Best of BS Opinion: A bubble building in bond mkt, RIL-Aramco deal and more

RIL AGMs have become events at which, rather like a prime minister's Independence Day speech, Chairman Mukesh Ambani is expected to make some big bang statements writes Kanika Datta

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) AGMs have become events at which, rather like a prime minister’s Independence Day speech, Chairman Mukesh Ambani is expected to make some big bang statements. This year’s event did not disappoint, with Asia’s richest man announcing that Saudi Aramco had bought a 20 per cent stake in the refining and chemical business of India’s largest company by market capitalisation. The significance of this: it will go a long way towards reducing the conglomerate’s burgeoning debt, which had attracted a downgrade from the brokerage Credit Suisse just last week, says the lead edit here. In other views, writers look at the global bond market, urban unemployment, Narendra Modi's gamble in Jammu & Kashmir and the Congress Party’s crisis, writes Kanika Datta.  

Greece’s borrowing costs are lower than the US Treasury, subprime mortgages are staging a comeback, yield curves have inverted across maturities and the US junk bond market is growing rapidly. Something odd is happening in the global bond markets, says Akash Prakash here

Latest data shows that urban unemployment is rising rapidly. Mahesh Vyas explains why this should be a major cause for concern among lawmakers. Read it here

The second edit says Sonia Gandhi’s reappointment as interim president is bad for the Congress party. Read why here

Narendra Modi’s relentless pursuit of political capital had prompted him to take a gamble in Jammu & Kashmir, but the real question is how well he uses it, says Shreekant Sambrani here

Quote of the Day

‘If J&K was a Hindu-dominated state, BJP would not have done this. They did it only because the region is dominated by Muslims’

- Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram