Citi Financial News

Narendra Modi in Chhattisgarh. “People have decided to root out corrupt Congress government in Chhattisgarh." On July 7, Prime Minister Narendra Modi graced the inauguration and groundbreaking ceremonies of eight projects in the capital city of Raipur, Chhattisgarh, with an estimated total value of approximately ₹7,600 crore.  The event, held at the Science College ground in Raipur, witnessed the virtual flagging off of a new train connecting Antagarh in Kanker district to Raipur.

Six new claims of harassment or sexual assault have been levelled against City hedge fund founder Crispin Odey.

B L Kashyap & Sons, one of the leading civil, engineering and construction company, expects a 24% growth in revenue to Rs1300 crore in FY25, led by commercial and government projects. The firm has secured new orders worth Rs 700 crore in the last six months, including the redevelopment of the railway in railway project at Bijwasan from the Railway land development authority, Embassy business hub phase II and Nzuri business park in Pune. “There has been robust growth in order intake during the year and a substantial jump in order book position at the end of the financial year, clearly giving strong visibility of earnings in the coming years.

Domestic firms continued to lead the absorption in April-June’2023 and H1 2023, accounting for a share of 43% and 46%, respectively, mainly led by flexible space operators, technology corporates and BFSI firms according to a report by CBRE. The report points out that office leasing increased by 12% Q-o-Q and touched 13.9 mn. sq. ft. during the April-June’23 period. Bangalore, Chennai, and Pune led the absorption in Q2 2023, accounting for about 59% of the transaction activity. During the quarter (April-June’23), technology companies witnessed an uptick in activity, accounting for 29% of the leasing, followed by flexible space operators (18%), engineering & manufacturing firms (17%) and BFSI corporates (17%). “India is expected to be amongst the world’s fastest-growing economies amidst a likely weakening of global macroeconomic conditions. We believe that the share of domestic firms in leasing would also remain strong during the year; at the same time, their greater emphasis on return to offices (RTO) is also expected to boost their operations,” said Anshuman Magazine, Chairman & CEO — India, South-East Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE. Leasing in the BFSI sector was driven by deal closures by global capability centres of BFSI corporates, Indian banks, and insurance firms. Most of these corporate are focusing on expanding their footprint.

Jaishankar has said that, unlike some other countries, India is not «an extractive economy» and it was not pursuing «narrow economic activities» in the resource-rich African continent. Jaishankar, who arrived here on Thursday after visiting Zanzibar, made these remarks while addressing the Indian community in Dar-es-Salaam city of Tanzania. «Had a lively interaction with members of the Indian community in Dar es Salaam.

India’s leading mobile payments and financial services company Paytm, which has pioneered digital payment, has continued to be in a leadership position in the segment. The company added 4 lakh new merchants in June, who have subscribed to its premium devices including Soundbox and card machines, taking the total count to 79 lakh merchants. So far till June 2023, Paytm has added 21 lakh merchants who are paying subscriptions for its devices.

₹438.35 per share on NSE on 24th November 2022. After that, Paytm shares have bounced back strongly and surged around ₹860 apiece levels, rising almost 100 per cent in the last seven months.

Sobha Ltd surged 3.5% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in early trading on Friday, buoyed by its stellar operational update for the first quarter of financial year 2024 (Q1FY24). The Bengaluru-focused company clocked its best-ever pre-sales in value-terms at Rs1,465 crore, up 28% year-on-year. However, the rise was marginal on a sequential basis.  This performance was supported by the highest-ever price realization for the company at Rs10,506 per square foot on a total saleable area of 1,394,117 square feet.

₹200 per kilogram. In Gangotri Dham, tomatoes are being sold at ₹250 per kg, while the widely used vegetable in Indian kitchens is available at ₹180 to ₹200 in Uttarkashi.  Speaking to ANI, a vegetable seller said, “Tomatoes have become dearer in the region all of a sudden. Consumers are bearing the brunt of the rising prices of tomatoes in Uttarkashi.

Lok Sabha elections. Ajit Pawar, who recently joined the BJP government as the deputy chief minister, is believed to be considering giving the Shirur Lok Sabha ticket to his son Parth. Parth Pawar had previously made an unsuccessful electoral debut in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, where he lost from the Maval constituency.

