India Financial News

NEW DELHI : PepsiCo India on Tuesday announced an investment of ₹1,266 crore to build a new flavour manufacturing facility in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, aimed at expanding the company's beverage production capacity in India. The facility in Ujjain will mark PepsiCo India's second such manufacturing site in the country, intended to produce beverage flavours "In India, for India." PepsiCo currently operates a similar plant in Channo, Punjab.

A World Bank report says Asian economies are not doing as well as they could and growth in the region is forecast to slow to 4.5% this year from 5.1% in 2023

₹2,344 crore, this dynamic sector is forecasted to expand even further, soaring to ₹3,375 crore by 2026. According to a report by professional services network EY and Big Bang Social, the creator marketplace owned by talent management agency Collective Artists Network, 56% of the brands have already invested more than 2% on influencer marketing, and 70% of brands plan to keep their influencer marketing budget the same or increase it in 2024, with half planning to increase it by up to 10%.

Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) paper slips in elections. In the existing practice, only five randomly selected EVMs in each assembly segment of a Lok Sabha seat are verified through counting of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) paper slips. The Congress party hailed the notice as an “important first step" and said the matter should be decided before the Lok Sabha elections 2024 begin.

Penny stock below ₹5: Shares of Gala Global Products Ltd (GGPL) are one of the circuit-to-circuit stocks in the Indian stock market. The small-cap stock has been hitting new 52-week lows for the last few days. However, the micro-cap stock with a market cap of ₹16.81 crore is news today for a bulk deal executed on the first trade session of the new financial year 2024-25.

Hardik Pandya's social media post came amid intense booing from the Wankhede Stadium crowd, who were also warned by former Team India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar on Monday. The new MI skipper is bearing the intense load of replacing Rohit Sharma, who led Mumbai Indians to win five IPL championships. Trent Boult and Yuzvendra Chahal played a pivotal role in decimating Mumbai Indians' batting on Monday as they clinched three wickets each.

Also Read: ADIA, Kotak to invest ₹2,001 crore in Prestige Group’s four housing projects In FY24, the Nifty Realty index emerged as the top-performing sectoral index, recording a fabulous return of 132%. The majority of stocks within the index experienced significant growth over the last financial year. Among the 10 constituents of the index, six saw multibagger returns, with Sobha leading the pack with a remarkable rally of 235%.

Bhavish Aggarwal, has revealed the company's new electric scooter. Named Ola Solo, it is touted to be the world's first autonomous electric scooter. «Promised you a new product and here it is! Presenting ‘Ola Solo — India's first autonomous electric scooter.’ Solo is fully autonomous, AI-enabled, and a traffic-smart scooter. Hail a ride or drive your own Solo. We will disrupt ride-hailing and local commerce!» Bhavish said in a post on X.

Online food delivery platform Zomato said it has received a service tax demand and penalty order aggregating over Rs 184 crore, and will file an appeal against it before an appropriate authority. The demand order has been received for non-payment of service tax for the period October 2014 to June 2017 determined on the basis of certain sales made by the foreign subsidiaries and branches of the company to its customers located outside India, the company said in a late night regulatory filing. The company also mentioned that in its response to the show cause notice it had clarified on the allegations along with supporting documents and judicial precedents, «which appears to not have been appreciated by the authorities while passing the order.»

Sri Lanka's Cabinet has not discussed the Katchatheevu issue so far as it was never raised, a government spokesman said here on Tuesday, after India's ruling BJP blamed the Congress Party for ceding the tiny island to Colombo in 1974. «The Cabinet did not discuss it as it was never raised,» Bandula Gunawardena, the Cabinet spokesman and minister of information told reporters here today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday cited a media report to assert that new facts reveal that the Congress Party «callously» gave away Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka.

Eyestem, a cell therapy company at the forefront of regenerative therapy, has received approval from India’s Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) to commence human trials for Eyecyte RPE, aimed at combating geographic atrophy arising from dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Dr Jogin Desai, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Eyestem, said in a statement, “The commencement of human trials represents a significant and proud moment for all of us at Eyestem. Being a purpose-driven company, our commitment is to ensure that Eyecyte RPE reaches a much larger patient base than most cell and gene therapies worldwide. Our cell therapy platform has the ability to create products of the highest quality at scale, and we look forward to validating this hypothesis with our flagship product.” “We are delighted to be part of this pioneering effort in this area from our country. The LVP team is solidly behind this project and are optimistic about its success,” said Gullapalli N Rao, Chairman, Founder, L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad.

