Morning Scan: All the big stories to get you started for the day

A round-up of top newspaper stories.

Indian equity benchmark Sensex scaled 63,000 points during intraday trading and the upward momentum helped India reclaim its position as the world’s fifth-largest stock market. The 50-share Nifty, with gains of 0.54 percent, ended just short of 18,600 points and the all-time high of 18,887.60 seen in December. With gains of 0.55 percent, Sensex ended trading at 62,846.38 points. Foreign portfolio investors bought a provisional Rs 1,758 crore worth of stock. India’s overall market value breached $3.3 lakh crore.

Why it’s important: Local equities are seeing a strong rally due to positive global cues and robust predictions of domestic economic growth. Cooling inflation and higher tax collections can provide more fundamental support to the rally.

Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das has cautioned banks against aggressive growth strategies and the evergreening of loans. He urged them not to allow any gaps in governance. Addressing board members of public and private banks, the governor said it was found that some lenders were resorting to innovative ways to conceal the status of loans during supervision, and one method of evergreening was replaced by another.

Why it’s important: Loan evergreening in the past decade was the reason for the huge increase in non-performing assets. The central bank is understandably chary of banks making the same mistake again.

The Yes Bank crisis in 2020 and tighter norms in its aftermath have diminished the appetite of mutual funds for additional tier-1 bonds. Exposure of mutual funds, once among the biggest buyers of such debt, is now just about a fifth of what it earlier was as new valuation norms discourage investors from buying into these instruments that have no preset redemption deadlines.

Why it’s important: The new rules have the potential to increase the valuation volatility for mutual funds, which explains their reluctance. It also shows that once shaken, investor confidence is slow to return.

Several Indian start-ups, including prominent unicorns, have received tax notices on some supposedly unexplained investments in them between 2018-19 and 2020-21. The notices, under Section 68 of the Income-Tax Act, were served across the start-up spectrum including fintech, aggregators, and edtech. The tax authorities have sought an explanation on the nature and source of the unexplained investments.

Why it’s important: Domestic start-ups are feeling the tax heat ahead of India implementing an angel tax. They will have to explain the funding sources and clean up their books quickly or face penal action.

Nearly every second electric two-wheeler sold under the central government’s Rs 10,000 crore electric vehicle promotion scheme was based on false localization claims, an official investigation has found. This prompted the government to slash its official sales tally. The heavy industries ministry has cut the number of beneficiary two-wheelers from around 989,000 to just under 564,000.

Why it’s important: Makers have electric two-wheelers have been found to furnish incorrect information to avail the generous subsidies. The government till now withheld the subsidies but continued to add up the tally. That has now stopped.

In the absence of takedown mandates to app stores, many unauthorized electronic trading platforms domiciled overseas continue to be available for downloads despite being on the alert list of the Reserve Bank of India. The list does not include download URLs for apps and app stores may not be able to take cognizance on their own of the warning to remove these, experts said. no government agency has issued blocking orders and these red listed apps continue to be on Google Play store.

Why it’s important: The primary reason for the red flags is to protect the interest of retail investors. The absence of monitoring exposes users to the risk of fraud, financial loss, data leak, theft, and cyberattacks.

Apple has told Indian officials that it needs a concrete reason or a legal requirement to comply with the central government’s directive to take down betting apps from its App Store. It has not outright refused to comply with the February order by the electronics and IT ministry but has made it clear that it cannot arbitrarily remove the betting apps and make them unavailable in India.

Why it’s important: Indian authorities have been cracking down hard on betting and gambling apps and asked app stores to take them down. Apple will have to eventually comply despite reservations.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will spend Rs 1 lakh crore on green initiatives by 2030 to reduce its carbon footprint as part of a broader effort to achieve net-zero emissions by 2038, according to chairman and managing director Arun Kumar Singh. The state-owned firm has a renewable energy portfolio of 189 MW, with plans to boost it to 10 GW by 2030. It also plans to venture into offshore wind and green ammonia production, targeting 1 million tons per annum of capacity.

Why it’s important: With its net zero target, ONGC has joined other Indian oil and gas companies in setting a key climate target. India intends to be net zero by 2070, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said.

GQG Partners, which invested $1.87 billion in four Adani Group firms in the first week of March, has pumped in another $330 million to $530 million into these companies since then, showing continued confidence in the embattle conglomerate that saw a share market rout after an Us short seller alleged accounting fraud and stock price manipulation. It is unclear if the subsequent purchases were made in the open market.

Why it’s important: The stock prices of Adani Group firms have rallied significantly in recent weeks. The closely held business house, which has denied any wrongdoing, has announced plans to raise more money through qualified private placements.

Home appliances company Atomberg Technologies has raised $86 million from Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings and India-focused fund Steadview Capital. New investor Trifecta Capital and existing investors Jungle Ventures and Inflexor Ventures also invested in the fundraising. The investors have valued Atomberg at around Rs 450 million.

Why it’s important: Atomberg has been doubling annual sales in recent years based on proprietary products such as ceiling fans and mixers. Its growth outlook is strong, sparking investor interest.