Business News

New Delhi: Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region) received incessant rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning beginning in the early hours of Friday.On Thursday, parts of Delhi received spells of heavy rainfall, bringing much-needed respite from the sweltering heat.The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecasted the weather for the next seven days in Delhi, predicting generally cloudy skies and varying intensities of rain accompanied by gusty winds.As predicted by IMD for June 28, the forecast includes light to moderate rain or thunderstorms, with temperatures similar to the previous day and wind speeds reaching up to 35 km/h.The weather on June 29 is expected to be slightly cooler, with a high of 36°C and a low of 28°C. The city will likely experience light to moderate rain or thunderstorms with winds reaching speeds of 30-40 km/h. On June 30, temperatures will drop further to 34°C, with moderate to heavy rain and gusty winds.For July 1 and 2, the IMD forecasts thunderstorms with moderate rain, with temperatures steady at a high of 34°C and a low of 27°C. Wind speeds will continue to vary, maintaining a range of 25-35 km/h.The weather conditions are expected to cause minor traffic disruptions and increase the chance of vehicle accidents due to water accumulation on roads. Residents are advised to check for traffic congestion before leaving and avoid areas prone to waterlogging.The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday that the conditions favouring further advance of southwest monsoon into some more parts of North India are being witnessed as the heatwave conditions have abated across the country.Conditions are likely to become favourable for further advance of southwest Monsoon into some more parts of Rajasthan; remaining parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, some more parts of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chandigarh and some parts of Haryana, some more parts of Punjab, remaining parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu during next two-three days, the IMD said.

Mumbai: India Thursday tightened rules for individual stock inclusion in the derivatives segment amid an exponential volume surge and concerns about speculation, and eased norms for those seeking to delist by approving a fixed price offer as an alternative mechanism to a book-built price discovery.The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has also set up a working group under the chairmanship of former executive director of the central bank, G Padmanabhan, to look into future and options trading to enhance investor protection and improve risk metrics to develop and regulate the market, said its chief Madhabi Puri Buch after a board meeting Thursday. “The trend we are seeing in trades like concentrated weekly auctions, only on expiry day, in the last one hour, are just speculative bets,” Buch said. “These have no nature of hedging; these have no other nature other than speculation. The question is what needs to be done further from an investor protection perspective.”She said there were concerns about the flow of household savings to instruments that are essentially speculative in nature.“From a larger macroeconomic perspective, there is a large amount of money that is going from household savings into what is essentially not productive economic activity. This is speculative activity,” she said. “This is not going into any capital formation in the economy.”To be sure, the new rules pertain to individual stocks - and not indices that dominate F&O trading currently.Sebi's decision to tighten rules for inclusion of individual stocks in the F&O segment will lead to the addition and deletion of about two dozen stocks.Long Overdue“In order to ensure that there is a healthy linkage between the cash market and the F&O market, many years ago we had brought in a regulation that there will be physical delivery of open positions on expiry. That was the first step we had taken in that direction,” Buch said. “The second step is to say which stocks will be committed on the F&O basis, the criteria of how their shares trade in the cash segment… we need to adjust those parameters because they were set in 2018.”She added that the criteria needed to be revisited given the explosive growth in Indian risk assets.“So, in line with the way market value and volume have grown, we have changed those parameters of eligibility to enter the F&O stocks,” she added. The criteria for exit would apply to only those stocks that have completed at least six months from the month of entry into the derivative segment. while for existing stocks in the derivatives segment, the exit criteria on the basis of performance would be applicable three months after the date of issuance of the relevant circular, Sebi said.Limited Volume Impact“The new regulations on barriers for single stock entry may not have a significant price impact on the stocks moving out of the list as we have seen over the years. However, traders prefer stocks that are also traded in the derivatives segment to hedge their cash positions,” said Chandan Taparia, head of technical and derivatives research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.“Similarly, funds that hold the stocks which may move out may not prefer to trade them anymore, which may result in falling liquidity for these stocks.”Market participants expect stocks moving into the F&O segment to have more liquidity, although the impact may be limited as nearly the entire derivatives trade is centred around an index.The regulator has also introduced a product success framework in single stock futures and options, to ensure that the liquidity and participation witnessed in the derivatives markets are supportive of market development and investor protection.“The amount of money you need to manipulate an illiquid contract is very small. Therefore, it was imperative that the same protection that we have given on the indices side be also given to stock-specific F&O,” Buch said.Delisting ProcessesSebi said it was introducing a fixed price process as an alternative to reverse book building process for delisting of companies. The fixed price offered must be at least at a 15% premium to the floor price – and the criterion of 90% public float offer acceptance remains.The Sebi chairperson said as Indian markets mature, it is important to allow companies to go private if they wish to.“This is not Hotel California, where you can check in any time you like but you can never leave,” she said.The Sebi board also approved norms to regulate financial influencers. It said mutual funds and brokers should stop using unregulated financial influencers for marketing and advertising campaigns.“The persons regulated by the board and the agents of such persons shall not have any association, like, any transaction involving money or money's worth, referral of a client, interaction of information technology systems or any other association of similar nature or character, directly or indirectly with any person who directly or indirectly provides advice or recommendation,” Sebi said.However, financial influencers engaged in investor education would be exempt from the new restrictions.

