1. Finance Ministry Extends Sept GST Returns Deadline To 25 Oct
The Finance Ministry has extended the deadline for filing summary sales return GSTR-3B for the month of September by five days to 25 October.
With this extension, businesses which wish to claim the input tax credit benefit for the July 2017-March 2018 period can do so till 25 October.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, under the Finance Ministry, said trade and industry had expressed apprehension relating to October 20 due date for claiming ITC under GST for July 2017-March 2018.
The GSTR-3B of a particular month has to be filed by the 20th day of the subsequent month. The deadline for September return filing was 20 October.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
2. RBI Pause on Interest Rate Hike May Last Only till December
Policy watchers surprised by the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to hold rates in October against a widely expected hike are fairly certain that this interlude will be over as soon as December.
They are probably right.
The minutes of the October policy meet show that RBI’s monetary policy committee members did not tone down their hawkishness or reduce their vigil on inflation when they had recommended a pause.
In fact, long-standing hawk and RBI executive director Michael Patra said monetary policy needs to be on “high alert” on inflation. He merely felt that the need to raise rates was less because the past two rate hikes still haven’t reached all corners of the Indian economy.
(Source: Livemint)
3. Telcos Teaming up to Give You ‘Relay Wi-Fi’ Cover
Telecom operators, including Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Reliance Jio and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, are setting up an interoperable Wi-Fi network across the country.
This will allow users to hop from one Wi-Fi network to another seamlessly, irrespective of who their mobile operator is.
For example, an Airtel user can walk into a Wi-Fi zone operated by Vodafone-Idea and continue browsing the internet without having to sign in to the new network each time.
The telcos have done trials across several hotspots to work out a model to settle bills at the back-end. An official announcement of the platform may be made this week, according to sources in the Department of Telecom.
(Source: The Hindu Business Line)
4. Permanent AYUSH Representative on WHO Now: Shripad Naik
AYUSH Ministry will now have a permanent representative on the World Health Organisation (WHO), Union Minister of State Shripad Naik said on Sunday, 21 October.
He also informed that the institutes of Yoga and Naturopathy will come up in various parts of the country.
“Earlier, we had no representation in WHO despite having a post. Now, AYUSH has a permanent representative at the WHO. We have entered into MoU with 12 countries in WHO on faculty teaching, research and student exchange programme,” said the minister on the sidelines of an event.
(Source: The Financial Express)
5. FPIs Pull Out Over $4 Billion In 3 Weeks Of Oct
Foreign investors have pulled out close to Rs 32,000 crore from the Indian capital markets in the first three weeks of this month due to the ongoing global trade fight, rising crude prices and higher US treasury yields.
This is much higher than the over Rs 21,000 crore net outflow seen in all of September. Prior to that, overseas investors had put in a net amount of Rs 7,400 crore in the capital markets (both equity and debt) in July-August.
According to the latest depository data, foreign portfolio investors sold equities to the tune of Rs 19,810 crore during October 1-19 and bonds worth Rs 12,167 crore.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
6. NBFC Liquidity Crisis Set to Worsen Real Estate Sector Woes
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data released last week showed that housing as an asset class is not doing too well. For the April-June quarter (Q2 2018), the average pan-India housing price grew at 5.3 percent year-on-year (y-o-y), compared to 8.7 percent in the year-ago period, and 6.7 percent in Q1 2018.
Does this imply slower demand expansion when compared to supply, leading to prices cooling off?
One would have thought that the gradual improvement in new launches seen in the June quarter, after a 12-month lull, would have translated into higher demand, too. But sales have continued to be tepid except for an increase in the affordable housing segment.
(Source: Livemint)
7. India to Establish a Technology Demo Centre in Tanzania
India will set up a Technology Demonstration Centre (TDC) in the United Republic of Tanzania with the intent to promote relevant technologies.
To facilitate this, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed recently between the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) and the Tanzania Industrial Research and Development Corporation (TIRDO).
The event took place in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam during the Ninth session of India- Tanzania Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) - 2018 early this week which was chaired by External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj.
Under this MoU, NRDC, an enterprise under the Ministry of Science and Technology will set up the TDC to exhibit, demonstrate the functioning of technologies and machines which are typically suitable for Tanzania, says H Purushotham, Chairman and Managing Director.
(Source: The Hindu Business Line)
8. India Leads UK’s Scotch Whisky Exports Boom
Britain’s Scotch whisky exports increased in the first half of 2018 to GBP 1.97 billion, a 10.8 per cent rise in the value of exports against the same period last year, with a surge in demand from India leading the upward trend.
According to an analysis of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data published by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) this week, exports to India increased by 44.4 per cent to over GBP 56 million followed by China, which was up by 34.8 percent to GBP 36.3 million.
The customs figures also show the volume of exports of the exclusive drink from Scotland increased by 5.6 percent to almost 558 million bottles.
(Source: The Financial Express)
9. Nifty Resumes Decline As Mixed Start To Earnings Fail To Lift Sentiment
Indian equity benchmarks resumed their decline after a breather in the previous week as earnings reported by Indian companies failed to lift investor sentiment.
The S&P BSE Sensex declined 1.2 percent to 34,316 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index dropped 1.6 percent to 10,304.
“Earnings are in line with estimates, but expensive valuations aren’t justifying the multiples,” AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital, told BloombergQuint over the phone.
Currently, we’re going through a bear phase wherein a small miss by companies, as in the case of Reliance Industries Ltd. and Mindtree Ltd., are badly punished. Risk-off trading is on as investors are taking money out of markets and the Nifty is headed towards 9,900 by Diwali, Prabhakar said.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
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