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Week 50
I'm Back Baby! 👀
Good Morning,
Welcome! I hope you have your “Subah Kee Chai” ready and you're excited to read your weekly 10-minute digest.
Fresh off the press! Subah Kee Chai is back, and back to give you your detailed breakdown of everything important that happened in India over the last week. Oh, how I've missed you...🥺
While the newsletter will remain fairly the same, the SubahKeeChai website is currently undergoing redevelopment and will hopefully return with some cool new features and designs. You can still access the website using the URL below to share previous newsletters with your friends, or to have a go at any quizzes that you struggled to get the first time!
This week saw positive market gains, some key collaborations, an agreement that resolved a 50-year-old land dispute, and some cheap Russian oil! As always, I hope you enjoy today's newsletter, and that you have an amazing Sunday!
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Markets
Markets
On Friday, the new financial year commenced in style, with
rallying over 3% finishing the trading session in the green. A rise in foreign fund inflows coupled with major gains in HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries were the primary reasons for the positive trading day in the equities market. Following the two positive giants, NTPC, PowerGrid, Induslnd Bank, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finance and Axis Bank were also among the top gainers at the end of the week. On the contrary, however, Infosys, Sun Pharma, Tech Mahindra and Titan suffered a poor trading session on the first day of the new financial year.
Elsewhere in the world, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading in the green, followed by Europe which also performed positively. The US Stock Market failed to keep up the positive note, with the stock exchange ending the trading day in the red.
Despite the geopolitical war between Russia and Ukraine, equity markets remained resilient due to optimistic negotiations between the two conflicted nations. Key market players expect the continued negotiations, rising crude oil prices, inflation projections, the monsoon forecast for the year and the expected quarterly numbers to dictate the market's trajectory for the next few weeks.
COVID-19
On Monday, the total number of
administered in India crossed 183.49 crores.
Collaboration is 🔑
India & Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is currently suffering from one of the worst economic crises, which resulted from a number of factors, with the COVID-19 pandemic being at the forefront of the nation's economic downfall. However, continued support from India has proven to be extremely helpful for the small island nation. In recent times, India announced a
to Sri Lanka to facilitate the imports of essential items. In addition, however, Sri Lanka requested an additional USD 1.5 billion credit line from India to support the domestic economy. India is not the only door Sri Lanka has knocked on for support, as the island nation has also requested USD 2.5 billion from China to deal with the shortage of essential goods within the nation.
Moreover, India has signed an agreement to set up
on northern Sri Lankan islands, which is seen as a strategic victory over China in its competition to gain a strong presence in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka is in the middle of a key sea route that connects the east and the west of the world, and a strong Indian presence will prove extremely beneficial for future Indian foreign policies within the region. As an additional boost, India has also signed agreements on providing a maritime rescue coordination centre and building fishery harbours across Sri Lanka.
India & South Korea
Robotic surgery is a key advancement in the medical world, as doctors are continuously training themselves to understand the systems used for robot-assisted surgeries.
have jointly developed an efficient, user-friendly, affordable and real-time training system for robot-assisted surgeries. The prototype currently costs INR 20 lakh, which is way cheaper than the INR 12 crore imported alternatives. This new technology will be used to train surgeons and medical students in an extremely cost-effective manner while improving the level of healthcare each individual patient receives. With the rapid advancements in technology, it is equally important to upskill the workforce to prevent machines from replacing humans in the future!
PVR & Inox
Last Sunday, India's top two multiplex chains
announced a surprise merger to create the country's largest multi-screen player! Both corporations stated that the move will help the merged entity, which will be called PVR INOX, to better compete with their new-age deep-pocketed rivals. The merger will see an introduction of 1500 cinemas across the nation to be labelled PVR INOX, and an introduction of a number of benefits for customers. Ajay Bijli, who is currently the chairman of PVR Cinemas, will take on the role of managing director (MD) of the merged PVR INOX entity. The merger is still subject to regulatory approvals and may raise some eyebrows within the Indian competition authority...
The merged entity will become the largest film exhibition company in India operating 1,546 screens in 109 cities. 🤯
Maybe living next to each other wasn't that bad after all...
