Category: South Asia

MALE, September 5, 2013 (AFP) – The Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives goes to the polls this weekend for a presidential election that will test its young democracy 18 months after a violent change in leadership. Its more than 1,000 islands sit aside the world’s most important east-west shipping channel and its strategic location […]

MUMBAI, September 5, 2013 (AFP) – India’s rupee strengthened and stocks jumped Thursday after new central bank governor Raghuram Rajan outlined a reform plan aimed at boosting investor confidence and stabilising the ailing currency.The rupee climbed to 65.75 against the dollar, gaining nearly two percent from its previous close, on investor hopes the worst could […]

KATHMANDU, September 4, 2013 (AFP) – After a long drive from across the border in China, the white truck arrived in Nepal’s capital at dawn with a seemingly innocuous cargo of Chinese-made clothes. But hidden in a cylinder inside the vehicle’s front bumper was the latest haul of gold smuggled from Tibet — bars weighing […]

MUMBAI, September 4, 2013 (AFP) – Top economist Raghuram Rajan, renowned for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis, took over as India’s central bank chief on Wednesday as the country faces its worst financial storm in years. Rajan, a former IMF chief economist, replaced Duvvuri Subbarao as governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), […]

MUMBAI, September 2, 2013 (AFP) – Bollywood producers have long been fond of filming in exotic foreign locations, but the spiralling Indian currency has seen spending on movie sets abroad drop by one third, according to a study released Monday.The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) says that the amount spent on […]

MUMBAI, September 3, 2013 (AFP) – India’s currency fell sharply Tuesday and stocks tumbled nearly 3.5 percent in another major sell-off caused by uncertainty in the Middle East and a new gloomy economic forecast by Goldman Sachs. On Monday, an HSBC survey showed that India’s manufacturing shrank in August for the first time in over […]

NEW DELHI, September 2, 2013 (AFP) – India is considering closing fuel pumps at night as one of a number of “austerity measures” aimed at cutting its ballooning oil import bills, the oil minister said.The government has partially deregulated petrol and hiked diesel prices in an effort to contain the ballooning debt caused in part […]

NEW DELHI, September 1, 2013 (AFP) – India’s biggest refiner, Indian Oil Corporation, increased petrol prices by more than 3.5 percent from Sunday, blaming the falling rupee for the hike. The company also raised diesel prices by just over one percent, it said in a statement issued late on Saturday, after a week which saw […]

WASHINGTON, August 29, 2013 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund declined to comment Thursday on speculation that India, reeling under a currency crisis, may seek IMF assistance.A wave of poor economic news for India — the rupee crashed to a new record closing low Wednesday — has fueled talk that New Delhi might need to […]

MUMBAI, August 30, 2013 (AFP) – India’s rupee resumed its downward trend against the dollar on Friday, after strong gains in the previous session, as dealers await GDP growth data and a statement from the prime minister on the ailing economy.The rupee — Asia’s worst-performing currency this year — was at 67.37 against the dollar […]

NEW DELHI, August 29, 2013 (AFP) – Seventeen-year-old Indian student Appu Sharma was going to apply to a US university to study economics but with the rupee on the ropes, he’s set his sights closer to home.Jayakrishnan declined to name figures but press reports calculated the three-day wedding he helped design for the daughter of […]

MUMBAI, August 27, 2013 (AFP) – India’s rupee fell to a new low Tuesday on fears over the country’s slowing economy and the impact of a new food programme for the poor on already strained finances.The rupee, like currencies of other emerging markets, has also fallen on fears of foreign fund outflows as the US […]