Data recap: AI race hots up, RBI increases rates

Every Friday, Plain Facts publishes a compilation of data-based insights, complete with easy-to-read charts, to help you delve deeper into the stories reported by Mint in the week gone by. India’s monetary policy committee raised the benchmark policy rates in its continuing fight against inflation. The allegations against the Adani group made their presence felt in Parliament.

Google has come up with its own ChatGPT competitor. Inflation War View Full Image Mint Share Via The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the repo rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday—the sixth consecutive increase since May 2020, but the slowest of the lot. The benchmark rate now stands at 6.

5%, the highest since 2018. The rate hike came despite a drop in the headline inflation rate in November and December. A Mint analysis shows inflation remains high for a significant chunk of items in the retail basket.

The RBI said more rate hikes were likely. Spending Priorities View Full Image Mint Share Via In its Union Budget for 2023-24, the Centre has proposed to massively increase capital expenditure to ₹ 10 trillion. Some economists have expressed concern that the move has come at the cost of welfare spending.

The combined allocation to 14 select welfare schemes has virtually remained stagnant over the last two years, Mint calculations showed (https://bit. ly/3RKok8u). This reminds of India’s weak social spending trends even by global standards, despite being a developing country.

Long Innings That’s the year in which A. M. Naik joined the infrastructure conglomerate Larsen & Toubro as a junior engineer.

The 80-year-old, who is now chairman of the company, told Mint he will step down as non-executive chairman in October, and will be designated chairman emeritus. He will be succeeded by S. N.

Subrahmanyan, the company’s chief executive officer. Naik will continue to be the chairman of the L&T Employee Trust. A Political Turn View Full Image Mint Share Via The stock market turmoil after allegations of fraud surfaced against the Adani group took a political turn this week.

When Parliament resumed proceedings this week, Opposition leaders questioned the government’s alleged links with Gautam Adani and demanded a probe into the allegations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed both Houses, but did not address the matter directly. Adani group stocks have been under pressure since the allegations surfaced on 24 January.

Surprise Loss View Full Image Mint Share Via Tata steel reported a consolidated net loss of ₹ 2,223. 8 crore for the December quarter, against a Bloomberg forecast of ₹ 1,699. 1 crore profit.

The loss was primarily due to a sharp drop in realizations. The company’s European operations were under pressure amid the steep rise in energy costs and slowing demand. The company’s operating profit was at ₹ 4,050 crore during the quarter, 75% lower year-on-year.

The domestic performance was satisfactory. