One of the hallmarks of reform is that it reduces, or even eliminates long queues. Goods and services tax or GST - which marked six years of its birth on July 1 - cut the serpentine queues of trucks at check posts dotting the country’s state borders. After the inevitable teething troubles, GST has put in place a well-oiled tax ecosystem. In June, GST revenue collection stood at Rs 1.61 lakh crore. With this the monthly GST collection has been over Rs 1.4 lakh crore for 15th month running. So...

Mukesh Ambani’s 2016 foray into telecom had upended dynamics of the sector. A brutal price war unleashed with the introduction of Reliance Jio had pushed carriers like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India against the wall. Today, Jio is India’s largest telco with a wireless subscriber base of about 430 million, while Airtel is a distant second with about 370 million. Vodafone Idea is struggling to stay afloat. And now, Jio has announced the launch of Jio Bharat, an entry-level,...

Tata Consultancy Services or TCS -- as we know it – has been hit by a job scam. It has fired six employees after it was found that they received favours from staffing firms to recruit temporary employees. Six staffing firms too have been banned for the alleged wrongdoing, which Chairman N Chandrasekaran described as painful. So exactly what happened at India’s top IT company? And what can be done to prevent its recurrence?  India’s IT bellwether, in the meantime, is busy giving final...

Byju’s has been in the news for a while now. Its co-founder and CEO Byju Raveendran is busy fighting battles on several fronts -- from trying to come out with its financial statement on time to winning the faith of investors and employees. The leadership claims it has understood its mistakes and is rectifying them. But is Byju’s really ready to turn a new leaf?  Clearly it will be a while before Byju’s comes out from this stormy weather. If it does at all. Meanwhile, the hills of our...

The Ministry of Finance on Wednesday extended the deadline for the implementation of a new rule that mandated 20 per cent tax collected at source on foreign remittances. The increase in the TCS rate from 5 per cent, which was set to kick in on July 1, would now be effective from October 1. More importantly, the ministry added that overseas spending using credit and debit cards as well as remittances under the liberalised remittance scheme, up to Rs 7 lakh would not attract TCS. But, how will...

The proposed merger of Air India and Vistara has flown into rough weather. It has attracted the glare of antitrust regulator CCI -- which has asked Air India to explain why this merger should not be probed. It comes mere months after Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines filed a merger application with the antitrust body in April, saying the amalgamation of the two airlines will not lead to any change in the competitive landscape of India. So in today’s first segment Bhaswar Kumar tries to find...

Go First has secured lenders’ approval for interim funding of 450 crore rupees. With this, the grounded airline -- which has filed for bankruptcy -- may come to the runway again. But will it finally take off from the runway?  Go First’s return to the sky will indeed be good news for consumers, as the aviation market is left with only two big players: Air India and Indigo. From the sky, let us shift focus to the depth of seas -- which has become a favourite destination for adventure-seeking...

After a late onset, monsoon seems to be finally making good time. It has covered almost 80% of the country -- arriving in Delhi and Mumbai at the same time. While the rains are again giving the civic bodies a tough time, the policy makers are a relieved lot. But how long will this relief last? Has monsoon solved this year’s food inflation problem?  Last weekend, when the monsoon clouds were progressing towards Delhi, neighbouring Russia was grappling with a different kind of march towards...

Byju’s juggernaut has come to a grinding halt. Just over a fortnight after it missed its interest payment on the 1.2 billion-dollar loan and took the lender to a court, its auditor has quit. Deloitte -- which was vetting Byju’s book for the last six years -- cited a long delay in its financial statement for the year ended March 31, 2022 as the reason for quitting. So in today’s first segment, Thareek Ahmed tries to answer if the country’s most valued ed-tech company will be able to revive its...

A recent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has rekindled hopes of electric vehicle maker’s entry into the Indian market. And in Musk’s own words, the Texas-based company will be in India “as soon as humanly possible”. We focus on the EV components and battery space, and try to gauge whether or not Tesla’s entry into India will give a fillip to its nascent ecosystem in these sectors. Tesla’s China sales, meanwhile, have tripled in the last three years. But...

India overtook the United Kingdom to become world’s fifth largest economy last year. And it is projected to grow at a rate of over 6% in the coming decade. So like others, Indian airlines too are racing to tap the demand from growing ranks of middle-class consumers. The country’s largest airline Indigo has inked a pact to purchase 500 planes this week. It has pipped Air India to set the new record for the biggest single-purchase agreement in history. So, what does this order mean for IndiGo...

The average daily sales of electric-two wheelers slipped into slow lane in June, as the withdrawal of subsidies and the resultant jump in prices apparently forced customers to slam brake on the electric-2 wheeler purchase. So what is the road ahead? Can electric two-wheelers survive without subsidies in India?  Indeed, the fledgling electric two-wheeler segment needs a little push from the government to take off. Its increased adoption will also help the government meet its green goals....

