Country Financial News

Premarket trading on Wall Street was mixed on what’s expected to be another quiet day between the Christmas and New Year holidays

South Korea’s top court has ordered a third Japanese company to compensate some of its former wartime Korean employees for forced labor

Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP) that has crippled all efforts to revive the sinking economy. The demand was raised by Pakistan army chief Asim Munir with the US leadership during his recent visit there.

trade deal with Australia only after the conclusion of the general elections next year as Canberra has sought access to India's agriculture market, a senior government official said Friday. «The government is reluctant to commit anything involving the agriculture sector.

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (Insacog), the network of laboratories set up to monitor genomic variations of the coronavirus in India, held a meeting on Friday to review the situation amid a spike in Covid-19 cases and decided to hold another meeting next week to understand the proportion of JN.1 and other sub-variants. «JN.1 is gradually spreading out, but the good news is that there is no increase in hospitalisation yet,» said an Insacog member who attended the meeting. JN.1, a subvariant of Omicron with mild symptoms and few hospitalisations so far, has spread more in Gujarat, Goa and Maharashtra, the person said.

In an economic review for the first half of FY24, the ministry forecast continued growth in manufacturing, upbeat sentiments in the services sector, sustained rise in consumption expenditure buoyed by resilient urban and catching-up rural demand, and much-improved current account balance. It also expected a further moderation in headline retail inflation despite «temporary disruptions» caused by volatile food prices. Retail inflation hit a three-month high of 5.55% in November, driven partly by dearer vegetables and base effect, but remained within the central bank's 2-6% target. The review also flagged downside risks to growth arising from «smouldering inflationary pressures in advanced countries» and supply-chain disruptions re-emerging from persistent geopolitical stress.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday became the national president of the JD(U) before the crucial Lok Sabha polls. The decision was taken at the national executive meeting of the JDU in Delhi. During the meeting, JDU president Lalan Singh, citing his engagements over upcoming Lok Sabha elections, offered to step down as party president and proposed the name of Nitish Kumar.

ULFA) on Friday signed a peace agreement with the Centre and the Assam government and agreed to surrender weapons, shun violence, disband the organisation and join the democratic process. Union home minister Amit Shah, who was present along with Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the signing of the accord here, said it was a big day for the people of Assam.

customs departments of India and Hong Kong have jointly busted a money-laundering network, where foreign currency was remitted out of India against import of cheap synthetic diamonds, the finance ministry said on Friday. The racket involved Indian traders who were importing synthetic diamonds from Hong Kong by wrongly declaring them as real ones, it said. The two authorities have arrested four people each. "Indian customs and Hong Kong customs have unearthed a major case of trade-based money laundering involving Hong Kong-based exporters and Indian importers located in (a) special economic zone in an exemplary case of bilateral cooperation and exchange of information," a finance ministry statement said. Earlier this year, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) detected a case where cheap synthetic diamonds were imported into India by overvaluing them more than 100 times, to remit foreign currency out of India.

HBO has been known to be starting every New Year on a strong note. While season 2 of The Righteous Gemstones and Euphoria premiered in 2022, the blockbuster The Last of Us was released in 2023. In January 2024, True Detective: Night Country is going to premiere. The anthology series which is a hit, is bringing its fourth season four years after Season 3’s premiere. It has Kali Reis, a professional boxer, and Jodie Foster, an Academy Award winner playing the central detectives in this season.

MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia's economy contracted by 1.2% last year, less than the 2.1% decline previously estimated, the state statistics service Rosstat said on Friday.

passengers from Gujarat who were on the Nicaragua-bound flight which was sent back mid-route from France have been quizzed by police in a bid to unearth a suspected illegal immigration network operating from the state, a senior official said on Friday. The Nicaragua-bound aircraft, an Airbus A340 carrying 276 passengers, was grounded in France for four days over suspected human trafficking. It landed in Mumbai in the early hours of December 26.

Covid-19 cases, according to Union Health Ministry data. As per official data, six deaths have been reported in the country in the last 24 hours - two in Maharashtra, and one each in Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, and West Bengal. Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Former DG, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has warned that the JN.1 Covid-19 variant is more transmissible, and infectious, as compared to other variants.

Canada’s largest bank says the country’s mortgage market will not change significantly in the wake of its acquisition of HSBC Holdings Plc.’s operations here, but industry watchers aren’t as sure.

(Bloomberg) — Membership of the BRICS group of emerging-market nations is set to double, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt to join its ranks on Jan. 1, South Africa’s envoy to the bloc said. 

Retail inflation for industrial workers increased marginally to 4.98 per cent in November compared to 4.45 per cent in October this year, mainly due to higher prices of certain food items. Food inflation stood at 7.95 per cent against 6.27 per cent in the previous month (October 2023) and 4.30 per cent during the corresponding month (November 2022) a year ago, a labour ministry statement said.

India's exports to Australia have increased by 14 per cent to USD 5.8 billion in April-November this fiscal on account of healthy growth in various sectors like engineering, pharma and electronics, a senior official said on Friday. Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal said businesses of India and Australia are gaining from the interim free trade agreement, implemented on December 29 last year. He also said negotiations to widen the existing trade agreement into a comprehensive deal are «progressing well».

Air India Express on Friday said it will start direct flights connecting Ayodhya with Bengaluru and Kolkata from January 17. Earlier this month, the airline announced direct flight between Ayodhya and Delhi.

Also Read: India's April-November fiscal deficit at ₹9.06 lakh crore, exceeds 50% of full year budget estimates In October 2021, the forex kitty had reached an all-time high of $645 billion. At over $620 billion, the reserves are just $25 billion off the peak. The reserves took a hit as the central bank deployed the kitty to defend the rupee amid pressures caused majorly by global developments since last year.

NEW DELHI : Toyota Kirloskar Motor, the Indian subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp, advocates for boosting demand for electric powertrains in India by promoting the adoption of hybrid vehicles alongside electric vehicles (EVs). The automaker believes that by fostering demand for both hybrid EVs (HEVs) and battery EVs (BEVs) India can achieve the scale to develop a competitive local production of electrified technologies, a top company official told Mint on Friday.

NEW DELHI : Output of eight core infrastructure sectors expanded 7.8% in November, but the growth was the slowest since June 2023, official data showed on Friday. This represents a decrease from the 12% expansion seen in October and is down from the 5.7% growth recorded in November last year. Coal and refinery products saw double-digit increases, while cement and crude oil production declined.