pair of midsize SUVs or enough produce to fill one to two aisles in a grocery store.The growth of the shipping industry and ship size has played a central role in creating the modern economy, helping to make China a manufacturing powerhouse and facilitating the rise of everything from e-commerce to retailers such as Ikea and Amazon. To the container lines, building bigger made sense: Larger ships allowed them to squeeze out savings on construction, fuel and staffing.“Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV) are extremely efficient when it is about transporting large quantities of goods around the globe,” Tim Seifert, a spokesman for Hapag-Lloyd, a large shipping company, said in a statement. “We also doubt that it would make shipping safer or more environmentally friendly if there would be more- or less-efficient vessels on the oceans or in the canals.”A.P. Moller-Maersk said it was premature to blame Ever Given’s size for what happened in the Suez. Ultralarge ships “have existed for many years and have sailed through the Suez Canal without issues,” company chief technical officer Palle Brodsgaard Laursen said in a statement Tuesday.But the growth in ship size has come at a cost. It has effectively pitted port against port, canal against canal. To make way for bigger ships, for example, the Panama Canal expanded in 2016 at a cost of more than $5 billion.That set off a race among ports along the East Coast of the United States to attract the larger ships coming through the canal. Several ports, including those in Baltimore, Miami and Norfolk, Virginia, began dredging projects to deepen their harbors. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spearheaded a $1.7 billion project to raise the Bayonne Bridge to accommodate mammoth ships laden with cargo from Asia and elsewhere.The race to accommodate ever-larger ships also pushed ports and terminal operators to buy new equipment. This month, for example, the Port of Oakland, California, erected three 1,600-ton cranes that would, in the words of one port executive, allow it to “receive the biggest ships.”But while ports incurred costs for accommodating larger ships, they didn’t reap all of the benefits, according to Jan Tiedemann, a senior analyst at Alphaliner.“The savings are almost exclusively on the side of the carrier, so there was an argument that the carriers have been in the driving seat and have just pushed through with this big tonnage, while terminal operators, ports and, in some cases, the taxpayer, has footed the bill,” he said.The shift to bigger ships also coincided with and contributed to industry consolidation that has both limited competition among shipping giants and made the world more vulnerable to supply disruptions. Buying and maintaining large vessels is expensive, and shippers who couldn’t afford those costs had to find ways to become bigger themselves. Some firms merged, and others joined alliances that allowed them to pool their ships to offer more-frequent service.Those trends aren’t necessarily all bad. The alliances allow shippers to offer expanded service and help keep costs low for customers. And the fact that bigger ships cut fuel costs has helped the industry make the case that it is doing its part to reduce planet-warming emissions.But the argument for even bigger ships may finally be fading, even for container lines themselves — a concept known in economics as the law of diminishing returns.For one, the benefits of building bigger tend to shrink with each successive round of growth, according to Olaf Merk, lead author of a 2015 International Transport Forum report on very big ships. According to the report, the savings from moving to ships that can carry 19,000 containers were four to six times smaller than those realized by the previous expansion of ship size. And most of the savings came from more efficient ship engines than the size of the ship.“There’s still economies of scale, but less and less as the ships become bigger,” Merk said.The bigger vessels can also call on fewer ports and navigate through fewer tight waterways. They are also harder to fill, cost more to insure and pose a greater threat to supply chains when things go wrong, such as Ever Given’s beaching in the Suez Canal. Giant ships are also designed for a world in which trade is growing rapidly, which is far from guaranteed these days given high geopolitical and economic tensions between the United States and China, between Britain and the European Union and between other large trading partners.

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2 triggers that can take this bull mkt up: Murarka

The broader hypothesis of the bull market still remains pretty strong and resilient. India’s growth is going to accelerate next year and we will probably see one of the sharpest earnings growth in a very long period of time, says Pankaj Murarka, Founder, Renaissance Investment Managers. At the moment there clearly seems to be no worries about a potential second lockdown. We have seen a pretty stellar move in this truncated week. What are you watching out for by way of momentum for the markets? What could be potential triggers?Some of the more advanced economies have also gone through the second phase of the Covid and while it does have an impact on a very near term basis, I do not think we need to exaggerate its implications and probably it is the part of the process of evolution of the virus. So there will be some impact on business performance and on the economy in the short term over the next month or so. But beyond that, we will probably surpass the peak of the second wave as well. More importantly what everyone is looking forward to is probably a more normalised economy towards the later part of this year as we increase vaccinations. As far as markets are concerned, my view continues to be that we remain in a very strong bull market. We are still in the early phase of a bull market. Some of the early gains in this bull markets have already been made or the low hanging fruits have been captured, Now the valuations which were extremely cheap a year back, have normalised. From here on, returns in markets will be driven by earnings growth and sector specific moves. What is the right way of looking at this market? Is it getting complacent?We are in a bull market and this bull market is climbing walls of worries. Bull markets tend to have volatility and their share of pullbacks and corrections. This is one such correction we have witnessed for the last few weeks. But the broader hypothesis of the bull market still remains pretty strong and resilient, which is that India’s growth is going to accelerate next year and also probably we will see one of the sharpest earnings growth in a very long period of time. And the expectation is we will see significant resurgence in demand across industrial and consumer stocks. The low hanging fruits in the bull market had taken off and so the extremely cheap valuations that existed in the early part of this bull markets have been normalised. So from here on returns in equities will be more driven by growth rather than valuation catch up. So that being the case I think the bull market should sustain. Do you track Nazara?Yes we had a look at it very closely before the IPO. It is early days. It just got listed today, so let us see how it plays out. The space is pretty exciting and probably India will become one of the large gaming markets globally. This space is very exciting. They have a promising bouquet of products and games in their portfolio but it is early days for us from our perspective because it just got listed.Will Nazara be like InfoEdge? The reason why I am asking this is because Nazara has started picking up stakes in some smaller gaming companies. Is Nazara trying to do that, replicate the same model in the gaming business? Since we have discussed InfoEdge and Naukri for a long period of time I must caution you while Naukri has built an extremely successful model around acquisitions, they have had over 50% failure in the acquisitions that they have made. Out of the balance 50%, some of them have turned out to be extremely successful. So this whole acquisition or M&A driven business model has its own flip side in terms of failures which are given and which will happen. So as far as Nazara is concerned, they have just got listed. We have a limited history of them. I think we need to watch it for some time in terms of their track record and performance before we take a longer term call. But I must say that while acquisition sounds very interesting to start with, they always have the flip side where a lot of these acquisitions actually do not work. Where do you stand when it comes to the capital goods sector? Do you think L&T would be one of the keepers within this space or would you venture out and delve into smaller names?Larsen & Toubro is the bellwether when it comes to capital goods sector in India because they are very well diversified across all segments in India -- be it infrastructure, be it engineering, be it oil and gas or the manufacturing sector. They have international diversification also. Given the size and scale of L&T and more importantly with their capabilities cutting across so many industries including defence, it is a perfect play in revival of India’s investment cycle or revival of capex in the private as well as the public sector. We are in the early stages of recovery of the investment cycle. As the cycle gains slightly more prominence, I am sure there are many more companies across the sector which will also be significant beneficiaries of the cycles -- right from Thermax to Bharat Forge when it comes to defence or infra and some of the names like KEC and Kalpataru as well. As the investment cycle gathers momentum, there are a lot more very good companies which will benefit from the cycle.

