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The real estate sector, which faced turbulent times in 2016, is staring at another challenging year ahead, following disruption caused by reforms like the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) and demonetisation. But all this may augur well for the sector in the coming times. Amid prevailing uncertainty, the new year may well see real estate firmly put on the path of transformation and consolidation, towards more stability and healthy growth. The year started on a promising note. But, much against the the expected revival, real estate, especially residential real estate, faced headwinds in terms of weak demand and muted sales in the backdrop of large-scale delivery defaults, developer-buyer face-offs, unaffordable prices and high interest rates. The introduction of RERA, added further confusion to the prevailing chaos and finally, towards the end of the year, demonetisation badly hit the struggling sector, making for a bumpy end. Real estate sector: Highlights of 2016 Amendments made in RE...

Tokyo-based journalist Pallavi Aiyar’s new book, Choked: Everything You Were Afraid to Know about Pollution , is the story of a woman grappling with growing air pollution and its effects on the respiratory health of her children in New Delhi and Beijing. The book begins with a memory of being on a plane from Frankfurt to Delhi in 2003, and circling the capital for hours before landing because of its ‘spongy brown fug’ – the notorious dense smog that routinely envelopes Delhi, and was a source of national panic this year after the level of respirable pollutants (the concentration of particulate matter and gases, or PM, in the air) exceeded international safety limits by several degrees. Children protest against alarmingly rising pollution in Delhi. AFP Aiyar remembers the sense of anxiety, bordering on hysteria, about environmental pollution during her time as a reporter in Beijing, and is understandably peeved and mystified by what she sees as "typical, blinkere...

HYDERABAD: On New Year's eve, Hyderabad's streets might be devoid of all cabs. Reason: A threat by the Telangana Cab Drives and Owners Association (TCDOA) to stay off the roads in case the managements of cab aggregators , Ola and Uber , do not accede to their demands. The strike that is expected to kick in on December 30 mid Drink driving crackdown: P3 night, will go on till January 4, the drivers' body warned on Friday. "The drivers are constantly ill-treated by the mana gements. Because of the fake offers floated by them, drivers have been incurring huge losses. Their daily earnings have dropped to ` 500 (in some cases even lesser than that)," alleged Shiva Vulkundakar, president of TCDOA Listing out their grievances, other members of the association said how despite working for 18 hours every day , they are being unable to meet their target because of a huge gap in demand and supply.   While the number of cabs hitting the roads have jumped significantly, the c...

BACKING THE central government’s proposal to set up a single permanent tribunal to settle all inter-state water disputes, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said tussles over water sharing could turn “very dangerous” if not resolved in time. “There is nothing wrong with the central government’s decision. There are so many separate tribunals (as of now) and they create problems. I think it is a very good decision. Because we have to sort out all our water disputes on a priority,” Naidu said after initiating concrete works at the multi-purpose Polavaram irrigation project in his state. The Union Cabinet earlier this month gave its approval for setting up a permanent tribunal to adjudicate on all inter-state disputes on river waters, doing away with the current practice of constituting a separate tribunal for every dispute that arises. The central government plans to introduce a Bill in Parliament in the budget session to amend t...

Lower production volume and stable global demand is expected to push up realisations of basmati rice in FY2017 and FY2018, despite short-term impact of demonetisation, a report said. Basmati rice industry is expecting a rebound in H2 FY2017 and FY2018 with demand driven improvement in realisation and low inventory prices, ICRA said in its report here. "Basmati rice has witnessed growing demand in domestic market for last few years. The export demand, which has remained subdued for last two years, is expected to witness a pickup in the coming months when a majority of export orders are received. This is expected to push up the realisations in H2 FY2017 and FY2018," ICRA Assistant Vice President Deepak Jotwani said. Most of the large exporters, who are holding relatively lower priced inventory, are expected to benefit from this. While paddy prices have inched up in the current procurement season, this would be comfortably covered by growth in realisations, Jotwani said. In the ...

