194: Top News Podcast | Banks’ call for open bid for Future Retail assets to property tax relief in Mumbai and more

Sensex and Nifty fell on Thursday to retreat from two-week highs registered in the previous session, as the bulls halted a winning run that began on the eve of the Union Budget for FY23. Sensex ended 770 points lower at 58,788 and Nifty50 fell more than 200 points to settle at 17,560.

Even as many believe the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would soon hike interest rates, Keki Mistry, vice-chairman and managing director of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) has said he doesn’t expect the rate hike in the central bank’s February policy.

In this edition of Top News Podcast, CNBCTV18.com’s Kanishka Sarkar also talks about the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the country, cryptocurrency fraud, Facebook losing users, and on Future Retail, the company being fought over by Reliance Industries and Amazon.com Inc.

The government today said, there’s a decline in COVID-19 cases but it didn’t want to use words like wave and peak as there are still some areas where cases are increasing. Therefore, it said COVID-19 management strategies still need to be implemented because the overall number of cases is still high.

A report suggests the Centre is planning to sell a 5 percent stake in the LIC IPO. The government has finally received the embedded valuation report for LIC and may file the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) within a week’s time.

Meanwhile, CNBC-TV18 has learnt the government is in advanced stages of working on the battery swapping policy. The Ministry of Heavy Industries has been working on it and the inter-operability standards between batteries of different electric vehicles (EVs). It has sought feedback from at least 100 companies, a lot of consultation has already happened and it is understood that the government intends to bring out the policy in the next two to three months.

Mumbai civic body presented its budget today and has announced a 100 percent relief from payment of property tax for the flats measuring up to 500 square feet of carpet area. Mumbai municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal has said About 16,14,000 citizens will get 100 percent property tax relief and the amount of exemption to citizens is Rs 462 crore per annum.

Tune in to Top News Podcast for more

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