Court discharges ex-DGP of Gujarat PP Pandey in Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case

New Delhi, Feb 29: India’s economy expanded at its slowest pace in more than six years in the last three months of 2019, with analysts predicting further deceleration as the global Covid 19 coronavirus outbreak stifles growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The gross domestic product (GDP) data released yesterday showed government spending, private investment and exports slowing down, while there is a slight upturn in consumer spending and improvement in rural demand lent support.

The quarterly figure of 4.7% growth matched the consensus in a Reuters poll of analysts but was below a revised - and greatly increased - 5.1% rate for the previous quarter.

The central bank has warned that downside risks to global growth have increased as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, the full effects of which are still unfolding.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has taken several steps to bolster economic growth, including a privatisation push and increased state spending, after cutting corporate tax rates last September.

In its annual budget presented this month, the government estimated that annual economic growth in the financial year to March 31 would be 5%, its lowest for last 11 years.

Modi’s government is targeting a slight recovery in growth to 6% for 2020/21, still far below the level needed to generate jobs for millions of young Indians entering the labour market each month.

The annual GDP figure for the September quarter was ramped up from an earlier estimate of 4.5%, while the April-June reading was similarly lifted to 5.6% from 5%, data released by the Ministry of Statistics showed on Friday.

Capital Investment Drop

In the December quarter, private investment grew 5.9%, up from 5.6% in the previous quarter, while government spending rose by 11.8%, against 13.2% in the previous three months.

However, corporate capital investment contracted by 5.2% after a 4.1% decline in the previous quarter, indicating that interest rate cuts by the central bank have failed to encourage new investment. Manufacturing, meanwhile, contracted by 0.2%.

“It appears growth slowdown is not just cyclical but more entrenched with consumption secularly joining the slowdown bandwagon even as the investment story continues to languish,” said Madhavi Arora of Edelweiss Securities in Mumbai.

Many economists said that the government stimulus could take four to six quarters of time before lifting the economy and the impact of those efforts could be outweighed by the global fallout from the coronavirus epidemic that began in China.

“The coronavirus remains the critical risk as India depends on China for both demand and supply of inputs,” said Abheek Barua, chief economist at HDFC Bank.

Indian shares sank on Friday for a sixth session running, capping their worst week in more than a decade. The NSE Nifty 50 index shed 7.3% over the week, while the Sensex dropped 6.8%, the worst weekly declines since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Separately, India’s infrastructure output rose 2.2% year on year in January, data showed on Friday.

A spike in inflation to a more than 5-1/2 year high of 7.59% in January is expected to make the RBI hold off from further cuts to interest rates for now, while keeping its monetary stance accommodative.

Mumbai, Jul 24: Reliance India Limited (RIL) on Friday overtook ExxonMobil to become the world's second most valuable energy company and 46th among the world's largest companies by market capitalisation.

RIL's market capitalisation stood at Rs 14.16 lakh crore (USD 189.3 billion) at market close on Friday. ExxonMobil's current market value is USD 184.77 billion.

"Reliance Industries, with a market capitalisation of USD 189.3 billion now is the second-most valuable energy company in the world. Reliance Industries now stands at 46th among the world's largest companies by market capitalisation ahead of well-known names like ExxonMobil, Abbott Laboratories, Oracle Corp, Chevron and Unilever Plc, and just below PepsiCo," RIL said in an official release.

RIL continued its rally on Friday, notwithstanding overall weak market conditions.

RIL shares made a new all-time high of Rs 2,163 and were last traded at Rs 2,148.8 on NSE with a gain of 4.4 per cent. The market capitalisation of fully paid-up shares stands at Rs 13.62 lakh crore (USD 182.06 billion), the release said.

Reliance partly paid-up shares gained 9.33 per cent on NSE today to last trade at Rs 1289.95. The partly paid-up shares now have a market capitalisation of Rs 0.55 lakh crore (USD 7.29 billion).

"Reliance's share price had touched a bottom of Rs 867 on March 23, 2020, when the total market value of the company stood at Rs 5.5 lakh crore or $73.5 billion. Thus, RIL has added $115.9 billion to shareholder wealth within just four months - one of the highest value creation feats in the world in such a short time," the release said.

Reliance had earlier raised Rs 212,809 crore through Rights Issue, combined investments in Jio Platforms and investment by bp.

New Delhi, Feb 6: Unemployment rate in the country as per a new survey was 6.1 per cent in 2017-18, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Minister of State for Labour Santosh Gangwar said the government is conducting a new Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) with new parameters and bigger sample size, and its results cannot be compared with previous surveys in this regard.

"As per the new Periodic Labour Force Survey being conducted by the government, the labour force participation is 36.9 per cent and the rate of unemployment for 2017-18 is 6.1 per cent," he said.

Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, the minister said the report of this survey is very different than the surveys conducted in previous years.

This survey is not comparable to previous surveys, he said, adding it was an attempt to provide authentic data with the new survey conducted through the Ministry of Statistics.

"We are focusing on infrastructure development and ease of doing business and India's position in the world has improved. India has improved its position to 63rd rank now in 2019 against 196 in previous years," he said.

"Our government is very conscious of creating employment opportunities and is running such programme which generates employment.

"The way our government is functioning, employment opportunities are being created and the youths are getting jobs also," the minister said.

Gangwar said the government has stopped the previous survey as the sample size was low and an attempt is being made to improve the data by adding various parameters and provide more authentic data.

The minister said it will take time for collection of data as households have to be visited on the ground for authentic data collection in rural areas also.