RAJKOT: The Income Tax department has detected unaccounted transactions to the tune of Rs 130 crore from owner of Eagle Petrol Pump located on the 150 feet Ring Road . The I-T sleuths began the suvey operation late on Thursday night that continued till Friday evening. The petrol pump is owned by controversial builder Kamlesh Ramani. Top sources in the I-T department said that they have dug out details of cash deposits, bank accounts, property transactions, financial dealings and recovered some documents and diaries that are self-elaborative. "All these transactions unearthed are unaccounted. The documents and diaries clearly state the amount of money that was transacted unscrupulously," said a senior I-T officer. The investigation also revealed that Ramani had filed nominal returns on his assets and income. "The search and survey operations are still on. We cannot say how long it would continue as the scale of dealings is very high," he said. Ramani has been in th...

I heard the spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Sambit Patra, blithely claim that when the National Democratic Alliance government of Atal Behari Vajpayee demitted office in 2004, gross domestic product was growing at 8.4%, and when the United Progressive Alliance regime under Manmohan Singh lost the elections in 2014, this growth was down to 4.8%. He made an attempt to wring some humour out of the reversal of growth figures, which would have been quite neat but for the fact that it is an outright lie. The fact is that the Vajpayee government had an average GDP growth rate of 6.1% while Singh’s first tenure saw an average growth of 9.4% and his second tenure 7.4%. It was in the final year of Singh’s second term that growth did drop to 4.7%. But let us not forget that the Narendra Modi government tweaked the calculation of gross domestic product growth in 2015 to add 2.2% to it. Applying this methodology to the previous years, we get a growth rate of 6.9% for Singh...

With the 50-day period window for exchanging/depositing old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 getting over on December 30, here’s a look at all the steps taken by the Reserve Bank of India to ensure enough cash is available in the banking system:- November 8, 2016: --Government declares existing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes illegal. --RBI says starting from November 10, anyone can tender them at any office of the Reserve Bank or any bank branch and obtain value thereof by credit into their respective bank accounts. --Says public can exchange up to Rs 4000 over counter with identity proof. --Cash withdrawals from bank accounts will be restricted to a limited amount of Rs 10,000 per day subject to an overall limit of Rs 20,000 a week from November 9, 2016 till end of business on November 24, 2016. --Announces issuance of new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes. November 9: --RBI says banks will be open on November 12 and 13, Saturday and Sunday respectively. November 10: -- RBI says all payment Systems ...

Vijay Shekhar Sharma took to Facebook Live to introduce some of the key features of the newly updated Android Paytm app. He was joined by Deepak Abbot, SVP, Product Growth at Paytm, who explained the various features of the new product. Image Source: Paytm Here are some of the changes that will hit your Paytm app with the latest update: Adding Money: The ‘Add Money’ feature on your new Paytm app allows the transfer of money to your wallet to be done on the same page, without having to go to a separate webpage. Further, users can see their ‘Saved card’ details upfront.  However, while making the demo, Vijay did seem to make a slight remark on SBI, asking Deepak whether there was SBI available for  transferring money to Paytm wallets. Just two days ago, the news came out that India’s biggest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), had blocked its customers from transferring money to their Paytm wallets. When asked as to why this was the case, Vijay ch...

KOLKATA: Armed robbers, posing as customers, struck at the Manappuram Finance 's gold loan branch at Dunlop on Friday morning, held the manager at gunpoint and decamped with 30kg gold, worth Rs 8.6 crore. One of the goons also hit the security guard on the head with his pistol butt as the man tried to stop them as they fled with the loot. This was the second heist in five days at a Manappuram Finance's gold loan branch, the first one being reported on Monday at Ulhasnagar in Thane where burglars made away with over 32kg gold jewellery worth more than Rs 9 crore.   After the Dunlop burglary, two of the employees at the branch were detained for interrogation and the CID paid a visit during the day, hinting at the possibility that the agency might take up the probe. Barrackpore Commissionerate officers have not ruled out the likelihood of the involvement of some employees. The incident took place around 10.15am when the four men reportedly arrived on two motorcycles, wearing helm...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a new digital payments app called BHIM based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The app is currently available only on Android ; so iOS , Windows mobile users etc are left out. BHIM is also supposed to support Aadhaar-based payments, where transactions will be possible just with a fingerprint impression, but that facility is yet to roll out. So what can BHIM app do? BHIM is a digital payments solution app based on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). If you have signed up for UPI based payments on your respective bank account, which is also linked to your mobile number, then you’ll be able to use the BHIM app to conduct digital transactions. BHIM app will let you send and receive money to other non-UPI accounts or addresses. You can also send money via IFSC and MMID code to users, who don’t have a UPI-based bank account. Additionally, there’s the option of scanning a ...