Narendra Modi will flag off two Vande Bharat Express trains in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh on Friday, increasing the number of semi-high speed trains in the country to 25. According to an official statement, the Prime Minister will flag off Gorakhpur — Lucknow Vande Bharat Express and Jodhpur — Ahmedabad (Sabarmati) Vande Bharat Express trains. «PM Narendra Modi is set to launch 2 more Vande Bharat Express from Gorakhpur, increasing the fleet to 25.

Beijing, China, says it will introduce “new digital yuan application scenarios,” and wants to take the lead in the adoption of the central bank digital currency (CBDC).

violent rhetoric’ against India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu and said free speech does not mean a license to incite violence or vandalise property. Congressmen Ro Khanna in a tweet said that act is dangerous and has no place in a democracy. He also added that free speech does not mean a license to incite violence.

Riz Ahmed will be honoured with a career achievement award at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival. The 40-year-old actor, known for his performances in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", «Nightcrawler», «Sound of Metal» and HBO miniseries «The Night Of», will be feted with the Excellence Award Davide Campari on the opening night of the festival on August 2, the organisers said in a statement. The 76th edition of the festival, which will run till August 12 at Switzerland's resort city of Locarno, will also be premiering Ahmed's new short film "Dammi", directed by Yann Mounir Demange.

The competition regulator says the proposed sale of almost two dozen petrol stations in South Australia may not be enough to settle its concerns about Viva Energy’s acquisition of the Peregrine Corporation’s OTR Group.

Rain lashed several parts of Mumbai on Thursday as an orange alert was issued in the city. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an yellow alert for the financial capital today.

Vande Bharat Express is an indigenously manufactured, semi-high-speed, self-propelled train set. The train has state-of-the-art passenger amenities, providing passengers with a faster, more comfortable, and more convenient travel experience. It was first known as Train 18 and was manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory(ICF) in Chennai.

₹22,000 crore for the initial phase of the 50 km tunnel construction project.  After the completion of this project, Bengaluru will be connected end to end with metro, flyovers, and underpasses. The officials also sought suggestions from the people via the website ‘Brand Bengaluru’.  A Public-private partner (PPP) joint partnership or Built Operate Transfer (BOT) has approved the tunnel project which will also consist of tolls to collect funds for the contractors, the report said.  Currently, 50 km of tunnel road is proposed in the first phase in Bengaluru, however, the city needs 100 km of tunnel roads to overcome the traffic issues. On multiple occasions, social media has been flooded with posts discussing the issue of traffic in Bengaluru.

₹10 lakh on his head, was shot dead outside a gurdwara in Canada last month. In a joint statement issued on Thursday, Congressmen Ro Khanna and Michael Waltz, co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, said violence against diplomatic facilities will not be tolerated. "As the co-chairs of the India Caucus, we strongly condemn the attempted arson and vandalism at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco and the posters circulating on social media with violent rhetoric aimed at Indian diplomats, including Ambassador Sandhu," they said.

Vande Bharat Express trains in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, on Friday. Additionally, the prime minister will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for various projects amounting to a total value of ₹50,000 crore during his visit. As per the itinerary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to Gorakhpur on Friday, where he will inaugurate two new Vande Bharat Express trains—the Gorakhpur-Lucknow Vande Bharat Express and the Jodhpur-Sabarmati Vande Bharat Express.

The NY Fed's New York Innovation Center worked with banks - including Citi, HSBC and Wells Fargo - as well as Swift and SETL on the PoC exploring a Regulated Liability Network (RLN), which is envisioned as an interoperable network for wholesale payments operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.The experiment was designed to see whether shared ledger technology could tackle some of the frictions - such as speed, cost, off-hours availability, and the settlement process - that traditional payment systems suffer from.A working group split into three stream looking at the business applicability, technical feasibility, and legal viability of using shared ledger technology to settle the liabilities of regulated financial institutions through the transfer of central bank money. The business workstream concluded that a global, near real-time, 24/7, dollar payment system could be delivered through the RLN concept, enhancing the processing of cross-border payments denominated in USD.