Issue: 976
ECONOMY & FINANCE
Trump's 25% tariffs to hit Indian goods after Oct 5; $20 billion
at risk, $30 billion temporarily spared: The US on July 31 released an
executive order on modifications to reciprocal tariffs, formalising a
25-percent duty on Indian goods over and above the Most Favoured Nation (MFN)
rates. Although these higher rates
for Indian goods are effective from August 1, as per the order, they will not
be applicable for those shipments already in transit before August 7 and are
scheduled to arrive by October 5. This means that most of the Indian goods
which are in transit can continue paying duties at the earlier rates of
10-percent, and will face Trump's 25-percent after October 5. The
executive order mentions that tariffs may be reduced once countries conclude a
deal with the US. India and US continue to negotiate the terms of a Bilateral
Trade Agreement (BTA), which is aimed to be concluded by Fall of this year.
(Moneycontrol)
US job growth slumps amid
Trump’s tariff turbulence: US hiring is slowing sharply
as President Donald Trump's erratic and radical trade policies paralyse
businesses and raise doubts about the outlook for the world's largest economy.
US employers added just 73,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported
Friday, well short of the 115,000 expected. Worse, revisions shaved a stunning
258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. And the unemployment rate ticked higher
to 4.2% as Americans dropped out of the labour force and the ranks of the
unemployed rose by 221,000.
(Business Line)
Federal Reserve Governor
Kugler resigns, giving Trump key vacancy to fill: The Federal Reserve announced
Friday that governor Adriana Kugler will step down next week, opening up a spot
on the central bank's powerful board that President Donald Trump will be able
to fill. Kugler, who did not participate in the Fed's policy meeting earlier
this week, would have completed her term in January. Instead, she will retire
August 8. She did not provide a reason for stepping down in her resignation
letter. Trump has continued his
attacks on the Fed since chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the central
bank would keep its short-term interest rate unchanged.
(Business Line)
India's manufacturing PMI
hits 16-month high at 59.1 in July on high demand: India’s manufacturing sector
grew sharply in July, with the HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’
Index (PMI) climbing to a 16-month high of 59.1, up from 58.4 in June,
according to data released by S&P Global on Friday. The improvement was
driven by strong gains in new orders and output, though business sentiment and
hiring momentum showed signs of weakness.
(Business Line)
BANKING & FINANCE
Quant Mutual Fund launches India’s first Long-Short Fund under
SEBI’s SIF category: Quant Mutual
Fund has received regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of
India (SEBI) to launch the country’s first long-short equity mutual fund under
the Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) category. The fund, named Quant SIF
(QSIF), marks a significant milestone in the evolution of India’s asset
management landscape, introducing complex, hedge-fund-like strategies to the
mutual fund ecosystem. The launch comes after SEBI rolled out the SIF
framework on April 1, 2025, aiming to bridge the gap between traditional mutual
funds and Portfolio Management Services (PMS). Unlike standard mutual funds,
which primarily take long-only equity positions, the QSIF will allow fund
managers to go long on stocks they expect to rise and short those likely to
fall—a strategy typically reserved for more seasoned and high-risk investment
platforms.
(Business Today)
NSE pays ?40.35 crore to settle data-leak case with SEBI: The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has agreed to pay ?40.35 crore to settle charges of indirectly sharing sensitive, unpublished information with external parties with SEBI. The settlement, by neither “admitting nor denying the findings of facts and conclusions of law,” could help the country’s largest stock exchange move closer to reviving its long-pending IPO plans. The case involves the sharing of confidential company announcements before they were made public. SEBI found that between February 2021 and March 2022, NSE allowed sensitive data to be passed on to a third-party vendor and its subsidiary, NSE Data & Analytics (NDAL), without a formal agreement in place. This subsidiary then disseminated the data to its clients, violating insider trading rules.
