Top headlines: Defence-related stocks surge, Toshiba wraps up laptop biz

Here are the top headlines of the day

Former PM Manmohan Singh lists three steps to stem India's economic crisis

Former PM Dr Manmohan Singh has listed out a three-step solution to stem the current economic crisis and restore normalcy.

First of the three immediate steps is to "ensure people's livelihoods are protected and they have spending power through a significant direct cash assistance". The second remedy according to Singh is to make available sufficient capital for businesses via "government-backed credit guarantee programmes". For the third step, he recommends "institutional autonomy and processes" for fixing the country's financial sector. Read more
 

Bharat Forge, HAL, BEL : Defence-related stocks poised for upside

After coming out with a draft policy on defence (DPEPP 2020), the Ministry of Defence has published a detailed list of 101 specific weapons/ platforms/equipment, imports of which will be restricted in a phased manner over the next five years. 

Most defence-related stocks gained ground on Monday post the development with Bharat Dynamics up nearly 8 per cent at Rs 452 on the BSE. Read more

Reserve Bank's silence on record India bond sales leaves traders baffled

The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy review has come and gone but it’s done little to calm traders’ nerves over an unprecedented government bond supply.

Their patience is running thin as the RBI refrained from taking steps to ease the market’s debt burden at a policy review last week, even as the government plans to sell Rs 12 trillion ($160 billion) of bonds this fiscal year. Read more

Lost generation: Covid-19 pushes millions of kids out of school, into work

The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing India’s children out of school and into farms and factories to work, worsening a child-labour problem that was already one of the most dire in the world.

Sixteen-year-old Maheshwari Munkalapally and her 15-year-old sister stopped attending lessons when virtually the entire economy was brought to a halt during the world’s biggest lockdown. Munkalapally’s mother and older sister lost their jobs as housemaids in Hyderabad. The younger girls, who had been living with their grandmother in a nearby village, were forced to become farmhands along with their mother, in order to survive. Read more

Toshiba announces exit from laptop business, sells Dynabook shares to Sharp

Japanese tech giant Toshiba, once well-known for its satellite range of laptops meant for heavy use, has finally decided to quit the laptop business. The company has quietly sold its remaining 19.9 per cent stake in its Dynabook laptop brand to Sharp, officially exiting the laptop business. The company earlier sold the 80.1 per cent stake to Sharp in 2018. Read more

PM Modi unveils first ever undersea cable to Andaman and Nicobar Islands

PM Modi inaugurated the first ever undersea optical fibre cable project for Andaman and Nicobar Islands, enabling high speed broadband connection in the union territory. The Prime Minister had laid the foundation for 2,312-kilometer Chennai- Andaman and Nicobar Islands (CANI) connecting submarine optical fibre cable project on December 30, 2018. Read more