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Making sense of the decreasing debt fund returns

In the last few weeks, you would have suddenly noticed that some of your debt mutual funds have given slight negative returns. The extent of negative returns would be different based on the category of funds you are invested in. Nevertheless, there is a good chance that you are beginning to worry as to what is happening. Now, before you jump the gun and take some hasty decisions, let me try and help you make sense of what is happening. Once you understand the reasons, you can make an informed decision.Two Key Drivers of Debt Fund ReturnsDebt fund returns should be anchored to Net YTMs and not past returns. If interest rates go up, the returns will be lower and vice versa. The extent of impact due to interest rate changes depends on the modified duration of the fund – the higher the modified duration higher the impact on NAVs. If interest rates go down, we will end up with higher returns and everyone is happy.But if interest rates go up, returns come down sharply in the near term especially for funds with higher modified duration. This is the context that we must be aware of. Interest rates as seen from history move through cycles i.e they have periods where they go up followed by a period where they come down and this keeps repeating. While the duration and magnitude of these cycles are difficult to predict, we need to have an approximate view of where we are in the interest rate cycle to make sure that our debt fund portfolios are appropriately positioned.When interest rates are expected to come down, it makes sense to go for funds with slightly higher modified durationWhen interest rates are expected to go up, it makes sense to go for funds with a low modified duration.So here comes the million-dollar question: Right now, where are we in the interest rate cycle?In our view, the ‘declining yields’ phase is behind us and we must prepare for a rising yield environment going forward. What this means for us is that funds with higher modified duration (which also had great returns in the past when yields were falling) may exhibit higher volatility (read as negative returns) in the short run. The returns from these funds may be back-ended and will require longer investment time frames.We are in a ‘rising yield’ environment and we expect yields to gradually inch up over the next year albeit in a gradual & not-so-sudden manner. The rate cut cycle is behind us (read as the period of excess returns from debt funds) and you will have to prepare for relatively higher volatility in your debt fund portfolios over the next 1 year. The extent of volatility will be dependent on the modified duration profile of your funds. Higher the modified duration, the higher the volatility to be expected. Debt mutual fund portfolios must be positioned for the rising yields environmentWhy do we think you must prepare for a ‘rising yield’ environment over the coming quarters?Higher-Than-Expected Government BorrowingAnnounced in the recent budget – led by higher Fiscal Deficit – 9.5% of GDP in FY21 and 6.8% of GDP in FY22Gross Market Borrowing for FY22 at Rs 12 lakh crs – To put this in perspective, FY21 gross market borrowing estimate of the centre government before the pandemic was ~Rs 7.8 lakh crsRs 80,000 cr additional borrowing for FY 21Given the extended fiscal glide path government’s market borrowing is likely to remain elevated for longer periodHigher expected borrowing from State GovernmentsPause in Rate CutsGradual Normalization of Liquidity measures undertaken by RBI during the Covid CrisisPossible Inflation Pressures due to Economic Recovery and Commodity Price increase (especially crude)Bond Yields near decadal lowsGlobal Yields inching up in recent timesWhy do we expect the rise in yields to be gradual and non-disruptive?In the monetary policy statement on Feb 05, the RBI reiterated its commitment to support the bond market and promised an ‘orderly completion of the government’s market borrowing program in a non-disruptive manner’A sudden sharp increase in interest rates willincrease the cost for the government’s large upcoming borrowing programimpact the economic recoveryRBI will want to avoid this scenario and will attempt to keep the yields in a narrow range We expect RBI to continue using OMOs and other tools (at least in this calendar year) to ensure that yields do not suddenly move up sharplyOur view is that yields are expected to gradually inch up but in a gradual and non-disruptive mannerHow do you position your debt portfolios for a rising yield environment?Going forward, we prefer funds with lower modified duration (1 year or less) as these funds are well suited for a rising yield environment. They exhibit much lower volatility when yields increase and quickly reset to the higher yields thus improving future return potential. With the broad objective of striking a reasonable balance between near-term volatility and long-term portfolio returns, here is our debt fund portfolio construction approach.81771316(The author is the head of research, Funds India.)

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HNIs lose out on Wabco OFS, some move Sebi

Mumbai: High net worth investors (HNIs) seeking to make quick returns on Wabco India’s offer for sale (OFS) last week were in for a rude shock when more than half a million shares were auctioned on Tuesday. HNIs, who sold them at a higher price last Thursday in hope of buying at a lower price through OFS, did not get the allotment.On March 24, Wabco India said that ZF International UK, one of the promoters, will sell 1.717 million shares or 9.05 per cent stake in Wabco India through an OFS on March 25-26 with a green shoe option of another 1.717 million shares or 9.05 per cent of the total equity. The floor price for the sale was fixed at Rs 5,450 per share.On March 25, Wabco India shares rallied almost 5 per cent from the opening price to touch a high of Rs 5,944.90. Sensing the arbitrage opportunity, some of the HNIs short sold a few lakh shares between Rs 5,700 and Rs 5,900 apiece, assuming that they can buy them through OFS at Rs 5,500-5,600 per share. However, to their surprise, a large bid came at over Rs 6,000 per share at the last minute and the OFS price fixed at Rs 5,662 per share as against the floor price of Rs 5,450. As a result, none of the HNIs got the allotment, according to market participants.On Tuesday, 4.5 lakh shares were auctioned on NSE at an average price of Rs 7,469 while around 93,000 shares were auctioned on BSE at Rs 7,456 per share. HNIs had to pay a differential amount between the short sale price and the auction price of Rs 1,700-1,800 per share during the auction on Tuesday, causing them an overall loss of up to Rs 100 crore, said dealers.On Thursday, the OFS received bids for 7.254 million shares from non-retail shareholders as against offered size of 1.546 million shares or a total of 3.092 million shares including green shoe option.

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भारतीय चालक दल पर गिरेगी जहाज फंसने की गाज, पूरी टीम नजरबंद, हो सकती है कार्रवाई

दुनिया के सबसे व्यस्त कारोबारी मार्ग मिस्र की स्वेज नहर में एक विशालकाय मालवाहक जहाज एवरग्रीन  को चला रहे 25 सदस्यीय भारतीय चालक दल को बलि का बकरा बनाया जा रहा है। मिस्र सरकार जल्द ही भारतीय चालक दल की गिरफ्तार कर सकती है।

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टीकाकरण: जहां कोरोना ज्यादा वहां 45 से अधिक उम्र वाले लोगों को 14 दिन में वैक्सीन

स्वास्थ्य सचिव राजेश भूषण ने कहा कि 46 जिलों अधिकारियों के साथ कोरोना को लेकर बैठक हुई है।  बैठक में कोरोना पर काबू पाने के लिए सख्त से सख्त कदम उठाने को कहा गया है। उन्होंने बताया कि एक महीने के भीतर कोरोना के 70 फीसदी मामले बढ़े हैं। 

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चुनावी हलचल: असम में अमित शाह की तीन रैलियां, तमिलनाडु और केरल में गरजेंगे योगी

बंगाल और असम में गुरुवार को दूसरे चरण का मतदान होना है। बंगाल में 30 सीटों पर वोटिंग होगी जबकि असम में 39 सीटों के लिए वोट डाले जाएंगे।

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Drugs Case: एजाज खान को एनसीबी ने किया गिरफ्तार, ड्रग्स केस को लेकर आठ घंटे तक हुई पूछताछ

ड्रग्स केस में एनसीबी ने अभिनेता एजाज खान को गिरफ्तार कर लिया है। ड्रग्स केस में ड्रग पेडलर शादाब बटाटा की गिरफ्तारी के बाद एजाज खान का नाम सामने आया था।

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WHO Chief Toughens Tone On China With Lab Probe Call

The WHO's chief, long accused of complacency towards Beijing, hardened his tone Tuesday, urging further investigation into a theory Covid-19 sprang from a laboratory leak.

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Biden Expected To End Trump's H-1B Visa Ban: Report

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to allow a proclamation from his Republican predecessor that had blocked many temporary foreign workers from coming into the United States to expire on Wednesday,...

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Railways To Ban Charging Of Electronic Devices On Trains At Night

The Railways has decided to disallow passengers from using mobile charging stations onboard trains between 11 pm and 5 am as a precautionary measure against the spread of fire, senior officials said...

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Covishield has shelf life of nine months: DCGI

India has extended the shelf life of Covishield for up to nine months from its manufacturing date, a move which will help governments plan the Covid-19 vaccination drive efficiently. The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has extended the shelf life from the earlier prescribed six months, a senior government official said. The decision was taken based on the stability data presented by Serum Institute of India, the Pune-based maker of the vaccine.“The company proved that the vaccine is stable for the period by undertaking the stability studies,” the official said. It is a usual practice adopted by companies, the official said. “The shelf life can be extended further, if the stability data support it. The companies have to prove it by undertaking stability studies.”The move could help African countries that have only until the middle of next month to use up more than a million doses of Covishield based on the six-month shelf life.Covaxin, the other vaccine manufactured indigenously by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, could be the next one approaching the drug regulator for the extension of its shelf life, the official said. “The first step is to give it for six months, it keeps extending depending on the stability data.” The move, according to the official, will help reduce vaccine wastage. Starting April 1, India has extended the vaccination drive for all above 45 years of age. The government is expecting an uptake in the vaccination drive.The Centre has asked states to utilise the private sector capacity in ramping up vaccination. Private facilities in some states such as Haryana, Meghalaya and Uttarakhand account for less than 20% of total Covid vaccinations.