A Taiwanese blockchain tech firm is teaming up with journalists to fact-check the upcoming election in India in a battle against digital deception.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have acquired a lavish mansion in Los Angeles previously owned by Isha Ambani, daughter of Indian business magnate Mukesh Ambani. The mansion, situated in the affluent Beverly Hills area, was reportedly sold to Lopez and Affleck for a staggering sum of $61 million (approximately INR 494 crores).

Aam Admi Party leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj on Tuesday drew comparisons between Kejriwal's arrest and the British rule say that today the people are «scared» and it is a matter of «grave concern» for the country. The AAP leader also said that the party is «still standing» despite its top leaders, including Chief Arvind Kejriwal, being arrested. He said that the top leaders of the INDIA bloc gathered at the March 31 rally, which shocked the BJP, which, as per the AAP leader, «executed their plan» and «arrested all their big leaders.»

Tube Investments of India Ltd. rose 1.01 per cent to Rs 3761.2 in Tuesday's trade as of 12:38PM (IST) even as the benchmark Nifty ruled at 22423.25, down 38.75 points. The scrip had closed at Rs 3723.4 in the previous session. The stock quoted a 52-week low of Rs 2497.0 and a high of Rs 4120.8. The company quoted a market-cap of Rs 72732.96 crore on the BSE.

Future Consumer Ltd.(up 6.25%), Dangee Dums Ltd.(up 5.62%), Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd.(up 5.61%), JHS Svendgaard Laboratories Ltd.(up 4.72%), Jyothy Labs Ltd.(up 2.37%), Colgate-Palmolive(India)Ltd.(up 2.31%), Vadilal Industries Ltd.(up 1.79%), Hindustan Foods Ltd.(up 1.79%), Sheetal Cool Products Ltd.(up 1.76%) and Emami Ltd.(up 1.64%) were among the top gainers.

Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya continued to face booing from fans even as former skipper Rohit Sharma is yet to shine with the bat in IPL 2024. Crowd hostility persisted at Wankhede stadium on Monday towards Hardik Pandya as he stepped out for the toss in Mumbai Indians' IPL match against Rajasthan Royals, with fans booing the skipper while chants of 'Rohit… Rohit' echoed throughout stadium. The jeers continued as Pandya spoke after losing the toss, prompting presenter Sanjay Manjrekar to urge the crowd to «behave». Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma, clad in his training attire, conversed with former teammate Harbhajan Singh, who was present on the field as a commentator. Later, a video surfaced showing Rohit seemingly appealing to the crowd to cease booing his successor. However, Pandya temporarily managed to win over the crowd with his batting prowess, swiftly transforming the jeers into cheers with a flurry of boundaries during his brisk 21-ball 34. His entertaining innings lifted Mumbai Indians from a precarious 20/4 to 76/5 in the 10th over before his innings came to an end.

MEA) official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, on Tuesday clarified India's stance on renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh by China. Jaiswal called the move a senseless attempt and said that India rejects such claims. He said, «China has persisted with its senseless attempts to rename places in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. We firmly reject such attempts. Assigning invented names will not alter the reality that Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.” China had released a fourth list of 30 new names of various places in Arunachal Pradesh amid Beijing's stepped-up assertions in recent weeks to re-emphasise its claim over the Indian state. India has been rejecting China renaming places in Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that the state is an integral part of the country and assigning „invented“ names does not alter this reality.

«Top three models in the industry are from Maruti Suzuki, so very positive. We are very hopeful of the next year as well. Overall, for the industry though I think the projection for the industry is the single digit growth and we do hope that we will try to grow a little faster than the industry and hopefully it should be another good year for Maruti Suzuki,» says Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. What are your expectations from next fiscal year 2024-25? See, this year which just went by the fiscal year 2023-24 has been pretty good for the industry. First time industry crossed the four million mark. Maruti Suzuki grew faster than the industry so we added market share. So, it has ended on a really positive note.

Sanofi India Ltd.(up 1.57 per cent), Laurus Labs Ltd.(up 1.36 per cent), Natco Pharma Ltd.(up 1.22 per cent), Zydus Lifesciences Ltd.(up 0.84 per cent) and Abbott India Ltd.(up 0.45 per cent) were among the top gainers.

Indian real estate sector by institutional investors reached $1.0 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Though this indicates a decline of 40% compared to the same period in the previous year, India's real estate investments displayed an upward trend, with a 21% quarter-on-quarter increase, as reported by Colliers. Foreign investments continued to dominate, constituting 55% of the total inflows, while domestic investments also registered a significant increase of 15% year-on-year in Q1 2024. The share of domestic inflows in overall institutional investments continued to rise to 45%, compared to 24% in Q1 2023. During the last quarter, there were some notable business investments like Edelweiss Capital invested $178.8 million in MFAR Developers, a significant infusion of funds for the company.