Rupee falls 8 paise to 88.67 against US dollar in early trade
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee weakened 8 paise to 88.67 against the US dollar in early trade on Tuesday as equity market faced selling pressure amid global trade related uncertainties.
A weak American currency, lower crude oil prices and some inflow of foreign capital into domestic stocks failed to support the Indian currency, forex analysts said.
They said investors are concerned about increasing import bills and widening trade deficit of the country. Also, traders were keenly watching the progress on the proposed India-US trade deal as well as the domestic PMI data to be released later this week.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 88.67 and slipped to 88.69 level before inching up to 88.68 against the greenback in initial deals, registering a loss of 8 paise from its previous closing level.
On Monday, the rupee settled 7 paise higher at 88.59 against the US dollar.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.05 per cent lower at 99.43.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 0.47 per cent lower at USD 63.90 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, Sensex declined 151.86 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 84,799.09 in early trade, while the Nifty went down 44.50 points, or 0.17 per cent, to 25,967.30.
Foreign institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 442.17 crore on Monday, according to exchange data.
The latest government data released on Monday showed India's exports contracted 11.8 per cent to USD 34.38 billion in October on account of the impact of high tariffs by the US, while the trade deficit widened to a record high of USD 41.68 billion, mainly due to a jump in gold imports.
The country's imports jumped 16.63 per cent to USD 76.06 billion due to high inbound shipments of the yellow metal, silver, cotton raw/waste, fertiliser, and sulphur.
In September, the trade gap widened to USD 31.15 billion, the highest in over a year.
While gold imports rose about 200 per cent to USD 14.72 billion, silver rose 528.71 per cent to USD 2.71 billion during October.
Crude oil imports dipped to USD 14.8 billion in October from USD 18.9 billion in the same month last year.
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Confident about Cong winning bypolls in Karnataka, guarantee schemes helping us: Siddaramaiah
Davangere (Karnataka) (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday expressed confidence that Congress candidates will win both the Bagalkot and Davanagere South assembly bypolls in the state by a huge margin, as the government's five guarantee schemes will help the party.
Asserting that Karnataka's economy is in good shape, he accused the BJP of making negative statements for political gain.
The CM is in Davanagere to campaign for Congress candidate Samarth Mallikarjun, after campaigning for Umesh Meti in the Bagalkot segment for the last two days.
Bypolls for the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly constituencies will be held on April 9. The polls were necessitated following the deaths of senior Congress MLAs H Y Meti and Shamanur Shivashankarappa, respectively.
"I'm confident that we will win in both constituencies by a big margin because of our government's good work. Our guarantee schemes ('Shakti', 'Gruha Lakshmi', 'Gruha Jyoti', 'Yuva Nidhi' and 'Anna Bhagya') are helping us. The BJP opposed guarantee schemes because they are programmes for the poor and they always oppose such initiatives," Siddaramaiah said.
Speaking to reporters here, he said over Rs 1.31 lakh crore has been spent on the guarantee schemes so far.
Noting that there are two types of economic theory -- trickle-down economics and universal basic income -- the CM said, "We believe in universal basic income theory because Basavanna, Ambedkar, Gandhiji, among others, wanted the focus to be on eliminating the sufferings of the last man."
"Through the guarantee schemes, the government is providing benefits to the poor in society -- irrespective of their language, caste or religion -- directly to their bank accounts, without any interference from middlemen," he said, as he rejected the BJP's allegations of corruption in guarantee schemes.
Pointing out that the BJP also claims the treasury is empty because of the guarantee schemes and that the state is being pushed into a debt trap, Siddaramaiah said the state's finances were better managed compared to the central government and most of the states where the saffron party is in power.
Karnataka is number two in the country in GST collection and attracting investments. "Then how is the BJP saying that Karnataka's economic situation is not in good shape? They are making such statements for the sake of politics...Karnataka's economic situation is strong. The BJP is lying," he said.
He also claimed that prices of petrol, diesel and other essentials cost less in Karnataka compared to other neighbouring states in South India.
Karnataka's economy is strong and stable, Siddaramaiah said, as he questioned the Modi government over the falling rupee against the dollar, 'Ache din,' doubling farmers' income, and generating 2 crore jobs every year.
The CM also assured of more funds for Davanagere's development saying, "This is bypolls, not general elections. We will give more funds. We are in power and Congress will be in power for two years."
