El Niño News

automobile and electronic companies said sales recovery of mass and entry-level products may get pushed by up to 3-4 months from the earlier expectation of a sales spike during the festive season due to scanty rainfall in August, reports of continued scarcity in September leading to a weak overall monsoon, and inflation remaining higher than what was initially expected. Companies reported sales during Onam — which heralds the festive season in India – was skewed towards premium and high-mid range with mass product sales failing to pick up. To be fair, most companies grew sales by up to 20% in this year Onam over last year, but sales of entry level products remained largely flat, industry executives said. Electronic company Haier India president Satish NS said the scarcity of rainfall will have an impact on rural economy with food inflation not coming down as expected.

NEW DELHI : The El Nino phenomenon that developed in July has remained weak, but has affected rainfall in August due to changes in atmospheric conditions, India Meteorological Department (IMD) director-general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said, adding it will turn moderate in September and remain strong till December. Mohapatra said below-normal rainfall is expected in the rest of August as well. In a wide-ranging interview, the IMD chief spoke of rainfall distribution and deficiency, forecast errors and extreme weather events.

India is poised for its lowest monsoon rains in eight years, with the El Nino weather pattern seen crimping September precipitation after an August that is on track to be the driest in more than a century, two weather department officials told Reuters on Monday. The monsoon, vital for India's $3 trillion economy, delivers nearly 70% of the rain the country needs to water crops and refill reservoirs and aquifers. Nearly half of the farmland in the world's most populous nation lacks irrigation. The summer rainfall deficit could make essentials such as sugar, pulses, rice and vegetables more expensive and lift overall food inflation, which jumped in July to the highest since January 2020. Lower production could also force India, the world's second biggest producer of rice, wheat, and sugar, to impose more curbs on exports of these commodities. «El Nino dampened rainfall in August, and it will also have a negative impact on September rainfall,» said a senior official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

climate change is reaching its limit. For six of the past seven years, the tropical Pacific Ocean has been close to or cooler than normal and has been absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere, according to Michael McPhaden, senior scientist at the NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. Now with a strong El Niño pattern underway in the Pacific, that excess heat is being released to the atmosphere where it is affecting ocean circulation patterns and contributing to the spate of marine heat waves in different parts of the globe, McPhaden said.

AFTER YEARS of praying for more rain, Californians unexpectedly found themselves wishing for less this week, when tropical storm Hilary blew in from Mexico on August 21st. Rainfall records were smashed in Los Angeles and San Diego. Death Valley, farther inland, was deluged with as much rain in a day as it normally receives in a year.

RBI) released the minutes of its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, in which the central bank's Deputy Governor Dr Michael Debabrata Patra highlighted that India faces the onslaught of overlapping localised supply shocks, which are causing price-sensitive food items in the consumer price index (CPI) to spike and push up headline inflation. ‘’The elephant in India is the monsoon, with August shortfalls rendering the outlook uncertain in the shadow of El Niño effects even as Indian Ocean dipole conditions are turning positive,'' said the MPC member in the latest MPC minutes released on Thursday.

«Nifty in the meantime is expected to remain in a narrow range with some stock-specific action in the broader market,» said Siddhartha Khemka, Head — Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Here's breaking down the pre-market actions:STATE OF THE MARKETS

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said monetary policy committee (MPC) will closely monitor the first round impact of food prices, the minutes of the MPC's August meeting showed on Thursday. “Our task (of containing inflation) is still not over.

Ashima Goyal, Jayanth R Varma and Rajiv Ranjan voted for status quo on the policy rate. Going forward, the spike in vegetable prices, led by tomatoes, would exert sizeable upside pressures on the near-term headline inflation trajectory. This jump is, however, likely to correct with fresh market arrivals.

Reserve Bank of India stressed the need to monitor the situation closely given the risk of El Nino and uneven rainfall. «While the vegetable price shocks are expected to correct quickly with the arrival of fresh crops, there are risks to the food and the overall inflation outlook from El Nino conditions, volatile global food prices and skewed monsoon distribution — all of which warrant close monitoring,» said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das during the recent meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee. The MPC, which has three members from the central bank and a similar number of external members, met between August 8-10, and held the benchmark repurchase rate (repo) at 6.50 per cent in a unanimous decision. (More to come)

NEW DELHI : Amid rising demand, the Union ministry of power on Wednesday directed imported coal-based (ICB) power plants to operate at full capacity till the end of October.The original directive on this was issued in February when ICB plants were asked to run at full capacity till 15 June. This was extended till September.

New Delhi: The power ministry has directed imported coal-based power plants to operate at full capacity till 31 October, due to rising power demand. This directive was issued in February of this year, with an initial deadline of 15 June, which was later extended until September. This extension comes against the backdrop of the peak power demand in the country hitting fresh record highs this month.

FMCG) companies during Q1 have highlighted continued signs of rural recovery, boosting volume growth, according to domestic brokerage Axis Securities, following the April-June (Q1FY24) earnings season. Companies have indicated that volume growth is anticipated to pick up gradually, the brokerage added, even though a full recovery in rural areas would take a few more months. Due to the stability of the pricing of essential raw materials such as palm, packaging, and petroleum, most companies have shown sequential improvement in their gross margins.

₹60 a kg. Despite her best efforts at setting up Fair Price Shops, and quashing rumours about the scarcity of onions, there was no coming back for her as Delhi's CM. Stable food prices are crucial for PM Modi, who will seek a third five-year term in national elections next year.

NEW DELHI : Rainfall is expected to make a marginal recovery this week, but it may not be enough to offset August’s 40% deficit in regional rains, private weather forecaster Skymet said. Barring Northwest India, the remaining three regions are facing rainfall deficiency as El Nino gathers strength and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) climate pattern index remains neutral. Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) is seen to contribute to El Nino as it gains strength in the coming weeks.

Countries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth

Insurance giant IAG has warned premiums will keep rising, blaming inflationary pressures and the cost of protecting itself from large disasters.

NEW DELHI : Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, key diplomatic partners of India, have appealed to New Delhi to resume rice exports to their nations following India’s decision to suspend non-basmati shipments to check prices. Singapore has requested around 110,000 tonnes of rice from India. In June, Indonesia announced plans to import 1 million tonnes (mt) of rice from India to protect against disruptions caused by the El Nino weather pattern.

Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) touched ₹7.14 per kilowatt hour (kWh or unit) up from ₹6.04 per unit from last week. Prices, intermittently, have been hitting the ₹10 per unit price cap. A.

long period average (LPA), rainfall has gone down to 6% below LPA in the last two weeks of August in India. While soil moisture and reservoir levels have risen during July and sowing is almost over, agricultural experts are concerned about the yield of some crops such as pulses and spices in case a prolonged dry spell adds to inflationary pressures.

RBI). The August 2023 bulletin was published by the central bank on Thursday. The unprecedented shock to tomato prices spread to the pricing of other vegetables, according to the RBI, which caused the increase in inflation from its June reading to change in July.