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Covid-19: Centre calls for district action plans

The Centre sounded the alarm over the spike in Covid-19 cases, telling states that the current surge has the potential of “overwhelming healthcare systems” and warning against complacency. The health ministry has asked states to vaccinate all those 45 and above within two weeks in districts where infections are climbing rapidly."After having successfully brought down the number of new Covid-19 cases from mid-September 2020 to February 2021, India is now witnessing a rapid rise in cases," health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a note to state chief secretaries. “The current rise in cases is of concern and has the potential of overwhelming healthcare systems, unless checked right now.”The Centre has directed all states to frame district-specific action plans, which should include the establishment of an emergency operations centre to monitor the spread 24x7, formation of containment zones and tracking the positivity rate.‘Situation Turning from Bad to Worse’“All districts with high case load and fast growth of cases must ensure 100% saturation vaccination of the priority age group of 45 years and above, in the coming two weeks,” Bhushan told the states. "Any complacency at this stage…will have heavy costs."This was echoed by VK Paul, NITI Aayog member, health.“The Covid-19 situation is turning from bad to worse,” he said. “In the last few weeks, especially in some states, it is a huge cause for worry. No state, no part of the country should be complacent.”The health secretary ruled out door-to-door vaccinations. “For decades, India has conducted universal immunisation programmes but has never offered an injectable vaccine going door-to-door. Only polio drops have been given through door-to-door strategy,” he said. "The Covid-19 immunisation programme is an adult vaccination programme where there is a possibility of AEFIs (adverse events following immunisation). This is why these need to be monitored in healthcare settings.” Officials also said that taking vaccinations door-to-door could mean increasing the chance of contamination.

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कोरोना की रफ्तार: कम नहीं हो रहे मामले, खतरनाक हो रही दूसरी लहर, जानें राज्यों का हाल

होली के दिन कम जांच के बावजूद देश में 56 हजार से ज्यादा संक्रमित मिले थे। सामान्य दिनों में 11 लाख सैंपल की जांच हो रही थी, जिनमें पांच फीसदी संक्रमित मामले मिल रहे थे।

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सुरक्षित यात्रा: ट्रेन यात्री रात में मोबाइल या लैपटॉप चार्ज नहीं कर सकेंगे

ट्रेन यात्री रात के वक्त अब सफर के दौरान मोबाइल, लैपटॉप या किसी तरह के इलेक्ट्रिक उपकरण को चार्ज नहीं कर सकेंगे।

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पश्चिम बंगाल : घायल सीएम ममता वापस पैरों पर खड़ी हुईं, गाया राष्ट्रगान

तृणमूल कांग्रेस की प्रमुख ममता बनर्जी का पैर 10 मार्च को चोटिल हो गया था और तब से वह व्हीलचेयर पर बैठकर प्रचार कर रही हैं, लेकिन मंगलवार को नंदीग्राम में प्रचार थमने से पहले अपने पैरों पर खड़ी हुईं और राष्ट्रगान गाया।

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31 मार्च: आज दिनभर इन खबरों पर बनी रहेगी नजर, जिनका होगा आप पर असर

हर रोज हम अलग-अलग खबरों से दो-चार होते हैं। हमारी आंखों के सामने से कई सारी खबरें गुजरती हैं। इनमें से कुछ ऐसी अहम खबरें होती हैं, जिनका हमारे जीवन पर असर पड़ता है...

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आरबीआई ने बनाए नए नियम: ग्राहक की मंजूरी के बाद ही खाते से बैंक काट पाएंगे राशि

मोबाइल बिल, अन्य यूटिलिटी बिल और ओटीटी मंचों के सब्सक्रिप्शन के लिए लगाया जाने वाला ऑटो डेबिट सिस्टम एक अप्रैल, 2021 से बंद हो जाएगा।

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"CAA Attack On Assam's Culture, Won't Allow Implementation": Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday termed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act an "attack" on the language, history and culture of Assam, and promised that his party would not allow it to be...

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Offshore India derivative bets face heat

Mumbai: Holders of offshore derivative instruments (ODIs) used to bet on Indian stocks are facing heat from losses incurred by global investment banks in the Archegos Capital blowup. The banks are asking hedge funds with exposure to local markets through these derivatives to bolster margins for positions, said three people with direct knowledge of the matter. This means the hedge fund needs to provide additional security in the form of cash or collateral to these brokers, failing which they can liquidate client positions.The trigger for the fresh demand for more security is the debacle at Archegos. Margin calls on the hedge fund resulted in banks such as Nomura, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs dumping shares worth $20 billion held by the investment manager, causing losses to many of them. The default has sharpened market volatility with several large banks reevaluating risk-management practices and cutting their losses.“Lots of hedge funds with exposure to Asia are getting demands for more margins from their brokers. This has certainly caught the hedge fund industry off guard," said a senior official with a Hong Kong-based fund. "The problem is it is impossible to ascertain the potential impact since there is little public data on the subject.”Over-the-counter TradesIn normal cash and derivative market transactions, the investor buys the securities directly but offshore derivative instruments (ODIs) operate differently. Foreign banks buy securities on their books and then issue ODIs such as participatory notes (P-notes) against such securities to investors. This allows the third-party investors to take on exposure in India without having to seek regulatory approvals or licences.A portion of such synthetic exposure to India is reported under the P-note regime. Market participants said a large part of ODI transactions are over-the-counter (OTC) or bilateral trades. While the underlying rationale behind these bets is common, the terms are tailormade.At the crux of the matter is highly leveraged trades made by hedge funds. Foreign banks are worried that the crisis at Archegos could spread and trigger further defaults.“The risk of default by a hedge fund is significantly higher currently than what it was say two weeks back and hence banks have no other option but to enhance the margins or offload the positions,” said a top executive at a leading P-note issuer in India.81770239

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नया वित्त वर्ष : एक अप्रैल से बदल रहे 10 नियम, आपकी जेब पर पड़ेगा असर

नया वित्त वर्ष 1 अप्रैल, 2021 से शुरू होने जा रहा है। इस दिन से कई नए नियम लागू होने वाले हैं, जबकि कुछ बदलने वाले हैं। नया वेज कोड लागू होने के अलावा सालाना 2.5 लाख रुपये से अधिक पीएफ जमा पर मिला ब्याज टैक्स के दायरे में आ जाएगा।

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इंतजार खत्म : कल से दिल्ली-मेरठ एक्सप्रेसवे पर भरें फर्राटा, मंत्रालय की हरी झंडी

दिल्ली-मेरठ एक्सप्रेसवे के यूपी गेट से डासना तक दूसरे और डासना से मेरठ तक चौथे चरण एक अप्रैल से खुलने का रास्ता साफ हो गया है।

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Mamata Banerjee Stands Up From Wheelchair As National Anthem Plays

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ended the campaign for Nandigram on a high note today, standing up on the dais despite her leg injury during the national anthem. Nandigram -- which has turned...

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Govt sprucing up CoWin for larger vaccine drive

The centre is augmenting the Covid-19 vaccine registration portal (CoWin) to process as many as 10 to 20 million registrations a day as it prepares for a sharp increase in usage with an aggressive expansion of the nationwide vaccination drive from next month, officials said.User interface on the platform has been spruced up while existing features have been further simplified to cater to a larger proportion of the population expected to pre-register in the next phase drive that opens for those above the age of 45.“We are expecting 4-5 million daily vaccinations in a week’s time and about 25-30% should happen through the CoWin platform,” a senior official told ET. “There will be a lot of rush from April 1 with more people going for the vaccine since it has been opened for anyone above 45 years of age,” said the person adding that pre-registering on Cowin will make the process faster for both citizens and health authorities. At present, daily vaccination in the country is estimated to be between 2.5 million to 3 million with only a tenth of those being vaccinated having pre-registered on the CoWin platform according to official estimates. Bookings on the platform are reckoned to be low as more people have , so far, chosen the walk-in option at local health centres and hospitals. But this could change as the number of people seeking vaccinations rises exponentially in the coming weeks , as those requiring a second dose also begin to seek appointments.Government officials are of the view that pre-registering on the CoWin platform will help people beat the queue and hasten the process as identification details required for authentication will already be keyed in. Official data shows that, so far, the highest vaccination in a day was registered on March 22 when close to 2.75 million people got the first dose while three lakh people were administered the second dose. India has so far vaccinated over six crorepeople countrywide since January 15 when it first began vaccinating healthcare and other frontline workers.To ensure more people opt for online booking, several features have been simplified such as visibility on slots available for users within their locality as well as log-in and registration prompt through the same OTP, officials said. The software is also being modified to do away with the need to upload a comorbidity certificate at the time of online registration and onsite registration. It has also dropped the automatic booking of slots for the second dosage of the vaccine and is leaving it to people to register for it within 6-8 weeks of their first dose. The government has also introduced an hourly monitoring mechanism to track the progress of vaccination drives, this will provide real time information on authorised centres that are not providing slots or offer visibility on other operational snags.Such feedback will be directly monitored by the health secretaries in the state on an hourly basis through a dashboard. Regular emailers will also be sent to the health officials as well as the hospitals so that functionality of such centres can be reviewed, union government officials said.In the initial days of its launch, the CoWin platform that was jointly developed by the ministry of health and ministry of electronics and IT faced several glitches including citizens not being able to register, the interface crashing and users not receiving text messages about appointment schedules. The government termed these as teething troubles in a vaccination drive, which is considered to be the largest in the world. The government is also working on a communication drive to explain to people how they can register and book slots on the platform to drive up the numbers. "The digital infrastructure, CoWin developed by RS Sharma is amazing. My friend in Seattle got his vaccination certificate scribbled on a piece of paper. My vaccination certificate was digitally sent and was QR coded, I got it on my phone within 2 minutes of my vaccination," Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani said at a clubhouse session organised by Blume Ventures last week.

