Hello and welcome to Let's talk business. I'm Franci Sharma in the show NTV and B Q Prime will bring you the top news stories from the world of business, finance and economics. Let's first start with how the markets performed today, and markets made a sharp recovery to end on a high note. Flag, air and buying drove up 346 points to 7960 while nifty rallied 129 points to reclaim the 17,000 levels. Meanwhile, the rupee weakened against the dollar, depreciating 15 per se to close at 82.34 against the greenback. Let's go across to my colleague Niraj Shah in the b Q Prime News room to get a wrap of all the market action over to you. Thanks so much for that. So the global markets dictated this. You have to admit, because when we shut shop, Europe was in the green. Dow futures were up about 202 150 odd points as rates have fallen. The global market mood was very sanguine, but you have to understand that for the last three days, the global markets have been OK, but we haven't done well. The nifty shut below 17,000 for three days on a trot until yesterday. As of yesterday, it's just today's session. There's a bit of a, you know, spring effect that the markets haven't been doing well for a while, and they've come back. Or they finally made a point to move up. And it was a broad based rally from Tech. I mean, as an I T name to a Tata Motors, which is an auto name to banking names. It was a widespread move, only relying, and were the notable stocks on the losing side on the sex. The group stocks, which is kind of dictating sentiment of sorts at the broad end of the spectrum, did really well today after the clarification from the company yesterday. So um, a enterprises, ports and the the others had a fairly fairly decent outing. At least the two main names had a fairly good outing in the session today. Um, and the broadening of the spectrum we saw gains remember, midcaps and small caps have been sulking the last few days. In today's session, I mean everything from an NBC C, which went up 13 14% on back of 100 and 50 orders. It's not that the order really dictated it, but just that the sentiment improved a little bit. You had sugar names like ReNu carb capital, good names, PRA Industries, P s U banking, you, Union Bank, Bank of India and the whole P s index. I mean, you had an S, J V n, and some of the other P S. U is also doing well, so net net a broad based rally much needed. Um, the question is whether this will last. Tomorrow is a holiday for us. Let's see if we actually build on from here. Come Friday. Right. Well, thanks for joining us with those details and moving on. Now we have some bad news for your budget. You will have to shell out more for essential and life saving medicines now, while inflation was already burning a hole in the army's pocket now medicines too will cost 12.12% more. This is in fact, the biggest ever hike announced by the centre. My colleague Mona San is joining us for more details on this. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has approved a hike of 12.12% on essential drugs that are covered under the drug price control order. Now this would mean that life saving drugs are all set to get more expensive. This hike is usually based on the wholesale price index of the preceding year, which is reflective of the inflation in the economy Now. Normally, this would range between 0.5% to 4.2% in the past couple of years. But last year and this year it's been a double digit hike, with this year being the highest and effective from April one. However, companies that have a higher exposure to the national list of essential medicines are all set to be key beneficiaries. Some of these companies include G S, K Pharma, Sifi, India, uh, IP, a laboratories, Kem Laboratories, Alambic Pharma amongst many others and F T. C. Now these companies have an exposure ranging from 15% to 49% to the n l E M. And, uh, it's usually seen that acute therapy oriented companies have a higher exposure to the list, so they're all set again. Now here's a small catch. Vishal Manchanda, a pharma analyst with Systematic says that G S K Farms have had a couple of their main products recently been included in the January updated list of the N L E M. Now this would mean that they would have had to take a downward price revision. Now, despite this price hike, they are saying that it's not sufficient to offset the downward revision that they have had to take. And this could mean that their revenues would still be at a net loss compared to the last year's revenues. However, for all the other drugs that have been on the list for quite some time now, this is going to be a big gain for the companies, right? Thanks very much for joining us with those details and now moving on amid ambitious Capex targets, the fiscal deficit of India's top 10 states is likely to see a decline. The fiscal deficit of states ranked by the GDP is likely to ease to 3.2% of the GDP in financial year 2024. My colleague PVI Naha is joining us for more details on this and Paul take us through those interesting numbers. The fiscal deficit of India's top 10 states is likely to marginally decline in F Y. 24 according to a study of their state budgets. Alongside capital expenditure is likely to see a surge to whether or not states will be able to meet their targets remains to be seen. An analysis of state budgets when states are ranked by nominal GDP shows that top 10 states are likely to see a marginal decline to 3.2% of the GDP in their fiscal deficit from 3.3% of the GDP in F Y. 23. Alongside expenditure is likely to see a rise of about 11% while capital expenditure is likely to surge by over 25%. However, an analysis of state spending by IRA shows that up to January 2023 in the current fiscal year, 15 top states have only been able to spend about 54% of their allocated K. What does this mean? It means that states are unlikely to meet their targets for F Y 23 they are unlikely to meet their increased targets for F Y. 24 as well. Right? Thanks very much for joining us with those details now moving on to the other big story. In a major setback for Google, the tech giant will now have to pay a penalty of ₹1337 crore imposed by the competition watchdog, now dismissing the plea against the Competition Commission of India's order. The Apple tribunal has directed Google to pay a penalty within 30 days and held that Google must pay for abusing its dominant position in the android market. It has also rejected Google's plea that there was a violation of natural justice by the competition regulator in the probe. My colleague up joins us with more details Thanks, Brian. Well, the big headline, of course, is that Google has been found guilty of abusive conduct and the penalty of over 1300 trials has been upheld against the tech media. But it's only a partial victory for the Competition Commission of India. I say that because the N. C. L. E. T. Has set aside four out of the 10 corrective measures that the regulator had asked Google to take and the four that have been set aside are quite material in the commercial sense. For instance, UH n A. Has said that Google doesn't need to distribute other APP stores on its own play store. So a player like OS Lab, which contested that it was driven out of the market by Google, uh, that remedy has now been taken away. Secondly, N. C. L. A. T has also said that it's not necessary that users be allowed to delete preinstalled apps like Google Search or YouTube uh, that are found in the android ecosystem. Uh, users can just choose not to use these apps, uh, third and has said that Google doesn't need to allow sideloading, which allows users to download apps from, let's Say, websites, uh, and not from play stores. Finally, the direction that Google must provide API s, which are required for other versions of Android to be compatible with the APP universe, has also been set aside. So in omitting these directions, the NLA has essentially diluted the measures that the C C. I had asked Google to take, uh, some quick conversations with experts also revealed that this is the order of the NLA is now not going to significantly change Google's life, uh, with the original equipment manufacturers or smartphone manufacturers. Uh, that said, this is just basically the oral pronouncement. We are yet to sort of fully read the 200 page order. Uh, both C c. I and Google may choose to appeal this order before the Supreme Court. We will, of course, stay on top of that back to you. Right. Thanks very much for joining us with those details. And with that, it's a wrap on this show. Thanks very much for watching Do Tune in at 5. 30 PM every Monday to Friday for all the top business stories of the day. Goodbye.
