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sugar output this crop year, hit by weak rains, is set to lag consumption for the first time in seven years, according to traders and a survey of farmers, and lower plantings may even force the world's No.2 producer to import in the following year. Driven by falling yields in two key producing states, Maharashtra and Karnataka, the sluggish outlook for the crop year that began in October reinforces expectations India will ban sugar exports in 2024. Sugar output could be even lower in the next crop year, which runs to September 2025. Low reservoir levels in Maharashtra and Karnataka, which together produce nearly half of India's sugar, are prompting many farmers to plant crops that need less water and mature faster than cane, such as sorghum and chickpeas, Reuters found in a survey of over 200 farmers. Reuters' calculations based on the survey showed output could fall this crop year and next, in line with traders' internal forecasts. Consumption is expected to rise over the same period. While the survey covers a small sample of farmers in key areas, it shows growing pressures that could force India, which supplies 12% of globally traded sugar, to become a net importer from as early as the first half of 2025, industry insiders told Reuters, in what would be a major reversal. The prospect of this year's crop falling short of forecasts and India being forced to import sugar for the first time since 2017 threatens to drive up global prices, which already hit multi-year highs last month.

Investing.com-- The Japanese yen fell sharply on Tuesday after the Bank of Japan maintained its ultra-dovish stance and offered no cues on a planned pivot, while broader Asian currencies were muted as a post-Federal Reserve rally cooled. 

Federal Reserve could move. While a few Fed officials have pushed back against surging market expectations of rate cuts, markets are still pricing in about a 69% chance of a Fed rate cut in March, according to the CME FedWatch tool, Reuters reported.

Kapture CX, a customer support platform for enterprises, has raised $4 million from India Alternatives, a private equity fund. The Bengaluru-based startup has been expanding on-ground operations in five countries: the US, the UAE, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and India.

Dunki Advance Booking: Shah Rukh Khan’s next movie Dunki, directed by Rajkumar Hirani, has witnessed a spectacular start with its advance bookings. For Day 1, it has signalled a strong performance at the Indian Box Office. The movie will be released on December 21.

Brazil’s lower house has approved a major reform of the nation’s notoriously complicated tax system

Federal drug officials are warning Georgia to shelve its plans to be the first state to allow pharmacies to dispense medical marijuana

The attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels have scared off some of the world’s top shipping companies and oil giants

A pair of rare Nike sneakers donated to an Oregon homeless shelter in Portland sold for nearly $51,000 at auction on Monday

Marvel had more riding on Jonathan Majors than perhaps any other actor

NBCC (India) Ltd is targeting to reach Rs 25,000 crore revenue in the next five years from Rs 11,000 crore in the current financial year, KP Mahadevaswamy, CMD, NBCC told ET. The company also aims to increase annual profit to Rs 5,000 crore in five years from Rs 400 crore currently by focusing on real estate development and redeveloping land that are not utilised by other PSUs. “Covid impacted the overall performance of NBCC but we are back on track and have a healthy pipeline of projects. We have an order book of Rs 55,000 crore and we plan to take orders worth Rs 15,000-20,000 crore every year.

Abhishek Basumallick, Founder & Chief Equity Advisor, Intelsense Capital, says: “In pure valuation terms, all the stocks or all businesses where you have earnings visibility have run up a lot. Valuations are not cheap by any means but even within that, we need to focus on quality businesses. This dialogue of whether we will have a largecap rally or a midcap rally or whatever cap rally – we need to take that out of our minds. Focus on good businesses irrespective of whether they are large cap, midcap, small cap.” Ching's Secret is an amazing brand. We all have tasted it sometimes. If it actually goes Tata Consumer's way, do you think it will really be an important addition because this category clearly is showing a lot of promise here in India? Whether the Ching's Secret deal materialises or not, if you look at what is happening with the Tata group after Chandra has taken over, is there a very specific focus on some of these large businesses that they have and consumer is one of them? There is a continuous process of coming out with new products, expanding the market, distribution etc. So Ching's Secret would actually be a good addition, I mean the products are excellent.