India has surpassed Brazil and Indonesia to become the third largest domestic aviation market, according to aviation data analytics firm OAG. IndiGo and Air India, which together have over 1,000 aircraft on order, account for 9 of 10 domestic seats in India. For now, the US and China remain the top two aviation markets. About India's aviation market6.9% Annual growthrate of no. of seats indomestic sectors byIndian airlines— fastestin the world78.4% of domesticairline capacity inIndia comprises lowcost airlines, highestin any of these 5domestic markets 111323010 111323013

Exporters on Thursday sought a separate division in the Commerce and Industry Ministry to deal with non-trade barriers such as those on environment and sustainability. At a meeting with Union Minister Piyush Goyal, they also raised the issue of Chinese goods entering India through the ASEAN free trade agreement.The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), Deforestation regulation, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the US’ Inflation Reduction Act to establish green technology industries are some of the non-trade barriers that will hurt India’s exports.Discussions on making Invest India a global trade promotion organisation of the country also took place at the meeting.“The minister asked the top export sectors of electronics, gems and jewellery, engineering goods and petroleum products to increase their value addition,” said a person who participated in the meeting.Issues on container availability at hinterlands and some shipping lines bypassing India were also taken up.Mobile manufactures sought faster customs clearances to boost exports.India’s goods and services exports in FY24 were at an all-time high of $778.2 billion.

Indian airports need to review their pricing strategies and can substantially increase their profitability by garnering more non-aeronautical revenues, according to aviation consultancy firm CAPA India. India is the world's third largest domestic civil aviation market and air traffic is on the rise. Airlines are increasing their fleet, operating more routes while airports are also expanding their capacities. Airports operated on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode generate more non-aero revenues compared to those operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the consultancy said during a webinar on Thursday. Just five PPP airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Cochin -- accounted for 71 per cent of the total non-aeronautical revenue in India in FY2020, while handling 53 per cent of the total traffic, CAPA India said. Despite significant increases since privatisation, Indian PPP airports still have much more headroom to increase non-aero revenue to global levels, CAPA India said and added that airports need to review their pricing strategies. "Indian airports can enhance their profitability substantially by increasing the penetration of non-aeronautical revenue streams to move closer to the spending profile of Indian travellers," it said. Further, the consultancy said that airports need to consider whether aero charges reflect the demand on airport resources and whether there could be greater differentiation based on time of day, profile of passengers, business model and frequency operated by the airline. During the January-May 2024 period, domestic airlines carried 661.42 lakh passengers, as against 636.07 lakh passengers during the year-ago period, according to the latest official data. In her address to the joint sitting of Parliament on Thursday, President Droupadi Murmu said, "India is the world's third largest domestic aviation market," and added that in April 2014, there were only 209 airline routes, which increased to 605 by April 2024. "This increase in the aviation routes has directly benefitted Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities," she added.