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PE investors pump $315 million into Firstcry

A consortium of private equity investors - TPG, ChrysCapital and Premji Invest - has invested around $315 million in Firstcry, valuing the omnichannel children’s retailer at around $1.9-$2.1 billion, three people with direct knowledge of the deal said.The company will look to target a public market listing in 18-24 months, they said. The deal involves a $300 million secondary transaction, they added.There is also a small primary component of about $13 million from Premji Invest, regulatory filings showed. ET was the first to report about the impending transaction on January 8.“All three private equity investors have roughly brought in $100 million each,” said a person with direct knowledge of the development.The early investors in the SoftBank-backed company, such as Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners), Vertex Partners and MegaDelta Capital Advisors have sold their entire stakes as part of the latest transaction.“The deal values the company at between $1.9 billion and $2.1 billion,” said another person with knowledge of the development. 81752293The current transaction has doubled the company’s valuation in less than 24 months — SoftBank Vision Fund had picked up 40% in FirstCry in 2019, valuing it at about $1.1 billion. The omnichannel retailer dedicated to baby and mother care products received $400 million in fresh equity from the Masayoshi Son-led fund as part of its Series E round.“This round helps the company consolidate its investor base ahead of the IPO that it plans over the next 18-24 months,” another person said. When contacted, Supam Maheshwari, chief executive and co-founder of Firstcry, declined to comment.Spokespersons for ChrysCapital, Premji Invest, TPG, Elevation Capital, MegaDelta and Vertex did not respond to ET’s requests for comment.Founded in September 2010, the company acquired BabyOye from Mahindra Retail in an all-stock deal worth Rs 362 crore ($50 million) in 2015. Its other investors include Mahindra Group, Valiant Capital, Ratan Tata and Kris Gopalakrishnan.With more than 300 stores in 125 cities, Firstcry has expanded its user base to over 4 million customers and says it offers 200,000 baby and children’s products from 2,000 brands. It competes with Hopscotch and Kids Stop Press in the online segment.In the financial year 2020, the Pune-based company’s revenue rose 68% to Rs 897 crore, helping it cut net losses by 83% to Rs 191 crore. Expenses dropped 26% to Rs 1,088 crore, company filings show.Last year, most ecommerce operations had to significantly scale down operations in April-June due to the Covid-19 pandemic.“The company is looking to expand its presence in the Middle East and looks to set up shop in markets such as Oman and Saudi Arabia,” said a person with knowledge of the company’s plans. It is already the largest player in the segment in the UAE after setting up business there in late 2019.As per market and consumer data firm Statista, India’s apparel market is expected to grow 11% to $85 billion by 2021. The kidswear segment alone is predicted to reach nearly Rs 1.7 lakh crore by 2028.All the incoming investors in Firstcry - TPG, ChrysCapital and Premji Invest, have deep consumer and retail investment experience, having backed ventures as diverse as Nykaa, BookMyShow, W, Dream11, Lenskart, CavinKare, Myntra and Future Lifestyle Fashions.

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बंगाल-असम में दूसरे दौर के प्रचार का आखिरी दिन: नंदीग्राम में आज ममता व शाह रोड शो में झोकेंगे ताकत

बंगाल में प्रचार के आखिरी दिन नंदीग्राम में मुख्यमंत्री ममता बनर्जी, गृह मंत्री अमित शाह, भाजपा प्रदेश अध्यक्ष दिलीप घोष सहित तमाम बड़े नेता मैदान में उतरेंगे और अपनी पार्टी को विजयी बनाने के उद्देश्य से जी-जान लगाकर चुनाव प्रचार करेंगे।

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मौसम का हाल: मार्च में ही शुरू हो गया गर्मी का कहर, जानिए पूरी रिपोर्ट

मार्च का महीना अभी खत्म नहीं हुआ है और तापमान नई ऊचाइयों को छूने लगा है। राष्ट्रीय राजधानी दिल्ली में जहां सोमवार को अधिकतम तापमामन 40.1 डिग्री सेल्सियस दर्ज किया गया था।

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आईपीएल 2021: वनडे सीरीज के बाद भारत में ही रुके ये 11 इंग्लिश क्रिकेटर, जानें कौन-किस टीम से खेलेगा

भारत और इंग्लैंड के बीच टेस्ट, टी-20 और उसके बाद वनडे श्रृंखला भी समाप्त हो चुकी है। दोनों टीमों के बीच कड़ी टक्कर देखने को मिली लेकिन भारतीय टीम तीनों प्रारूपों में विजेता रही।

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बंगाल चुनाव: अभी तक हुई 248.9 करोड़ की जब्ती, नकद और वस्तुएं शामिल

अतिरिक्त मुख्य चुनाव अधिकारी संजय बसु ने बताया है कि बंगाल में अभी तक 248.9 करोड़ की नकदी और अन्य वस्तुएं जब्त की गई हैं। यह जानकारी उन्होंने सोमवार को दी।

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Indian-American Couple Donates Rs 1 Crore For Bihar, Jharkhand Healthcare

An Indian American couple has donated over Rs 1 for crore healthcare works in Bihar and Jharkhand, the Bihar Jharkhand Association of North America (BJANA) announced on Monday.

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India pushes ahead with vaccination drive

Asli Bai Sayat, 72, had to travel for two hours on a camel cart to get her first coronavirus vaccine shot in the Indian desert state of Rajasthan but she may not have to go so far for the follow-up dose. After a slow start, India is picking up the pace of its immunisation campaign, simplifying the process, opening more vaccination centres and turning to social media as it tries to head off a new surge in infections that has brought the highest tallies of daily cases and deaths in months. More than 3.2 million people got vaccinations on a single day last week, one of the world's highest rates, and health authorities around the country are calling for more doses as demand picks up and supplies in some places dwindle. "I came with my husband from about 30 kilometres to get the first dose," Sayat, wearing a red-and-beige traditional dress with a walking stick by her side, told Reuters in the town of Shri Dungargarh. "It's hard to travel each time at this age but we have no choice." A health official said Sayat and her husband might not have to come all the way back for their follow-up shots with chances a new vaccination centre would be set up close to their home as part of the drive to expand and speed up the campaign. A senior health official in the eastern state of Jharkhand, said he was hoping to more than double daily vaccinations from about 35,000, partly with more centres. "We're trying to decentralise the process so people don't have to travel more than two kilometres from their residence," said Ravi Shankar Shukla, There's a lot at stake and not just for India. With a population of 1.35 billion, India is home to nearly 15% of humanity and struggling with the third-highest overall infection tally in the world at 11.8 million cases. In all, about 161,000 people have died. A successful immunisation campaign in India, where health workers have to contend with difficult terrain, poor internet connectivity and patchy transport, should set an example for anyone. Authorities initially wanted people to log on to the internet to make a vaccination appointment but that's not so easy for many so the rule was dropped and now many people can simply walk into an inoculation centre. 'EASY' Grassroots healthcare workers are also out in communities across the country, explaining the facts and cajoling people, like 56-year old sugarcane grower Kamal Sanas, to get their shots. Sanas was convinced and so went with her husband to a village office in Satara district and asked a worker to fix an appointment for them with his smartphone. "It was quite easy," Sanas told Reuters at a nearby health centre where she got her shot. "Health-care workers cleared up all our doubts about the vaccine and explained why elderly people should get it." At more than 53 million, India has administered the most doses after the United States and China. But per-capita, India, the world's biggest vaccine maker, ranks much lower. India wants to immunize at least 300 million people by August. From April 1, it will expand the campaign from the elderly and vulnerable to everyone over the age of 45. It helps that the vaccines being given - Indian-made doses of the AstraZeneca shot and a home-grown one from Bharat Biotech - can be stored in normal fridge temperatures so ice boxes are a must in places with unreliable power. Health workers struggling with internet outages now set aside data and upload it all in one go rather than holding up vaccinations as they wait for the connection to be restored. To fire up enthusiasm, health centres are setting up selfie booths and urging people getting shots to spread the message on social media. State officials are confident they can speed things up as long as they have the doses to hand. To help with that, India has put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca shot made by the Serum Institute of India and it may soon add Russia's Sputnik V vaccine to its arsenal. But India's restriction on exports is putting a squeeze on supplies in places like Papua New Guinea, where the government says the virus has "broken loose" and there's little immediate hope of help from vaccines.

