Top headlines: Govt may get 30% more from asset sale, Q1 GDP growth at 22%

Business Standard brings you the top headlines on Friday

What explains China's sizeable presence in India's import basket

A year after the government’s renewed push to become self-reliant and the clamour for banning Chinese goods in the country owing to the border dispute, inbound shipments from India’s largest trading partner continued to be on the rise. India’s merchandise imports from China more than doubled to $6.51 billion in April over the same period a year earlier. Read more

Centre likely to receive 30% more from infrastructure asset sale

Now that almost 10 infrastructure ministries have submitted a fresh list of their core infrastructure assets, the government has realised it stands to make much more money from asset monetisation than previously thought. Two persons in the government said it stood to garner over 30 per cent more than the earlier estimates of Rs 2.5 trillion over the next four years under the National Monetisation Pipeline. Read more

India's economy may have grown 22.1% in Q1, but demand is still low: RBI

The tapering of the second Covid-19 wave, coupled with an aggressive vaccination push, has brightened the near-term prospects for the Indian economy, and real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is estimated at 22.1 per cent in the April-June quarter, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its July bulletin on Thursday. Read more
  Mastercard ban: These 7 lenders are going to be hit hard by RBI's decision

The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) restrictions on Mastercard from issuing new cards will hit six banks and one non-banking finance company the most, as these lenders issue a large proportion of credit cards with the payment system operator. All the credit cards issued by YES Bank and RBL Bank are in the Mastercard platform. Bajaj Finserv, has co-branded cards with RBL Bank and also issues cards with Mastercard as payment system operator. Read more

Second coming of social media has a business peg: Facebook India head

Facebook Inc is making a big push to target businesses in India — from small entrepreneurs to top global brands — by leveraging its huge customer base with high engagement rates on its various social media platforms. According to data shared by the company for the first time, 416 million users in India access Facebook every month, out of which 234 million access it every day. Read more

Centre frontloads Rs 75,000 crore to states as GST compensation

In a bid to spur spending by states amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centre on Thursday released as compensation nearly half of the estimated goods and services tax (GST) shortfall for the current fiscal year under the back-to-back loan facility. The Ministry of Finance released Rs 75,000 crore of the Rs 1.59-trillion estimated as GST revenue shortfall in a single instalment, to facilitate capital spending by states, besides allowing better management of the pandemic, with most states reeling from severe fiscal stress. Read more