Business Today 30 March 2025

When US President Donald Trump addressed a gathering of the global corporate elite at Davos this January, he declared that America was back and open for business. “Under the Trump administration, there will be no better place on Earth to create jobs, build factories, or grow a company than right here in the good old USA,” he proclaimed. Since then, the world has witnessed a blitzkrieg of executive orders including on tariffs that are upending the established order in pursuit of what Trump calls the Golden Age of America. Global markets have convulsed and confidence in economic growth has waned, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) lowering its projections for global growth to 3.1% this year from 3.3% earlier due to “trade barriers” and “uncertainty.” For India,…

KUDANKULAM NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, THE LARGEST NUCLEAR POWER STATION IN INDIA SOURCE PIB, UNION BUDGET, MEDIA REPORTS ₹20,000 CRORE Allocated in Budget to make at least five indigenously designed Small Modular Reactors by 2033 21 NEW REACTORS With a total capacity of 15,300 MW are at various stages of implementation 22,480 MW Nuclear power capacity that India is targeting by 2031-32 47,971 MILLION UNITS Annual electricity generation from nuclear power plants in 2023-24…

DEEP IN THE RED AT LEAST 11 COMPANIES IN NIFTY 500 HAVE TANKED MORE THAN 60% FROM 52-WEEK HIGHS THE WORST HIT MEDIA AND ENERGY INDICES HAVE TANKED MORE THAN 30% FROM THEIR 52-WEEK HIGHS SOURCE ACE EQUITY ₹ 85 LAKH CRORE DIP IN MARKET CAPITALISATION OF BSE LISTED FIRMS SINCE SEPTEMBER 27, 2024, WHEN THE BENCHMARK EQUITY INDEX BSE SENSEX HIT RECORD HIGH ₹ 3.6 LAKH CRORE THE AMOUNT INVESTED BY DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS IN INDIAN EQUITY MARKETS SINCE OCTOBER 2024 THE BEAR GRIP BROADER MARKETS, WHICH WERE OUTPERFORMING NIFTY50, HAVE CRACKED 20% FROM RESPECTIVE 52-WEEK HIGHS GRAPH NORMALISED TO THE BASE OF 100; SOURCE ACE EQUITY FIIs PRESS EXIT BUTTON GLOBAL INVESTORS HAVE SOLD SHARES WORTH MORE THAN ₹2 LAKH CRORE SINCE OCTOBER 2024 AGAINST IN-FLOW OF NEARLY…

SOON AFTER TAKING charge as the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), Tuhin Kanta Pandey identified four key objectives—trust, transparency, teamwork, and technology. A career bureaucrat, Pandey replaces Madhabi Puri Buch, whose tenure was marked by controversy. Pandey’s former colleagues in New Delhi believe that his long stint in the finance ministry will come in handy in his new job. “He is soft spoken but that does not deter him from conveying his views. He works with the team and leads by example,” says a government official. A 1987 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) from the Odisha cadre, Pandey saw his fair share of challenges during his stints in the finance ministry, first as secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM),…

WITH THE THREAT of a global tariff war now fast becoming a full-fledged reality, India’s long pending free trade agreement (FTA) talks seem to have been put on the fast track. What’s significant is that the partner countries seem equally keen on clinching a deal. This sense of urgency was reflected in the talks that India held in the end of February with both the UK and the EU (negotiations have been on since 2007 with the EU). India and New Zealand have also decided to restart FTA talks after a pause of 10 years. India and the UK announced the resumption of FTA negotiationsafter a gap of eight months for “a balanced, mutually beneficial and forward-looking deal”. The talks were in a limbo owing to general elections in both…

PANIC AND UNCERTAINTY—these two words describe the current sentiment in Indian equity markets, which declined for the fifth straight month in February, marking the Nifty’s longest losing streak since 1996. The pain is real. The market capitalisation of listed firms tanked by more than ₹90 lakh crore during October 2024-February 2025, as clouds of uncertainty grew darker with worsening global cues, slowdown in earnings growth and unabated outflows by global investors amid a falling rupee. FIIs offloaded shares worth ₹2.12 lakh crore during October 2024-February 2025. At the same time, the rupee depreciated by 4.4% to 87.47 against the dollar, reaching an all-time low of 87.99 on February 10, 2025. The question everyone is asking is, where is the market headed and when will it bottom out? “We expect a…