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Why you should look at target maturity MFs

Investors eyeing predictable returns, better tax benefits, and liquidity could consider target maturity schemes by mutual funds before March 31. These debt schemes invest in government securities, PSU bonds and state development loans (SDLs) with a pre-decided maturity.By putting money in these products before Wednesday, investors would get indexation benefits of an additional year, which could boost returns by as much as 15-25 basis points.Edelweiss Nifty PSU Bond Plus SDL Index Fund-2026 invests in a mix of PSU bonds and SDLs, IDFC Gilt 2027 Index Fund and Gilt 2028 Index fund invest in government securities while Nippon India ETF Nifty CPSE Bond Plus DSL -2024 invests only in SDLs. For investors eyeing maturities in 2030 and 2031, Bharat Bond FOF is an option. While they could earn between 6% and 6.3% before expenses and tax on the schemes that mature in 2026-2028, they could earn between 6.8% and 6.85% for the Bharat Bond ETFs that invests in a portfolio of PSU bonds and matures in 2030 and 2031 and about 5.8% on the scheme maturing in 2024. “Target maturity funds give you a good quality portfolio comprising of G secs, PSU bonds and SDLs with a low cost, liquidity and visibility of returns,” says Tarun Birani, founder, TBNG Capital Advisors. He said such funds can be considered if the investment time frame matches that of the target maturity date of the scheme.Target maturity funds have a defined maturity and passively invest in bonds of a similar maturity constituting the fund’s benchmark index. On maturity of the fund, investors are returned their investments. Since they are open ended, there is intermittent liquidity and investors can buy and sell at NAV. In case, it’s an ETF they can buy or sell it on the exchange. After the sharp surge in bond yields, fund managers believe investors should not wait further.“Recent increase in bond yields should be taken advantage of rather than waiting for further increase in yields in 2021-22 or beyond,” says Dhawal Dalal, CIO (fixed income), Edelweiss Mutual. Investors with a horizon of at least three years could consider investing at least 50-60% of their investable surplus in FY21 to benefit from additional indexation and rest in the first half of 2021-22, said Dalal.With retail investors worried about credit risks after the Franklin Templeton episode and volatility in debt funds after bond yields surged by 30 basis points leading to negative returns, financial planners said target maturity funds offer a mix of predictability in returns and low credit risks.

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Templeton taps govt channel via envoy, seeks fair hearing

Franklin Templeton (FT) has tapped diplomatic channels seeking a “just and fair” hearing by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in ongoing regulatory and legal proceedings involving liquidation of the asset manager’s six debt schemes in the country.“If we are hit with unfairly large penalties — whether by fine or disgorgement — that not only would discriminate against a major US-based global investment manager, it also would cause us to cut jobs and otherwise pull back our Indian operations,” Franklin Templeton’s global chief executive and president Jennifer M Johnson said in a note to the Indian ambassador in Washington that ET has seen.Johnson, along with Franklin Templeton’s general counsel Craig Tyle, international legal team head Paul Elmlinger, APAC chief Vivek Kudva and India AMC president Sanjay Sapre explained the details of the case to Taranjit Singh Sandhu, India’s ambassador to the US, in a virtual meeting on February 26. After the meeting, Franklin shared a note detailing their concerns with the diplomat.“We are one of the very few foreign-owned asset managers that has ‘not’ decided to cease its India operations in recent years,” said Franklin’s note to the Indian embassy in Washington after the virtual meeting. India’s foreign ministry spokesman said he had no information on the matter and suggested checking with the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the finance ministry.“This appears to be an issue pertaining to D/o Economic Affairs in the M/o Finance,” he said. “I do not have any information to share in this for the moment. Perhaps you may wish to contact DEA on this.”Committed to India, says FTFranklin Templeton said it was committed to India.“The authorities were briefed on matters around recent events surrounding the winding up of the six funds as a matter of course and this does not, in any way, indicate any reconsideration of our commitment to India,” a Franklin Templeton spokesman told ET in an email. “Franklin Templeton has more than 25 years of history in India with over a quarter of our global workforce based here.”There was no response to queries sent to the finance ministry and Sebi.“Sebi seeks ‘disgorgement’ of two years fees that our AMC had received for managing the funds, including for a long period prior to the market disruption that caused the crisis. Sebi demands disgorgement of an estimated total of ₹440 crore ($61 million),” the Franklin note said. “In addition to disgorgement, Sebi seeks significant fines for various alleged violations and also threatens suspension of the AMC’s right to launch any new funds for a specified period.”According to the note, Sandhu is said to have assured Franklin of a fair hearing by Sebi as it’s an independent authority. He also told Johnson and the team that their sentiments would be conveyed to the concerned authorities in the Indian government.Subsequently, the DEA is said to have written to Sebi informing it about the communication from the Indian embassy mentioning Franklin Templeton’s request for a fair hearing by the regulator.“We only face regulatory action proportionate to any actual regulatory violations established by Sebi and that we are not used as a ‘scapegoat’ for the unpopular but correct (for our investors) decision to liquidate the funds,” the note said.At the centre of the matter is Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund’s decision to wind up six debt schemes in April last year that resulted in ₹26,000 crore of investor money getting locked up for 10 months. The move to shut down the products was in the wake of a crisis in the illiquid corporate bond market, in which Franklin was a sizeable player.Investors have been unable to access their money in these schemes as the winding up was challenged in court, preventing the AMC from distributing or monetising any assets in the schemes.Sebi had issued show cause notices to FT India AMC and FT Trustee Company initiating regulatory proceedings against the AMC in connection with its management of the funds leading up to the decision taken by the Trustee Company to wind up the six debt funds. The regulator had also issued show cause notices to certain employees and directors of the AMC. The hearing is going on before Sebi whole-time member G Mahalingam.“We believe that Sebi is reacting inappropriately in the face of unpopular but completely legal and appropriately made decision to liquidate the funds in the interest of their unit holders. In effect, Sebi is trying to do ‘regulation in hindsight’,” the Franklin note to the Indian embassy said.Investors in five of the six shuttered debt schemes of Franklin recently received a portion of their money. The AMC has so far disbursed ₹9,122 crore in the five schemes.Following this disbursement, the six schemes still have debt securities worth ₹17,000 crore. The Supreme Court, which is overseeing the winding up of the schemes, had directed SBI Mutual Fund to liquidate them and distribute the proceeds.Franklin is ranked 11th in the Indian mutual fund industry with assets under management of over ₹81,266 crore on December 2020.“Our commitment to the India business and our investors remains steadfast as we continue to manage over ₹60,000 crore ($8.17 billion) of AUM in our other schemes for close to 2 million investors and operate our global service entity that represents almost every functional area in Franklin Templeton,” the spokesperson told ET. “Our immediate priority and focus at this time remains on liquidating the portfolio of the schemes under winding up and returning monies at the earliest, while preserving value. We continue to support the court-appointed liquidator in that process.”India has seen the exit of some large international financial firms from the mutual fund industry in the past decade. These include Fidelity, JP Morgan, ING, Deutsche, Goldman Sachs and Daiwa. 81751004

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स्वेज नहर: जानिए क्या है इसका इतिहास और कब-कब यहां फंसे थे जहाज

स्वेज नहर में 23 मार्च से लगा जाम आखिरकार सोमवार को खुल गया। नहर में फंसे 'एवरग्रीन' नाम के जहाज को छह दिन बाद निकाल लिया गया।

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30 मार्च: आज दिनभर इन खबरों पर बनी रहेगी नजर, जिनका होगा आप पर असर

हर रोज हम अलग-अलग खबरों से दो-चार होते हैं। हमारी आंखों के सामने से कई सारी खबरें गुजरती हैं। इनमें से कुछ ऐसी अहम खबरें होती हैं, जिनका हमारे जीवन पर असर पड़ता है...