(Business Line)
India Post Payments Bank
starts Aadhaar-based face authentication for digital banking: India Post Payments Bank has launched a
nationwide Aadhaar-based face authentication for customer transactions,
enhancing security and convenience, especially for elderly and
differently-abled individuals. This feature, developed under UIDAI, allows
banking transactions via facial recognition, eliminating the need for
fingerprints or OTPs. It ensures financial inclusion by addressing limitations
in biometric verification and enabling safe banking during health emergencies.
(Economic Times)
Car loans race past housing
loans in Q1, marking an unfamiliar turn for Indian banking: According to recent data from the Reserve Bank
of India (RBI), Indian banks added Rs 2.4 lakh crore to their loan portfolios
between April and June. Of this total, a significant portion, nearly
two-thirds, was attributed to home loans, vehicle loans, and loans against gold
jewellery. Despite its historical dominance in retail lending, housing finance
has experienced a slowdown.
(Economic Times)
Focus GenNext: State Bank
of India looks to reboot its HR strategy: India’s biggest lender and one of its largest
employers could soon be using artificial intelligence (AI) to aid its hiring
practices, right from screening candidates to onboarding new employees, and is
looking to devise a life cycle-based framework with a skill upgradate pathway
to keep them engaged through their working careers. A generational and
aspirational shift in its employee base, along with the rapid rise of digital
banking, is compelling the State Bank of India (SBI) to relook at its Human
Resource (HR) management practices and build a ‘future ready’ organisation with
a rich talent pool.
(Economic Times)
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
TCS assures labour ministry on job offers: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has assured
the ministry of labour that it remains committed to honouring all job offers it
has made, even as it faces delays in onboarding due to global market
challenges. The IT major submitted its response via email to the chief labour
commissioner (CLC), citing deferred client projects as the reason behind the
hold-up in inducting new hires. The labour ministry had sought clarity from TCS
following a complaint by tech employees’ union Nascent Information Technology
Employees Senate (NITES), which flagged delayed onboarding for around 600
lateral hires and raised concerns about the company’s proposed plan to lay off
12,000 employees in the coming months. Although a representative from NITES
attended the meeting convened by the CLC, TCS chose to submit its reply in
writing.
(Financial Express)
BHASKAR platform
facilitates collaboration among startups and ecosystem stakeholders: he Bharat Startup Knowledge Access Registry
(BHASKAR) enables collaboration among the entrepreneurial ecosystem including
startups. 1,97,932 entities are registered under the ‘startup’ category on
BHASKAR as on 30th June 2025. The State/Union Territory (UT) wise details are
placed as Annexure-I. BHASKAR currently is in pilot phase wherein key features
are being tested including peer-to-peer interaction, partnerships, and
collaborative engagements, generation of unique personalized identification for
stakeholder categories and integration of microsites in place for
implementation of various Schemes under Startup India. The Government is
undertaking various outreach and awareness measures for BHASKAR across
States/UTs to understand the requirement and experience of key user
stakeholders including small and micro-enterprises. Such measures, include
specific outreach to States/UTs, information sessions in workshops and events,
and propagation through various social media platforms.
(PiB)
Donald Trump tariff impact:
Banks likely to tighten lending to MSMEs: Banks may adopt a risk-averse approach and
slow down fresh lending to export-oriented micro, small, and medium enterprises
(MSMEs) to avoid stress in their portfolios after the US imposed a 25 per cent
tariff on goods imported from India. Lenders may also ask for more collateral
when extending credit to this segment, they added. The asset quality of the
MSME sector has remained stable so far. MSME lending outpaced credit growth in
the retail and services sectors in FY25, rising by 14.1 per cent amid an
overall decline in bank credit.