Assam 🤝 Meghalaya
On Tuesday, the state governments of
signed an agreement in New Delhi to resolve their 50-year old boundary dispute. The agreement was signed by the Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad Sangma. This agreement will resolve almost 70% of the border dispute that has been ongoing between the two areas for the last 50 years, with the remaining disputed areas hoping to be resolved over the course of the next few months.
This long-standing land dispute was sparked in 1972 when Meghalaya was carved out of Assam, as a separate independent state. The border issues resulted due to a difference in the readings of the demarcation of boundaries when the new state of Meghalaya was agreed to be formed. The two states had agreed that any border disputes will be limited to only 12 areas, and no further claims can be made by either state.
According to the recent agreement, a demarcation of 36.70 square kilometres of disputed land will be distributed between both states fairly equally. The state of Assam will keep 18.51 square kilometres and the remaining 18.28 square kilometres will go to the state of Meghalaya.
Would the newsletter be complete if I didn't mention something about Russia?
Russian Oil
The one thing this war has taught us is that "Indians will never shy away from a discount". Now while I condemn any form of violence across the world, it is interesting to witness the individuals, corporations and nations that manage to fruit from the barren lands of war.
Following India's decision to not ban
, a number of companies such as ONGC, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp have snapped up Russian oil at extremely cheap discounts as other companies elsewhere in the world halted purchases due to the heavy sanctions imposed against Russia.
India is the world's third-largest oil consumer, and importer, and has benefitted a great deal from its decision to not ban Russian oil, but what impact will this have on India's relations with the Western world?
In addition, it will be interesting to witness the rise or fall in the valuation of the dollar against the Indian Rupee in the coming weeks, as India continues to purchase Russian oil at cheap discounts, but more importantly, using Indian Rupees!
IPL
IPL 2022
This is what the IPL table is looking like at the end of the first week. Rajasthan Royals lead the pack with two wins in two games, followed by the Kolkata Knight Riders in second place. 2021 IPL Champions, Chennai Super Kings are off to a slow start, with MS Dhoni's side losing both of their opening games. Cricket fans across India are heading to Mumbai, where this season is being hosted at four different stadiums: Wankhede Stadium, Brabourne Stadium (CCI), D Y Patil Stadium and MCA Stadium (Pune-expressway). Sadly, despite the home advantage, the Mumbai Indians have also faced a rough start losing their two opening games of the 2022 season. This season saw the introduction of two debutant teams, the Gujarat Titans and the Lucknow Super Giants
Mumbai Indians batsman Ishan Kishan leads the pack with 135 runs in 2 games (Avg: 135.00), followed by Jos Butler who has also scored 135 runs in 2 games, but with a lower average (Avg: 67.50).
On the bowling front, Kolkata's Umesh Yadav sits at the top spot with 8 wickets in 3 games, with an economy of 4.91. Gujarat Titans bowler Mohammed Shami is second with 5 wickets in 2 games, with an economy of 6.87.
*Bowling economy is the average number of runs a bowler has conceded per over bowled.
Other News
1. On Monday, the price of petrol (by 30 paise) and diesel (by 35 paise) was
for the sixth time in the last 7 days.
Simultaneously, however, on Friday, India's
rose above pre-pandemic levels highlighting a strong economic recovery following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.
2. This week the Government sold up to
in ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited) to raise about INR 3000 crore.
3. India's rise in
is likely to ease the growing global concerns around food shortages and inflation. The country is the second-largest producer of wheat after China and can ship 12 million tons to the world market.
4. Axis Bank is buying Citibank's India consumer banking arm for
.
5. On Friday,
stated that its exports stood at 2,38,376 units in FY22 (Financial Year 2022). This is the company's highest-ever exports in any financial year.
Quiz
We all love a good quiz!
My head and tail together is from a distant home
My middle is a prime number in ancient Rome
Prefix my first half to make something "used to be"
Call my second half for a laptop virus-free
What am I?
Starting the Subah Kee Chai return with a challenging one...Get thinking!
See you next week!
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Quiz Answer: EXIT
"Head and tail together - E + T = ET (far from a distant home) "Middle is a prime number in ancient Rome" = XI (Number 11) "Prefix the first half" = EX (something that used to be) "Call my second half for a laptop virus free" = IT (well this was easy to understand).
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Written by: Adnan Bahrainwala