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पुडुचेरी विधानसभा चुनाव: पीएम मोदी के दौरे के मद्देनजर पुडुचेरी में ड्रोन और यूएवी पर लगा प्रतिबंध

पुडुचेरी में चुनाव प्रचार के लिए प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी के दौरे के दौरान सुरक्षा सुनिश्चित करने को लेकर 29-30 मार्च तक यहां ड्रोन और अन्य मानव रहित यान (यूएवी) की उड़ानों पर प्रतिबंधित लगा दिया गया है।

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Holi 2021: How Shahid Kapoor And Mira Rajput Celebrated This Year

"Happy Holi," Shahid Kapoor wrote in his caption

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Lenders want compensation for interest loss

Mumbai: The Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has requested the government to compensate lenders for their income loss because of last week’s Supreme Court order, which prevented them from levying compound interest on loans for the moratorium period, two people with knowledge of the matter said.The request was made in a letter sent to the finance ministry on Saturday, they said.The government has already reimbursed banks for forgoing compound interest, or interest on interest, on loans up to Rs 2 crore outstanding during March-August last year, when borrowers had the option to seek moratorium on repayments. Lenders have been charging compound interest on larger amounts, but the Supreme Court order means they must now refund it to borrowers. Analysts estimate this amount to be between Rs 7,000 crore and Rs 10,000 crore“Banks are hoping that the government will take on the burden by enhancing the scope of the ex-gratia scheme to cover the additional refund after the apex court order,” a banker in the know said. “While the larger banks could easily foot the bill, all lenders have decided that such a request should be made to the government to get clarity on the matter.”The Supreme Court in its order last week directed the government and the RBI to waive penal interest charges on all loans, while rejecting the demand of borrowers to extend the repayment moratorium beyond August 31 and for a complete interest waiver. The loan moratorium scheme was aimed at giving temporary relief to borrowers.In November last, the government decided to waive interest-on-interest for borrowers below loan exposure of Rs 2 crore. It paid nearly Rs 6,000 crore to lenders to compensate them for the income loss.Govt Not Inclined for Additional BurdenWaiving compound interest on loans above Rs 2 crore could cost nearly Rs 4,000 crore to public sector banks, Rs 2,500 crore to private banks and another Rs 1,000 crore to non-bank lenders, say analysts. ET, citing a top official, reported on Monday that the government was not inclined to bear the additional burden. While a final call is yet to be taken, the government could ask banks to stagger the relief to borrowers over a few months, rather than taking another fiscal burden, the report said.Banks held a meeting on Friday last week where it was decided that they would work out a common approach to implement the directions of the Supreme Court. Lenders decided that the six-month moratorium period would be excluded while considering the non-performing status of accounts, irrespective of whether a borrower opted for moratorium or not. Banks also decided that they would start refunding compound interest they had already charged to borrowers within a “reasonable” time frame.The apex court had mandated that any compound interest deducted should be refunded to borrowers or they be given a credit adjustment in the next instalment of the loan account.“The IBA initiative gives operational clarity in NPA recognition, which will help both banks and the borrowers and facilitate smooth implementation of the recent Supreme Court verdict,” said Hari Hara Mishra, an independent banking expert. “Bankers’ request to the government for help in footing additional interest burden is logical, as banks, for the moratorium period also, will continue to have liability to pay depositors on compounding basis.”Meanwhile, NBFC industry body Finance Industry Development Council could also approach the government, as they want the state to compensate them for the cost towards paying interest to depositors. A representation could be made after the industry body assesses the impact of these waivers on individual members, people in the know said. 81751013

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BMC to monitor beds in private hospital

The Mumbai municipal corporation has ordered all its ward officers to take over the beds in private hospitals and nursing homes as the city gears up to tackle a new surge of Covid-19 infections. Asymptomatic Covid-19 patients without any comorbidity will not be allocated hospital beds. The corporation has instructed hospitals to discharge at the earliest all such patients who have been admitted.On Monday, the corporation issued 18 directives to its ward officers and private hospitals as part of its strategy to better utilise the hospital beds in the city, as it looks to avoid a situation similar to last year’s when many patients who had urgent need of hospitalisation could not get admitted due to poor allocation of beds. Eighty per cent of total hospital beds and all ICU beds will be reserved for Covid treatment in each ward, and no admissions by private hospitals will be allowed to these without the permission of the corporation.81751547Hospitals have been instructed to activate their beds to the maximum capacity. These hospitals will be run under the control of the assistant commissioners of each city ward. The ward officers will have the liberty to deploy police forces to facilitate bed allocation.The medical professionals in the 'war room' of each ward will be responsible for triaging the patients and beds. The ICU and hospital beds in a ward will be allocated first to patients from that ward. If there are more patients, they will be sent to facilities that are affiliated to the ESIS, jumbo centres, and other private hospitals. Hospital bed allocation will be done after it gets approved by the corporation’s war room. As of March 25, Mumbai had 931 ICU beds and 9,397 general beds.

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Piramal may sell DHFL developer loans after deal

Piramal Capital & Housing Finance, which is set to acquire Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd (DHFL), will likely put on sale the latter’s property developer loan portfolio of about Rs 53,165 crore as it moves toward becoming a retail mortgage lender.The group is working on an internal strategy to carve out the developers’ loan portfolio from the book, said people with knowledge of the matter. A final decision will be taken soon after the acquisition is completed.“It will likely sell the builder loan business to any other entity specialising in real estate loans only at a later date after it formally acquires the home financier,” one of the persons cited above told ET. With the DHFL acquisition, the merged entity aims to emerge as a retail franchise.Piramal will sell the loans for the right price, bankers said. The group did not comment on the matter.The fair value of the builder loans could be about one-fifth of the total size, according to the quarterly financial statements on the DHFL website. But this will be subject to market conditions and the repayment capabilities of the borrowers. The current valuation depends on multiple factors.“The total wholesale loan portfolio including interest receivable aggregating Rs 53,16,470 lakh has been ‘fair valued’ as at December 31, 2020, at Rs 9,85,320 lakh,” according to the financial statements. The wholesale book includes large loans to developers and builders that are stressed due to delays in projects.“The best thing would be to sell this book because it would lighten our balance sheet, remove the burden of heavy recoveries and make it more capital efficient,” said a person familiar with Piramal's plan.Plan Cleared with 94% Votes by LendersBillionaire Ajay Piramal’s bid for DHFL was approved by lenders with 94% votes about two months ago, trumping offers by Oaktree Capital and Adani Capital. Last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave its assent to the resolution plan, which now needs approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The final outcome is expected by May-June. NCLT’s Mumbai bench resumed hearing the resolution plan submitted by DHFL’s lenders earlier this month.DHFL was forced into bankruptcy resolution with more than Rs 90,000 crore in debt to various lenders. Oaktree had envisaged a recovery of Rs 35,700 crore for creditors, while it was Rs 35,250 crore under the Pimral offer and Rs 32,860 crore in the Adani bid.In the first round of bidding, Piramal intended to acquire just the retail assets. However, it had to revise its offer to include developer loans as well to remain competitive with then frontrunner Oaktree Capital, which was the only entity that had bid for the whole company.“Even if you see the bids for just the wholesale business initially by Adani and SC Lowy, they were between 6 to 10 cents to a dollar, which gives an indication of the value of these loans,” said an executive.Well before the RBI dislodged the existing management, putting the home financier under the insolvency resolution process under an administrator, Piramal had been in talks to buy its assets. That fizzled out as the Piramal group was not keen to take on the wholesale loans, without which DHFL was unwilling to sell. 81751009

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भारत में कोरोना: कोविड-19 की बढ़ती रफ्तार, जानें पहली की तुलना में क्यों ज्यादा खतरनाक है दूसरी लहर?

