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Rupee ends flat in H1 2025; snaps two-day gains to close at 85.76/$
The domestic currency closed 28 paise lower at 85.76 against the dollar, according to Bloomberg. The depreciation comes after the currency logged its best week since January 2023, driven mainly by a plunge in crude oil prices amid Iran-Israel conflicts.
The unit has depreciated by around 0.21 per cent in June and has fallen by 0.18 per cent in the first six months of the calendar year.
Some outflows may occur during the day due to JSW Paints' acquisition of Akzo Nobel India and HDB Financial's IPO allotment, according to Anil Kumar Bhansali, head of treasury and executive director at Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP.
Meanwhile, the dollar index traded lower as trade deals are back in focus with the July 9 deadline approaching for the US reciprocal tariffs to kick in. The US dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.18 per cent at 97.22.
Last week, US President Donald Trump touted that a "very big" trade deal could be signed with India soon. India's negotiators have extended their stay in Washington to seal the deal before the deadline, according to a Bloomberg report.
India's current account balance recorded a surplus of $13.5 billion (1.3 per cent of GDP) in the January-March quarter of 2024-25 as compared with $4.6 billion (0.5 per cent of GDP) in the year-ago period, RBI said on Friday. The current account was in deficit of $11.3 billion (1.1 per cent of GDP) in the December quarter of 2024-25.
In commodities, oil prices extended their fall after posting their biggest weekly plunge in over two years before a likely Opec+ supply hike. Brent crude price was down 0.15 per cent at $67.67 per barrel, while WTI crude prices were higher by 0.29 per cent at 65.33, as of 3:40 PM IST.
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India.com
37 minutes ago
- India.com
Explained: What Is Inside Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill' And Why It Is Sparking So Much Heat
New Delhi: U.S. President Donald Trump calls it his 'Big Beautiful Bill'. Behind the grand name lies a controversial piece of legislation. It mixes tax cuts, deep spending shifts, new defense boosts and changes to healthcare and social aid. The Senate passed it after a marathon session. Now, it heads to the House, where the debate could get even more intense. Here's a breakdown of what the bill actually does and why it is causing so much uproar. At the centre of the bill lies Trump's push to extend the 2017 tax cuts. Those cuts were due to expire in 2025. This bill makes most of them permanent. High earners stand to benefit the most. Wealthier families would keep their deductions and lower tax rates. A few new benefits are added too such as deductions on tips, car loan interest (if the car is made in the US) and overtime pay. One major change – the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap would rise from $10,000 to $40,000 but only for five years. Estimated cost of all tax breaks – $4.5 trillion over a decade. Without the bill, the current child tax credit – $2,000 per child – would fall to $1,000 by 2026. With the bill, the credit increases to $2,200 per child. It is not a dramatic jump, but a politically safe one. The bill pushes $350 billion toward national security and border enforcement. That includes $46 billion for Trump's Mexico border wall, $45 billion for migrant detention beds and billions more to hire 10,000 new ICE agents. This part of the bill closely mirrors Trump's immigration crackdown promises. To help fund tax breaks and defense spending, the bill slashes safety net programmes. That includes Medicaid and SNAP (food aid). Republicans say the goal is to 'refocus' these programmes on the most vulnerable – children, pregnant women and disabled citizens. But the Congressional Budget Office says around 11.8 million Americans could lose health coverage if the bill becomes law. The bill guts tax credits for solar, wind and electric vehicles. A tax break for electric car buyers would end this year, not 2032, as current law allows. This rollback hits the core of former President Joe Biden's climate policy, especially his Inflation Reduction Act. The U.S. debt already stands at $36.2 trillion. Trump's bill adds another $3.3 trillion over 10 years and raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion – higher than what the House had approved earlier. According to Yale's Budget Lab, top earners gain 2.2% in income and lowest earners lose 2.5%, mainly from cuts to food and healthcare support. Wealthier Americans keep more money. Low-income families may face new struggles. Senate passed it with 51-50 votes. Every Democrat opposed the bill. Vice President JD Vance cast the deciding vote. Republican support was shaky but held after last-minute amendments. The bill now goes to the House. If the House changes anything, the Senate will have to vote again. Both chambers must agree on a final version before Trump can sign it into law. He is hoping to do that by July 4, but even he admitted, 'It is going to be hard.' Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is huge in size and impact. It brings major tax relief to some, while pulling back on healthcare and aid for others. It fuels defense and border spending, but balloons national debt. And it could redefine America's budget if it survives the House.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
