The big stories of the week gone by – in charts

Base Effect

The Indian economy grew by 13.5% y-o-y in the first quarter of FY23, fuelled by growing consumption and low base effect, according to the latest data released by the government on Wednesday. However, the figures are warped by the base effect because of the Delta variant-hit June quarter of last year. Sequentially, the quarter saw a 9.63% contraction in GDP. While that’s typical for the June quarter, this was the biggest contraction in at least a decade (excluding the last two pandemic-hit years).

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Galloping Away

Gautam Adani overtook France’s Bernard Arnault to become the third richest person in the world this week on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. With a net worth of $143 billion, Adani trails only Elon Musk ($245 billion) and Jeff Bezos ($150 billion). He added $66.2 billion to his fortune in 2022, five times more than any other billionaire. Adani’s climb to the top was expedited in February when he overtook Mukesh Ambani to become the richest person in Asia.

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Pakistan’s Misery

33 million: That’s the number of people affected by the floods in Pakistan, described as the worst in a decade, which have claimed 1,000 lives and left 1,500 injured. According to the government, nearly one-third of the country has been completely submerged. The floods have caused extensive damage to property, livestock and crops. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest and Sindh province in the south are the worst-hit regions.

Ambani’s Ambitions

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) held its 45th annual general meeting on Monday where the company spelt out an ambitious growth plan. The group plans to invest ₹2 trillion to set up a 5G network across India and has earmarked ₹75,000 crore to expand its petrochemical capacity. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani laid out his succession plans, too. RIL shares declined on the AGM day, but outperformed the benchmark index, only the third such instance over the last decade.

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Rupee Rebounds

The rupee surged to 79.45 against the US dollar on Tuesday, posting its biggest one-day gain of 0.6% in a year. This followed the return of overseas investors who infused as much as $6 billion in August, the highest since December 2020. The currency had hit a record low of 80.13 on Monday following the statement by US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell that the central bank is ready to arrest high inflation even at the cost of economic growth.

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Fiscal progress

20.5%: His was India’s fiscal deficit in the April-June quarter as a percentage of the full-year Budget estimate. Last year, the government had clocked a fiscal deficit of 21.3% of the full-year estimate by June, government data showed. The total receipts in the June quarter were ₹7.86 trillion, or 34.4% of the Budget estimate for 2022-23, and the overall expenditure was ₹11.27 trillion, or 28.6% of the Budget estimate.

Fraud Alert

Credit and debit card-related frauds surged by nearly 20% in 2021, according to a report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The number of such frauds has nearly doubled in the last two years. The surge in the number of economic offences has prompted the Reserve Bank of India to contemplate setting up a fraud registry. However, bank and ATM-related frauds fell by 20.8% and 1.5%, respectively in 2021.

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Chart Of The Week: EV Sales

Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) picked up in both the two- and four-wheeler segments in 2021-22. The sale of two-wheelers showed an increase of nearly sixfold, while four-wheeler sales increased by more than three times. The surge is led by the launch of several EV models in both segments.

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