(Business Standard)
REGULATIONS & DEVELOPMENT
SEBI proposes including QIBs, select FPIs as strategic investors
in REITs, InvITs: The Securities and
Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has floated a proposal to expand the definition
of "strategic investors" in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and
Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) to include qualified institutional
buyers (QIBs) and certain categories of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). In
a consultation paper released on Friday, SEBI suggested amending the REIT and
InvIT regulations to allow entities already recognised as QIBs under the SEBI
(Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations to qualify as
strategic investors in these vehicles. The move is aimed at deepening the
investor base and improving the ease of capital raising for infrastructure and
real estate trusts.
(Business Today)
New national
agriculture policy: Ministry has identified following integrated
strategy for comprehensive growth of agriculture sector:
(i) Increase crop production/ productivity
(ii) Reduce cost of production
(iii) Remunerative prices for farmer’s produce to
enhance their incomes.
(iv) Agricultural
diversification
(v) Developing post-harvest value addition
infrastructure.
(vi) Adaptation to climate change for sustainable
agriculture and mitigate against crop losses.
The Gross Value Added
(GVA) agricultural growth rate in Agriculture & allied sector in 2024-25
over 2023-24 is 4.6%, as per provisional estimate of Ministry of Statistics and
Programme Implementation.
(PiB)
PSBs face FinMin
heat over delay in release of customers' property docs: Ministry of Finance has chided PSBs for failing to
promptly release property documents to customers who have repaid loans, calling
the lenders’ conduct “unsatisfactory”, according to a senior official. The
backlog of such cases reduced from 29,500 in August 2024 to 20,800 in February
2025. “The delays are a breach of customer trust, so the finance ministry has
directed PSBs to fix accountability, and ensure faster release of pledged
assets, warning that such lapses damage the public image of PSBs,” said the
official on condition of anonymity.
(Business Standard)
TODAY’S CONCEPT
PROVISION UNDER NPFAM
v Agriculture
Marketing is a state subject. Different States have established the Agriculture
Produce Market Committees (APMCs) as per local needs to support farmers,
including small and marginal farmers.
v Every
year, Government fixes Minimum Support Price (MSP) for 22 mandated agricultural
crops, based on the recommendations of Commission for Agricultural Costs &
Prices (CACP), after considering the views of State Governments and Central
Ministries/Departments concerned. Government had increased MSP for all mandated
Kharif, Rabi and other Commercial crops with a minimum return of 50 percent
over all India weighted average cost of production from year 2018-19 onwards.
v During
2014-15 to 2024-25 (upto 30.06.2025) Government has procured 315.19 LMT
agricultural produce (oil seeds, pulses and Copera) in respect of worth
Rs.1,69,980.90 crore from farmers. Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay SanraksHan
Abhiyan (PM-AASHA) is also being implemented to ensure remunerative prices for
farmers, particularly for pulses, oilseeds and copra, through the scheme
components of Price Support System (PSS) and Price Deficiency Payment System
(PDPS).
KEY INDICES
RBI KEY RATES:
Repo
Rate: 5.50%
SDF:
5.25%
MSF
/Bank Rate: 5.75%
CRR:
4.00%
SLR:
18.00%
FOREX RATES (RBI
REF. RATE)
INR
/ 1 USD : 87.3519
INR
/ 1 GBP : 115.3394
INR
/ 1 EUR : 99.8828
INR
/100 JPY: 58. 0400
EQUITY INDEX
Sensex: 80599.91 (-585.67)
NIFTY: 24565.35 (-203.00)
Bnk
NIFTY: 55617.60 (-344.35)
TODAY’S IMPORTANCE
International Beer Day: August 2 is celebrated as International Beer Day. It is a global
celebration of beer, taking place annually on the first Friday in August according
to the International Beer Day website.
Historical events: August 2nd in
Indian history is notable for the birth of Pingali Venkayya, the designer of
the Indian national flag, and the passage of the Government of India Act 1858,
which transferred India's administration from the East India Company to the
British Crown. Globally, August 2nd has seen events like the Battle of the Nile
conclusion in 1798, the abdication of Charles X of France in 1830, and the
opening of the world's first underground tube railway in London in 1870.
*******Have a Nice Day*******
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