4 red lines in India-US trade talks: Corn, ethanol, soyabean & dairy
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Restricting the use of imported GM maize only to milling and the fermentation of its starchy carbohydrates into fuel ethanol is meant to prevent this material from entering the food chain. The milk, egg or chicken consumed in India will, then, not come from cattle and birds fed on GM maize, whether imported from the US or Brazil. But the proposal faces resistance from sugar mills. The share of ethanol supplied from grain-based feedstock has risen from zero to 57% between 2017-18 and 2023-24. The mills fear that imported GM maize will lead to the further marginalisation of sugarcane in the ethanol-blended petrol (EBP) programme. Opening the doors for GM maize imports may also encounter political roadblocks, ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections: The state is India's third largest maize producer after Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Opening up imports of the four farm products is politically fraught: it involves farmers across several states, and calls for a relook at key policies regarding regulation around genetically modified crops. The second is ethanol The US is the world's biggest producer and exporter of ethanol too. In 2024, it exported $4.3 billion worth of ethanol, with India being the third largest market (at $441.3 million) after Canada ($1.5 billion) and United Kingdom ($535.1 million). India now allows ethanol imports only against 'actual user' licence for non-fuel industrial purposes. Imports can be for manufacturing alcohol-based chemicals, medicines or beverages, but not for blending in petrol and diesel. Given India's total projected ethanol consumption of 11,350 million litres in 2025, with fuel's share at 9,650 million and industrial use at just 1,700 million litres, the US would want an opening up of the market. But import of ethanol for fuel use is likely to be a 'red line' for India. It may be seen as undermining the EBP programme's primary objective — to reduce dependence on imported fuels and create a market for surplus domestic agricultural produce, particularly sugarcane and cereal grains. The third is soyabean US is the second biggest producer and exporter of soyabean after Brazil. With 96% of acreage in the US and 99% in Brazil under herbicide-tolerant GM varieties, the average per-hectare yields of 3.4-3.5 tonnes in these two countries are way above India's 0.9 tonnes. India allows import of GM soyabean oil. However, imports of both whole GM soyabean and the residual de-oiled cake (DOC) after extraction of oil are prohibited. The reason: The GM protein matter is present only in the raw bean and DOC, not the oil. A recent NITI Aayog working paper (subsequently withdrawn) had called for exploring the option of importing GM soyabean, so that the oil extracted can be sold in the domestic market and the DOC exported to other countries. This would ensure that only the oil gets consumed locally and the imported soyabean is neither planted by Indian farmers nor used as an animal feed ingredient. But soyabean is grown in some 13 million hectares of the country — mainly the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. That, plus the crop selling at well below the government's minimum support price, may not make it politically easy to permit imports of GM soyabean. The last is dairy The US isn't as big a player as New Zealand and the European Union in dairy, when it comes to the global milk powder and butter trade. The duties that India currently levies — 30% on cheese, 40% on butter and 60% on milk powder — render imports from even low-cost producers such as New Zealand and Australia unviable. On top of that is the requirement — which, the US claims, is purely 'premised on religious and cultural grounds' — for all imported dairy products to be derived from animals not fed on any formulation produced from the internal organs, blood meal or tissues of bovines. While dairy is clearly a 'red line' on which India is unlikely to yield much ground, it may also turn out to be a leveraging point that the US would use to extract concessions in the other agricultural commodities. Harish Damodaran is National Rural Affairs & Agriculture Editor of The Indian Express. A journalist with over 33 years of experience in agri-business and macroeconomic policy reporting and analysis, he has previously worked with the Press Trust of India (1991-94) and The Hindu Business Line (1994-2014). ... Read More
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Trump wins $16 million settlement over edited Kamala Harris interview on CBS
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