कोरोना वायरस संक्रमण की दूसरी लहर भारत में तेजी से फैल रही है और पिछले कुछ दिनों में कोरोना संक्रमण के आंकड़ों में लगातार तेजी देखी जा रही है।

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Petrol Diesel Price: आज मिली राहत, पांच दिन बाद घटे पेट्रोल-डीजल के दाम, जानिए कितनी हैं कीमतें

सरकारी तेल कंपनियों की ओर से आज पांचवे दिन फिर पेट्रोल और डीजल की कीमतों में गिरावट दर्ज की गई है। आज पेट्रोल 22 पैसे और डीजल 23 पैसे सस्ता हुआ।

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जम्मू-कश्मीर : 'पीआईए' लिखा विमान के आकार का गुब्बारा मिलने से हड़कंप, सुरक्षा एजेंसियां सतर्क

जम्मू के कनाचक इलाके में सोमवार को विमान के आकार का गुब्बारा बरामद हुआ है। इस गुब्बारे पर 'पीआईए' लिखा हुआ है।

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चीन ने कहा: पाकिस्तान और भारत के बीच बातचीत होने पर हमें खुशी

चीन ने कहा कि पाकिस्तान और भारत के बीच हाल ही में बातचीत होने की तत्परता से को लेकर वह खुश है।

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राजस्थान उपचुनाव : कांग्रेस और भाजपा के उम्मीदवार आज दाखिल करेंगे नामांकन

कांग्रेस ने सुजानगढ़ सीट पर मनोज कुमार मेघवाल को उतारा है जो कि मास्टर भंवरलाल मेघवाल के बेटे हैं। मास्टर भंवर लाल गहलोत सरकार में काबिना मंत्री थे जिनके निधन से यह सीट खाली हुई है।

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"Look Forward To Supporting A Congress Chief Minister": Assam Ally AIUDF

The All India United Democratic Front or AIUDF, which is part of the Congress-led 'Mahajoth' alliance in Assam, will support a "Congress Chief Minister", its chief Badruddin Ajmal has said. The...

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Amid Egypt's Plans To Unload Ship, Suez Canal Salvage Teams Struggle

Suez Canal salvage teams intensified excavation and dredging on Sunday around a massive container ship blocking the busy waterway ahead of attempts to refloat it, with two sources saying work had been...

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Aladdin's Cave Of Goods Stuck In Suez Canal Logjam

An Aladdin's cave of goods ranging from IKEA furnishings to tens of thousands of livestock is stuck in a maritime traffic jam caused by the Suez Canal blockage.

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"Absolutely Outrageous, Terrible": Joe Biden On Myanmar Bloodshed

US President Joe Biden said Sunday the bloodshed unleashed against anti-coup protesters in Myanmar was "absolutely outrageous," after security forces killed more than 100 people, including at least...

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Puducherry: Battle between 2 fronts with new allies

After the V Narayanasamy-led government lost its trust vote leading to its collapse on February 22, the Union Territory is poised to see a keen contest between two fronts — the one led by the Congress and the other by NR Congress founded by former chief minister N Rangasamy. The BJP’s presence is also palpable with repeated visits being made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, although their strategy is one of long haul, say analysts. People of Puducherry, who have not been welcoming of the BJP, are confused over the sudden switch in loyalties of many Congress MLA to the BJP, writes Dia Rekhi.BJP’s Slow RiseThe BJP currently does not have a single MLA. Yet, it has the most negotiating power among the other alliance partners. Analysts say BJP’s strategy is not one of immediate victory but a more forward-looking one. For this, the party has been getting new and old political faces to join its ranks. Congress leader P Kannan and his son joined the BJP on March 15.The Political Tie-upsThe Congress has tied up with DMK, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), the CPM, the CPI and other small parties, while NR Congress was almost arm-twisted into an alliance with the BJP and the AIADMK. The Congress is contesting 15 seats, the DMK in 13, and the CPI and the VCK in one each.Congress Caught Off-GuardPeople in Puducherry believe that Congress was caught napping which is what led to the toppling of the government. They feel the Narayanasamy government was too preoccupied pointing fingers at others rather than focusing on providing efficient governance.Questions on LoyaltyWith MLAs switching from Congress to BJP in a flash, voters are wondering whether they can trust their elected candidates. The fact that the NDA alliance has not announced Rangasamy as their chief ministerial candidate strengthens the suspicion of people that the BJP will appoint someone with leanings to the saffron party as the CM, if their alliance is voted to power. In fact, Nirmal Kumar Surana, in charge of Puducherry BJP said, “Don’t confuse leadership with chief ministership. We are facing elections under the chairmanship of the very experienced Rangasamy.” Analysts believe the NR Congress-led alliance has the potential to sweep this election but the question is whether Rangasamy will be made CM at all and if so, whether he will be a puppet in the BJP’s hands.AIADMK Playing Second-FiddleAIADMK is taking a backseat among its alliance partners in Puducherry. It is in an alliance with the BJP in Tamil Nadu, where it is in a more commanding position. In Puducherry, the BJP allotted five seats to the AIADMK when the party demanded seven, and went on to give itself nine seats. This imbalance is causing an embarrassment to AIADMK which already finds itself in a tough spot for being soft on the BJP.

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Crypto collective aims to address govt concerns

MUMBAI: Several cryptocurrency exchanges operating in India plan to jointly reach out this week to the country's top financial decision makers, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the central bank, to suggest solutions aimed at establishing the investment credentials of an asset class that faced stiff regulatory resistance in the past.Nischal Shetty, co-founder and CEO of the crypto exchange platform WazirX, said that the Blockchain and Crypto Council, a subcommittee under the Internet Mobile Association of India, has drafted a presentation note. ET has reviewed the note with recommendations on how to regulate crypto and address risks associated with cryptocurrencies, such as money laundering, the threat to rupee, and the industry’s environmental impact.This presentation will also be shared with the Department of Economic Affair and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Shetty said.On February 24, central bank governor Shaktikanta Das reiterated his concerns over cryptocurrency and advocated a ban."We have certain major concerns about cryptocurrency. We have communicated them to the government," Das said in a TV interview. “..on crypto we have major concerns from a financial stability angle which we have shared with the government,"Shetty, who is part of the push along with six other exchanges, said that the crypto exchanges have used the last two months to understand the concerns of the officials and come up with a comprehensive set of solutions.The presentation note includes a code of conduct for crypto exchanges to follow on day-to-day operations, a white paper that highlights the possible effects of the proposed ban on crypto assets in India, and data of global regulatory landscape, among other things. Shetty said this is the first time that the industry is sending a presentation with data and relevant content and that the previous reach outs have been over emails.“Eventually, our hope is that we will be invited where we can present our case formally. But we did not want to wait, we wanted to take a proactive approach,” he said.The first time RBI expressed its concerns about virtual currency was in 2013 when it issued a Financial Stability Report and later that year, a warning to the users, holders, and traders of virtual currencies about its potential risks. However, since 2013, the crypto exchanges and investors in India have only increased.Between 2015-2018, Unocoin and ZebPay reached out to the RBI four to five times to mitigate concerns. These communications included an overview of the crypto industry and recommendations on how to regulate crypto in India, according to Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder and CEO of Unocoin, the oldest crypto exchange in India.“We have approached different high-level officers at the RBI, but it's only been a one-way conversation. They were not disclosing what they want. They were receiving our documents so whatever we were trying to say, they were listening to our conversations, but that's pretty much where it was stopping," Vishwanath said.However, there is a belief on the other side that the industry did not take RBI's warnings seriously and now a breakthrough between the two parties may be hard to materialise.The RBI did not respond to ET’s query.Since 2018 when the RBI banned banks from dealing in crypto, CEOs of crypto exchanges say that they have engaged in multiple informal conversations with federal lawmakers. Ever since market talk has surfaced about a bill banning all ‘private’ cryptocurrencies, the industry doubled down on its efforts to address concerns of officials, they added.“The industry as a whole has begun self-regulation and implementing KYC procedures to prohibit illicit activities,” Vishwanath said. “We have created a unified procedure that gets followed among the exchanges so that when we try to represent as an association in front of the ministry we will have a concrete method which could add to our credibility.”