Cyclone Biparjoy has weakened. But not before wreaking havoc in Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan. While there was no loss of life reported, normal life has been hit hard. Biparjoy has dealt a big blow to the coastal economy. With the frequency and intensity of such cyclones increasing, what are the larger economic implications?  But the good part is that Biparjoy has given a short relief from scorching heat in parts of northern India. Moving on, JioCinema, it seems, is slowly turning up the...

After hitting sky-high levels on busy routes, airfares have reportedly come down considerably in the last few days. Thanks to government intervention, which had on June 5 asked airlines to “self-monitor” the ticket prices. The prices had skyrocketed in May after the grounding of embattled GoFirst airline. But, is that the only reason airfares shot up in recent weeks? And, does that surge point to a regulatory failure?  GoFirst too plans to take to the skies again by the end of this month....

The Centre’s production-linked incentive, or PLI scheme, which seeks to incentivise manufacturing in India by providing fiscal stimulus, seems to have run into problems. The government is reportedly planning to hold a first-of-its-kind meeting later in June, to address implementation issues being faced by producers under the scheme. Moreover, government sources have indicated that out of the 14 sectors under the scheme, the ones where progress has been sluggish may see a course correction....

Media baron Subhash Chandra’s rise wasn’t meteoric. It was slow, and carefully crafted. From being a school dropout, he went on to set up India’s first private satellite TV channel -- the Zee TV, which reportedly reaches out to 1.3 billion people. Now 72, Chandra has seen many ups and downs. But, it seems, a lot of things are stacked up against him now. Sebi has barred Chandra and his son Punit Goenka from holding the position of a director or key managerial personnel in any listed company....

Generative artificial intelligence has become the watchword across the world. Big firms in countries like the US and China have been investing billions of dollars annually in the AI space. And the generative AI fever has India’s tech start-ups in its grip too. But even with a big government push, can India catch up in the AI tech-development race?  The next few months will be both interesting and crucial, as generative AI takes shape. Moving on, the prices of petrol and diesel are still on...

The genie is out of the bottle now. And it is getting bigger. Since the benefits outweigh the risks, big corporations may not be interested in putting it back. But globally, the chorus for regulating generative artificial intelligence is getting louder by the day. Trade body NASSCOM too recently came out with a set of guidelines for regulating generative AI in India, which is now home to world’s largest population, and is quickly becoming one of the biggest consumer markets for this emerging...

Byju’s -- India’s most valued start-up -- is in the news, yet again. It has defaulted on payment of $40 million to lenders in the US, and is reportedly effecting another round of lay-offs. US-based asset manager BlackRock too has slashed its valuation by 62%. Things clearly are not looking good, but is there a way out of this debt crisis for Byju’s?  On the other hand Byju’s has introduced generative artificial intelligence in its learning modules to provide students with personalised...

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to keep the benchmark lending rates unchanged for the second consecutive meeting. While Governor Shaktikanta Das appeared bullish on growth and also lowered inflation projections marginally, he remained cautious about external factors that could affect both inflation and GDP growth going forward. So will the pause by RBI lead to a pivot?  Governor Shaktikanta Das recently acknowledged the role played by banks in supporting the...

India’s passenger vehicle segment is facing a strange situation. While big and swanky cars are zooming out of the showrooms, the smaller ones, it seems, are piling up with wholesale dealers. Inventory levels have soared to 45 days -- up from around 39 days in March. So what does it mean for the car market in India?  While small cars are struggling to hit the fast lane in terms of sales, sale of two-wheelers, meanwhile, saw a good growth of 9% in May due to the wedding season and improved...

The government came out with the National Electricity Plan last week. It says that India’s power generation capacity will touch 900 gigawatts by the end of this decade -- in line with the rising demand. But it also wants a rejig in the country’s energy mix. The plan is to cut the share of coal-based power and let renewable energy sources fill that gap. But, given that the base load might still depend on coal, is the goal too ambitious?  Unseasonal rains, meanwhile, have kept a tab on...

On June 4th, two days after a three-train crash resulted in 275 deaths and 1,175 injuries in Odisha’s Balasore district, the Ministry of Railways recommended an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the incident. A railways official also said that the Ministry of Home Affairs was already assisting the Railways in the probe and preliminary findings indicated a signalling error. While we wait for more answers, let us analyse how the Railways has performed when it comes to...

India has reopened the window for applying to its ambitious chip-making plan after the three aspirants failed to qualify for the financial incentives. And it has also tweaked the old scheme -- extending incentives for wafers of all sizes. So what forced the government to tweak its semiconductor policy? And, how can India's chip making dream be realised?  While India’s chip making plan is still waiting in the wings, its bid to become a phone exporting country has finally taken off. Driven by...