It is not getting any better for companies’ looking to control their cost of funds. The central bank, Reserve Bank of India, has taken an aggressive stance by hiking key policy tools — the repo rate and the cash reserve ratio (CRR) today. While the street expectations was that RBI would hike the rates by [...]

The fallout of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s victory in the recent trust vote is positive for the economic reforms agenda. Although one cannot expect big ticket reforms since the elections are round the corner, it’s likely some of the policy measures (which will not antagonise voters in a big way) may see the light of [...]

Setting alarm bells ringing, India’s inflation has shot into a 13-year high of 11.05 per cent last week. The primary reason could be the recent 10 per cent hike in oil prices in the country, which has increased the logistics costs and in turn the prices of essential commodities. The event is for sure will [...]

India’s central bank has reportedly raised concerns on three investment proposals of the State Bank of India (SBI) relating to its exposure in private equity companies, two of which are funds related to real estate, reported the Economic Times on Monday.
The report said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor Shyamala Gopinath, who is [...]

It’s good news for the foreign institutional investors, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) who are looking for an India exposure. Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), India’s capital market regulator, has amended FII regulations of 1995 to widen the definition of FIIs (see the 16-page amendement in PDF). It has allowed non-resident Indians [...]

It’s good news for Chartered Accountants, and also for publications like ours. CAs have been finally allowed to advertise their services after a council meeting of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the apex body of CAs in India, decided in favour of the move, according to a report in Mint. CAs can now [...]

Even though India’s foreign exchange reserves are brimming with $300 billion in cash, the government has ruled out setting up a sovereign wealth fund. Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in the Rajya Sabha that “there is no such proposal under consideration of the government at present.”
The Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry, in its [...]

Microcredit is back to the fore again with the central government writing off Rs 60,000 crore that the farmers owe to the banks. There is a problem at hand for the policy makers. It still has not found a permanent solution to the mounting debt burden of the rural poor. Is a write-off every pre-election [...]

Private equity and overseas venture capital investments into India may have to confirm to the sector specific Foreign Direct Investment caps while investing in India. The central bank RBI has put a draft paper for public comments for reporting FDI, which could include PE/VC investors under the definition of foreign direct investment (FDI). This move [...]

Sub prime crisis continues to take its toll, and this international development will have wider global ramifications. Carlyle Capital, an affiliate of private equity firm Carlyle Group, is in default of about $16.6 billion of debt, and its lenders are likely to take possession of its remaining assets after unsuccessful negotiations to prevent its liquidation. [...]

Business houses may not be able to launch venture capital funds in India if an informal group within the capital market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has its way. According to The Economic Times, SEBI is mulling a regulation where only “professionals” will be allowed to register as a venture capital fund with [...]

Capital market regulator SEBI has taken a series of new steps - which included reducing the time gap between the opening of an issue and its listing, reducing fee for registration of venture capital funds, and reducing fee for a host of things like filling public issues, share buy back and mutual funds. The fee [...]

Richard Branson of Virgin Mobile can smile. Close on the heels of announcement of his tieup with the Tata Group for mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business, the government has responded positively for the foreign participation in the sector. The telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura told reporters on the sidelines of a conference [...]

As the commodity trading gets mainstream, the government sees an opportunity to tax them. The budget has introduced commodity transaction tax for futures. This is something like securities transaction tax introduced on stock trading a couple of years ago. Besides this, the government has also brought the commodity bourses like NCDEX, MCX and NMCEIL under [...]

There is some good news for personal income tax payers in the lower end of the bracket. The tax exemption has hiked from Rs 1,10,000 to Rs 1,50,000. And for women, the tax exemption has hiked to Rs 180,000, while for senior citizens, it has been hiked to 225,000. That leaves more money in the [...]