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IT firms battle for cloud deals

Technology services companies are witnessing intensive competition to win large cloud migration and digital transformation deals in an environment where customers are looking to consolidate vendors in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. That’s often leading to “either win big or go home” situations for these companies, say analysts.While there is a ‘significant modernisation movement’ with firms planning to move large portions of their legacy operations into the Cloud (remotely located server); there are more strategic deals leading to consolidation of vendors, said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive, Everest Group, IT advisory and research firm,. “Every big firm has a lot of needs as they emerge from the pandemic,” he said.This means more competition.“The resulting contracts are much bigger than before and this puts the vendors or service providers into a win big or go home situation. These win big or go home situations are very competitive as firms not only are competing for large books of business, they also risk losing existing business,” said Bendor-Samuel.Companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Accenture, Wipro and HCL Tech have bagged many large cloud and digital transformation deals, thereby ensuring a strong growth outlook for the next few quarters.“(In) the last nine months, we have had $12 billion in large deals. Previous full year was very strong but less than $12 billion...The pipeline has come back already to a good level post couple of these big deals,” said Salil Parekh, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director, Infosys, in a virtual analyst conference by Kotak last month. He added that the ‘digital and cloud part would continue to do well’ and Infosys has been building cloud assets for the past three years.Traditional companies that hosted their applications on their own servers and had little flexibility for employees and partners to access them when the pandemic-induced lockdown was imposed globally, struggled in their business as their clients shifted their work to more nimble cloud native companies.This also resulted in chief executives of the majority of the global companies taking decisions to shift to cloud and court vendors such as TCS, Infosys, HCL and Wipro to execute these projects.

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Modi doesn’t have finger on TN’s pulse: Dhinakaran

Amma Makkal Munnettra Kazhagam (AMMK) chief TTV Dhinakaran said on Sunday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unable to gauge the pulse of the people of Tamil Nadu though he was a good administrator.Dhinakaran is the nephew of VK Sasikala, former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's close aide. He was at Pollachi in Coimbatore district on Sunday, to campaign for the assembly polls on April 6.There is an anti-BJP sentiment in Tamil Nadu because people feel that central schemes are being forced upon them, he said."Modi is a very good administrator but unfortunately, he is not able to figure the pulse of Tamil Nadu. He has to do what the people of Tamil Nadu want," Dhinakaran told ET.Dismissing talk of negotiations with the BJP, Dhinakaran said nobody from the saffron party had approached him."The people of Tamil Nadu are totally against both the ruling parties — at the Centre and the state. While the BJP maybe popular in other states, the people of Tamil Nadu don’t want anything to be forced on them," he said.Dhinakaran said the people wanted a change — not just any change, but one that emulates the policies of Jayalalithaa."People are totally against the ruling government and the DMK alliance. They will support us to form the real Amma’s government,” he said. "People have decided it (ruling AIADMK) is not the real Amma’s party as they have deviated from Amma’s path. She (Jayalalithaa) was totally against NEET and many other Central government policies and never allowed them … even GST and the UDAY scheme. These people (current state government) allowed everything.”

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BJP fights to retain Nemom

If Nemom helped BJP enter Kerala, an electorally forbidden land for the saffron party till 2016, five years on, the BJP is fighting to retain its fort against rivals’ fierce attempts to breach it.Kummanam Rajasekharan, 69, a former BJP state president, is fighting to hold Nemom, captured for the party by O Rajagopal who has retired from electoral politics. And, in a dramatic decision, Congress fielded MP K Muralidharan, 63. CPM has once again nominated, V Sivankutty, 66, who lost to Rajagopal by 8,000-odd votes last time –– after having won the seat in 2011 by defeating Rajagopal.Located next to Thiruvananthapuram city, Nemom has been providing growing fields to the BJP in its urban localities and among sections of the Hindus. Even when Congress’ Shashi Tharoor won the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat for a third time in 2019 (defeating Kummanam), the BJP retained the lead in the Nemom assembly segment.The BJP’s growth in the area got a tactical boost when the Congress –– which had won the Nemom seat in 2001 and 2006 –– gave the seat to smaller allies SJ(D) and JDU in the 2011 and 2016 assembly polls. The absence of the Congress meant the BJP taking over the space as the main rival of the LDF in the last two polls. The UDF’s steep fall came to an embarrassing 13,800-odd votes at third position in 2016 against BJP’s 67,813 and LDF’s 59142.For Muralidharan and Kummanam, this is their second bout – after the Congress leader defeated BJP rival in Vattiyoorkav in 2016. If BJP has moved Kummanam to its best seat now, Muralidharan reinforced his giant killer image by defeating CPM strongman P Jayarajan in the Vadakara Lok Sabha seat. The Congress is hoping Muralidharan’s fight in BJP’s den will send a message across the state, especially to the minorities.“A vote for BJP will help development,” Kummanam told ET. “The Congress candidate here has a track-record of deserting his seats. And the CPM candidate has acquired notoriety for the vandalism.”If being the son of four-time CM, the late K Karunakaran adds to Muralidharan’s stature, the fact that his father once won from Nemom becomes an emotional reference point. But, Muralidharan gives an ideological angle to his fight. “Through Nemom, Narendra Modi’s BJP took root in Kerala to grow and I am here with the mission of cutting off that root”, Muralidharan told ET. For CPM’s Sivankutty, the challenge is to hold on to the Left base and not let the contest acquire a BJP vs Congress bout in public perception.

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Posters to SMS: Amazon's fight to block a union

"Make sure you take care of us!" a worker shouts to two union organizers in orange vests standing at the entrance of Amazon's warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama -- ground zero of a battle over unionizing the American retail giant. The sun is not yet up, but the two organizers Steve and Syrena gamely wave their posters to catch the attention of night-shift workers pouring out of the huge facility and of day-side employees taking over on a foggy Saturday morning. In the glare of car headlights, one can read the words on their posters -- "Thanks for your courage!" -- along with the initials RWDSU, for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which will represent the warehouse's 5,800 employees if they support it in a vote ending Monday. That would be a first in the United States for Amazon, which employs 800,000 people in the country, most of them in sorting, packaging and shipping centers like this one. It would also be a major coup for a union movement in historic decline -- now representing only 11 percent of nonfarm American workers, down from 30 percent in 1964. Coming at a time when the White House occupant, Joe Biden, has promised to be the country's "most pro-union president," it could open the floodgates to unionization efforts at other Amazon sites and other firms. A labor crossroads? For five months, union organizers in Bessemer have been posted at the intersection between a busy interstate highway and several hulking industrial buildings. Behind them, banners calling on workers to vote hang from the immense white-and-gray warehouse, next to the illuminated, curved arrow resembling a smile -- Amazon's ubiquitous logo. Steve has come almost every day -- three hours at dawn and three in the evening -- first to gather signatures demanding a vote on unionization, then to persuade Amazon workers to vote yes, and now to thank them for mobilizing. "He's too modest to say it, but sometimes he would be signing 50 people in a day," said Syrena, who, like Steve, declined to give her last name. The vote ending Monday is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.'Informational' meetings More than 3,000 employees have signaled their tentative support, but victory is far from certain. Amazon, while not officially declaring opposition to unions, has waged a determined campaign, holding weekly "informational" meetings, sending text messages and putting up posters in restrooms in an all-out effort to defeat the union initiative. Union organizers say they even suspect that the company may have pressured local officials to speed up the red light at the intersection where they stand to reduce the time that organizers have to speak to drivers. "For 24 hours a day seven days a week we did not leave the gates, and so we became very familiar with the traffic patterns and the red lights," said Joshua Brewer, president of the union's local branch, "and suddenly they changed." Lafonda Townsend said she cast a "yes" vote in hopes the union can negotiate better working conditions, including improved protection against Covid-19. Amazon workers around the country have complained they are pressed to work at an unrelenting pace, with little time even for bathroom breaks. Townsend said the company was summoning workers to required meetings as often as three times a week. "They had these charts up where there's things like: you don't need a third-party person to speak for you" and warning that union dues could reach $500 a year, Townsend told AFP.Text messages "You will get a lot of text messages from Amazon and they will tell you to vote no," said Frances Wallace, a 20-year-old Amazon employee who joined a pro-union demonstration Saturday. She showed one of the messages: "J.C. 43 has been working at Amazon since April and loves it. The job provides affordable medical, dental and vision benefits for his family, which saves him $800 a month and helped pay for his two sons' braces... He voted no." Suspicion runs deep in Bessemer after months of rumors and tension. Amazon has defeated every previous union effort in the US, though most of its operations in Europe are unionized. Joshua Brewer is hopeful, but he has seen the toll taken on workers by the company's intense campaign. "I would say that you know corporations often fight union drives, but this level of sophistication and really fear, that is something we've never seen before," he said. Asked to comment in February, Amazon pointed to its creation of more than 5,000 jobs; to its relatively high pay levels ($15.30 an hour, more than twice the legal minimum wage in Alabama); and to benefits like health, vision and dental insurance. "More than 90 percent of associates at our Bessemer site say they would recommend Amazon as a good place to work," said an Amazon spokeswoman, Heather Knox.

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