While the government’s structural reforms augur well for the long term, much would depend on a supportive macro environment and adaptiveness of businesses to the changes, SN Subrahmanyan, CEO & MD, Larsen & Toubro, tells Shubhra Tandon. Excerpts:

The year 2017 saw some significant reforms, the most important being GST. This also caused some disruptions to business. How do you view business activity now and what is your outlook for 2018?

The new 2018 TVS Apache RTR 160 will be launched in India on 14th March. The company has already started sending out invites for the launch event. Though the invite does not mention the exact name of the motorcycle, we believe that the upcoming bike will be the new RTR 160. At the launch of TVS Apache RR 310, the company had announced that the next launch under the Apache line up will be the updated Apache RTR 160.

The pummeling of bank stocks isn’t bad news for all banks. Kotak Mahindra Bank bucked the trend on Wednesday, with the stock ending in the green. In fact, the shares of the private lender advanced in three sessions of the last six when the Bank Nifty gave up over 6% of its value.

The private lender, which boasts higher market capitalisation than its gross advances, surpassed ICICI Bank in market value last week.

President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday wished the "sheet-anchor of society" on the occassion of International Women's Day.

"On International Women's Day, greetings to women in India and across our planet," the President tweeted.

Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors Ltd. had just about 200 women on the shop floor three years ago. Now, it has 10 times that number and is looking to hire more.

In socially conservative India, that may be a tall order. Better educated women from wealthier families aren’t encouraged to work and it’s usually when a man’s salary falls short that women seek jobs.

Homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart is planning to set up an integrated logistics park on the outskirts of Bengaluru. This will be the largest and one-of-its-kind facility in the country. The facility, for which the company is in the process of acquiring 100 acres of land, will house multiple massive warehouses that will rival in size those set up by Amazon and Alibaba in the US and China, respectively.

ArcelorMittal will scale up the capacity of Essar Steel plant to 18 million tonnes (mt), making it a significant player in the growing Indian steel market.

“It is now operating at 5 mt and can be ramped up to 8.5 mt. The aspiration is to take the capacity to 18 mt,” sources in ArcelorMittal said.

Capital market regulator Securities and Exchange of India (Sebi) has 'deferred' implementation of the loan default disclosure framework.

Last year, Sebi had issued a circular mandating listed companies to disclose within 24 hours any bank loan default. The circular, however, was withdrawn a day before implementation due to regulatory complications.

Consumers might have to bear a portion of Centre's proposed move to guarantee a Minimum Support Price (MSP), which would be 50 per cent more than the cost through higher prices in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) space, S Sivakumar, group head, Agri-business and IT of one of India's largest agribusiness player, ITC Ltd said.

He said while companies might absorb a part of the additional cost, once revised MSPs are in effect, they would also have to pass on some of the extra burden to the consumers.

The import of thermal coal is likely to increase in the coming months, as Coal India is set to miss its production target again – for an 11th straight month – causing a fuel shortage at the country’s thermal power plants. This is particularly worrisome as the demand for coal is likely to increase further as summer approaches.

The coal monolith’s output from April 2017 to February 2018 stood at 495.09 mt, seven per cent lower than the 531.32 mt target set by the coal ministry. Similarly, sales volume during this period is set to fall three per cent short of the 541.60 mt target.

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