Owing to the second wave of the COVID pandemic, the Indian economy is likely to mirror a similar trend seen in FY20-21, when the first half of the financial year is weaker and the second half is significantly stronger, says Deepak Parekh, chairman of Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd...

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With the rising prices of fuel and essentials amidst the COVID-19 impact, as many as 79% consumers believe their household earnings for FY21-22 will decline, while 49% expect decline in savings, as per a survey conducted by LocalCircles.   According to the survey, 79% households say...

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S&P Global Ratings has affirmed its 'BBB-' long-term and 'A-3' short-term unsolicited foreign and local currency sovereign ratings on India with a stable outlook. The BBB- ratings from S&P denotes the entity to have adequate capacity to meet financial commitments, but more subject to adverse...

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Consumer price index (CPI) inflation moderated marginally to 6.26% in June 2021 from 6.30% in the previous month. Surprisingly, most items in food and non-food have registered a de-growth in June, which raises a broader question whether the May 2021 inflation print was a data aberration,...

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The healthy growth in exports during the April-June quarter notwithstanding, the country's current account deficit could see a big turn in FY22, changing from a surplus position in Covid hit FY21 back to a deficit situation in the current year, a report on the country's trade position has...

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Covid 2.0 heavily dented India's June service sector output which contracted at the fastest pace since July 2020.   Besides, the survey data indicated that services firms endured further losses of new business as the emergence of the pandemic and the reintroduction of containment...

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In a major move to support traders in the country, the government has revised guidelines for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) to bring retail and wholesale trade under their ambit.   Noting that retail and wholesale trade were left out of the ambit of MSMEs, Union MSME...

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The announcement pertaining to economic relief for the pandemic announced by the Union government broadly emphasises four sectors—health, tourism, micro finance institutions (MFIs) and agriculture while the other measures announced fine-tune the scope of the already existing arrangement, says...

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S&P Global Ratings cut India's growth to 9.5% from 11.0% for the fiscal year ending March 2022 due to a severe pandemic wave. "India is starting to come back out of lock-down, however inflation is running hot," it says in a report titled "Asia-Pacific's Recovery Regains Its...

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Moody's Investors Service estimates that the overall hit to India's economy will be softer than during the first wave last year.   However, the pace of recovery will be determined by (1) access to and delivery of vaccines, and (2) the strength of the recovery in private consumption,...

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India's second COVID-19 wave is finally ebbing, with weekly average cases declining to about 60,000. That is still high, but a huge relief nevertheless, when considering that cases had risen to 4.14 lakh just a month back.   However, for India, where economic recovery has been slow,...

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Cautious optimism has started to return to India's economy which was heavily battered by COVID 2.0, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Wednesday.   The June issue of RBI's monthly bulletin said: "The Indian economy continues to wrestle with the second wave of the pandemic, though...

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As the economy battles yet again to come out of the COVID-induced slowdown, an SBI Ecowrap report has suggested that the space for monetary accommodation is over, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will face multiple challenges in terms of boosting India's growth rate and stabilising the...

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Base effect, along with high transportation fuel cost, lifted India's annual rate of inflation based on wholesale prices to 12.94% in May from a rise of 10.49 per cent in April.   Significantly, this is the highest rate of WPI inflation in the current series. The previous high mark...

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As employment rate continues to worsen amid the second wave of COVID-19, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has said that the Indian labour market is in its worst condition since April-May last year, when the whole country was under lock-down.   Data published by CMIE...

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Covid triggered economic turbulence along with no relief on the tax front is expected to delay the consumption recovery, said India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra).   Accordingly, the ratings agency said that with no relief in sight on the tax front, households are facing a double...

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The new e-filing website of the income tax (I-T) department with a variety of new additional features was finally launched Monday evening for taxpayers. However, many users complained on Twitter about glitches on the new portal for filing of income-tax returns (ITRs), with several claiming...

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FY20-21 is an outlier in India's financial system with the onset of pandemic. One direct corollary of pandemic in FY20-21 was a distinct slowdown in bank credit growth that has also continued into FY21-22. Such low credit growth was a direct fallout of corporates rapidly de-leveraging by...

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The second wave of coronavirus (COVID-19) has thrown cold water over the Indian economy that was beginning to warm up after the most severe contraction since Independence. The rash of afflictions that followed forced states to lock down, hurting consumer and business confidence yet again....

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With restrictions expected to be eased even more gradually than previously assumed, there is an increasing risk that the hit to consumption and employment will be more prolonged, Moodys Analytics said.   On the production side too, labour shortages and sourcing constraints are...

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