Business News at 10:00 am on 27th February, 2024

Let’s begin, The Securities and Exchange Board of India has accused Zee chairman emeritus Subhash Chandra of “not cooperating” with investigators in the alleged fund diversion case being probed by the markets regulator. The submission was made on Monday during a hearing at the Securities Appellate Tribunal, where Chandra, who is also the chairman of the Essel Group, has filed an appeal against the August 14, 2023, confirmatory order that barred him and his son Punit Goenka from holding directorships in Zee group companies. While the tribunal had granted relief to Goenka, the managing director and chief executive officer of Zee, in the matter on October 30, 2023, Chandra’s appeal is being heard now.

Moving on – Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Monday said that his Cabinet colleagues and Rajya Sabha MPs Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, but the constituencies from where they would seek votes are yet to be decided. “More or less, it is certain that both will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. But from where they will contest, Karnataka or other states, is yet to be decided,” the Union minister of parliamentary affairs, coal and mines told reporters at Hubballi. There were rumours that one among FM Sitharaman and external affairs minister Jaishankar would contest from a constituency in Karnataka’s coastal districts, and the other from one of the three constituencies in Bengaluru.

Up next – India on Monday warned that the attempts by the developed world to include “non-trade issues” in the agenda of the World Trade Organization could lead to “fragmentation” of the multilateral trading system. In the second session on trade and inclusion at the world body’s 13th ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said: “Bringing issues like gender and MSMEs in the realm of WTO discussions was not practical because these issues were being discussed in other relevant international organisations already.” He said in the name of non-trade issues, several developed countries were already considering adopting trade-distortive subsidies and had erected non-trade barriers. He also expressed concerns about such “unilateralism” and its negative spillover effects.
“Moving ahead – With nine successful rounds of coal blocks auction where 120 mines have been handed over to the private bidders for commercial mining since 2020, the government might come up with one more round of auction, before stoping the process. The government feels there may not remain any more appetite for coal blocks in the country after the tenth round, an official told FE. The coal ministry further projects coal production capacity from the captive-cum-commercial mines reaching 700 million tonnes. Combined with the target of 1 billion tonne output by Coal India by FY26, the cumulative coal output capacity of the country is close to 2 billion tonnes, the source said.

In other news – Even as telecom operators in the country have been testing the open radio access network technology for some years now, they have flagged factors like higher cost, issues in performance, and no clarity over service support, among key reasons that are restricting the commercial deployment of technology. This assumes significance in the sense that open RAN technology which was expected to reduce the cost for network deployment by about 30% for telcos, instead has shown an over two times increase in the cost compared to current traditional RAN solutions, executives said. Notably, Open RAN is a new way of connecting mobile devices to the core network.

Meanwhile – Amid concerns over wheat stocks plummeting to a seven-year-low, the government expects the current rabi crop to be robust, while harvesting of winter crops – chana and mustard –have already commenced in several states. Traders and officials said that prices of chana, a vital pulses variety, are expected to rule above minimum support price because of lower sown area in the current season. Farmers fear that mustard prices are expected to rule below MSP because of cheaper imports of edible oils. The harvesting of wheat would commence in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the next couple of days while arrivals of crops in mandis would begin end of next month in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Lastly, GIFT Nifty indicated that Indian equity indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 may see a positive opening on Tuesday. Stocks in Focus: GIFT Nifty traded higher as the index was up 92.50 points or 0.42% at 22,183.50 indicating a positive start for domestic indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex on Tuesday. Previously, on Monday, the NSE Nifty 50 lost 90.65 points or 0.41% to settle at 22,122.05, while the BSE Sensex closed 352.67 points. The key stocks to watch in trade are Reliance, One97 Communication, NTPC, Alkem Laboratories, SVJN, L&T, Religare Enterprises, Gensol Engineering, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India, and Oil Companies among others.