TMSEp201: Sri Lanka crisis, crypto, housing finance cos, President election

Sri Lanka’s economy is in a free fall for a while now, it is hurtling fast towards bankruptcy. Its food inflation has soared to 57%, and the nation is left with no reserve to import essentials. This crisis is having a crippling effect on its apparel and famous tea industries also -- the mainstays of Sri Lanka’s economy. Meanwhile, traders in India are looking to fill the void left by the South Asian neighbour. But some spillover of the Lanka crisis is hurting Indian businesses too, like the auto sector. Try to gauge the overall effect of the crisis on India.  

The trouble in Sri Lankan economy had started with the onset of pandemic. A large number of people who anticipated this crisis had started exploring options to stay afloat. Some even turned to cryptocurrency too, which is still unregulated in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, India too is slowly but firmly moving ahead to regulate it. Recently it had announced to impose 1% TDS crypto assets. And on Wednesday, the government came out with a detailed clarification to address concerns raised by the industry. So as the TDS regime is slated to come into effect from July 1, will it be smooth sailing for domestic crypto exchanges and traders? 

Like the cryptocurrencies, the shares of housing finance companies have been falling for quite some time now. And most of them nosedived after the RBI hiked repo rate on May 4. While analysts believe that robust real estate demand may outweigh rate hike impact, there’s a section of firms that may be vulnerable to interest rate hikes. 

After Dalal Street, let us now turn our focus to the President’s Estate in Delhi. The race to Rashtrapati Bhavan has become interesting. NDA’s presidential nominee Draupadi Murmu is facing opposition’s Yashwant Sinha. She has an edge over Sinha due to the support of a majority in the electoral college. But how does India elect its President? This episode of the podcast shares more.