The South Korean city of Busan is edging closer to the launch of a long-awaited blockchain-powered digital assets trading platform, and has named a preferred bidder.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) — Mexican poultry farmers warned of consequences to international trade on Monday and called on their government to intervene after the U.S. closed two rail bridges in Texas to stem a surge in migration.

Joe Biden, warning that European technology regulations are unfairly targeting US companies and not including many Chinese or EU firms, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Monday. Under the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), five major US tech companies — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft — were designated «gatekeeper» service providers. From March 2024, these companies — as well as TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance — will be required to make their messaging apps work with rivals and let users choose which ones they want pre-installed on their devices.

Nitish Mittersain, Founder, Nazara Technologies, says “recent announcements around GST, etc, have brought more clarity which is why we are actively looking at investments, M&A in the real money online gaming space. Nazara looks at investment opportunities in a variety of gaming spaces, including game studios, core gaming IP, e-sports, edtech, and the online real money gaming space is one more sector that we are actively looking at now.” As per media reports, if you see, Nazara is currently focussing on finding opportunities in the RMG space that are on a path to profitability and available at a fair valuation. Can you clarify the same and any such opportunities that you are looking at? The online real money gaming space today contributes to less than 5% of our revenues, about 4% of our revenues, and a negligible contribution to our EBITDA. Nazara has always been cautiously optimistic in this space. We have been waiting for more clarity on taxation, GST, etc, how it is applicable to the space before we kind of scale up our investments and business in this space. Recent announcements around GST, etc, have brought more clarity which is why we are actively looking at investments, M&A in this space. Nazara looks at investment opportunities in a variety of gaming spaces, including game studios, core gaming IP, e-sports, edtech, and the online real money gaming space is one more sector that we are actively looking at now.

Sailesh Raj Bhan, CIO, Nippon India Mutual Fund, says today with growth being back, PSU banks have the capital and capacity to lend which is not available or it is very tough to find in other pockets of the market, This is one space where valuations still are way reasonable. Most of them are one-time books and their ROEs have all started to improve and are now materially higher. So, some level of re-rating in this category does seem probable and certainly a better risk reward space within the available options today.” There was a time when PSU banks were bailed out. The government had to infuse capital because they were on the verge of an existential crisis. BOI has raised money via QIP route and J&K Bank has hit the market. So, the cycle has turned for PSU banks and these stocks are still trading way below their private sector counterparts. Do you think for PSU banks what started as a spark could ultimately be a very good rally for 2024 and beyond also? In public sector banks, the growth is still not there and it is likely to come in the next two or three years because the whole investment lending which will likely to happen and that growth is certainly going to be rewarded by markets because earlier the bigger issue was the banks have constraint for capital and we are not growing and hence any level of valuation was unjustified in the context of the market.

₹5.5 crore net in India. With this, the film has crossed the ₹500 mark in India collection, Sacnilk.com report shows the film has collected a total of ₹517.94 crore in India net. It also showed that the film saw an overall 12.18 percent occupancy in the Hindi language and 17.96 percent in the Telugu language.

State Bank of India, the country's largest lender with nearly a fifth of the market share, has been a pivoting star, with its fortunes turning around in the past few years and rewarding investors who kept the faith. From a bleak position of reporting losses, the state-run bank made giant strides to report a net profit of ₹50,232 crore for FY23 under chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara.

NEW DELHI : The fourteenth round of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations between India and the UK will start in January 2024, the ministry of commerce and industry said in an official statement on Monday. According to the government, India-UK free trade agreement talks completed 13 rounds of negotiations that took place from 18 September to 15 December. Negotiators of both the parties – India and UK – discussed complex issues, including goods, services, and investment, in person as well as virtually.

By Martin Coulter