NEW DELHI: India has amended its over two-decade old tax treaty with Singapore that will allow it to tax capital gains on investments from the South East Asian nation, a significant milestone in plugging round-tripping of funds after changes to treaties with Mauritius and Cyprus . "This year on May 10 we had amended DTAA (double taxation avoidance agreement) with Mauritius. Then in September we amended with Cyprus and today we amended the DTAA with Singapore," finance minister Arun Jaitley told reporters in Friday. "With these three... we have successfully stopped round tripping through this route," he said. The reworked treaty brings the treaty on par with that with Mauritius providing for taxation of investment in shares of Indian companies as per local rule from April 1, 2017. Short-term capital gains in India face tax at the rate of 15% while there is an exemption for long-term gains. For shares acquired on or after 1 April 2017, there will be a two-year tr...

MUMBAI | NEW DELHI: Happy Note Year? Will 2017 see cash supply return to normalcy or something close to it quickly? Experts' answer: March may be the month when queues finally become a memory. And withdrawal limits? Don't expect a dramatic lifting of the Rs 24,000 weekly and Rs 2,500 daily ceilings (now relaxed to Rs 4500 per card). Relaxations are likely to take some weeks. On Friday, FM Arun Jaitley confirmed as much. Addressing mediapersons, he said the currency situation has stabilised to a great extent but did not indicate if the curbs on withdrawals will be eased. "RBI has sufficient stock to inject a lot more currency which they will continue. Yesterday, I had gone around Delhi and we're getting reports from all over the country the crowds at the banks have eased significantly," he said. Economists, cash logistics industry executives, government and banking officials ETspoke to identified two factors that will determine cash supply: 1) How fast will Rs 500...

Mumbai: Alok Ohrie, president and managing director (India commercial business) at Dell EMC, and Rajesh Janey, president and managing director-Enterprise (India and SAARC) at Dell EMC in a conversation with Leslie D’Monte, national technology editor of Mint , underscore why businesses across countries are embracing digital transformation and why India tops the digital transformation index. Edited excerpts: How prepared is the Indian market when we speak about digital transformation? Ohrie: Digital transformation at its core has the Internet of everything, which defines the way we live, interact and work. If we look at the talent pool in India, it continues to grow and serve global markets. The intent of the government is towards digital, as we hear about smart cities and other initiatives to improve governance. With regard to maturity, we had commissioned a study covering 4,000 CIOs (chief information officers) in 16 countries and 12 industries. Findings reveal that 78% of them ...

Mumbai: Is your company on the right digital path? How can you make your company embrace the digital future? And how can data analytics and the Internet of Things help executives in this process? These were some of the questions that consultants, industry experts and senior executives from sectors including banking, automobiles, healthcare and manufacturing attempted to address during their keynotes and panel discussions which were part of the fourth edition of the Mint Enterprise Technology Summit that was held on 25 November in Mumbai. We present some highlights from the summit. ‘WE SEE IoT AS AUGMENTING INTELLIGENCE’ Industries across the board can derive significant benefits by readying themselves for the Internet of Things (IoT) world and tapping into the sensor-generated data along with other enterprise data. The IoT panel, which was moderated by Leslie D’Monte, national technology editor, Mint , comprised Rajesh Batra, vice-president (IT) at Kokilaben Dhirubhai...

New Delhi: The last time Navin Shenoy, senior vice-president and general manager, Intel Corp. (cloud computing), was in India in 2012, Paytm was an unknown commodity. On a visit last week, he realized he can make payments to a fruit vendor instantly, which he thought was not possible in India 2-3 years ago. Such dramatic changes, including India’s adaptation of 4G and Digital India, make him an “unabashed India bull”. In an interview, Shenoy talked about the Indian IT industry, advent of Reliance Jio and technology evolution in India. Edited excerpts: How do you see growth in Indian IT especially with the current situation in this financial year? I’m an unabashed India bull as it pertains to prospects for technology in India and I am probably more of a bull than I have ever been largely because of the fact that India has even such a notion as the Digital India initiative from the prime minister and proliferated through the rest of the country. As I travel around...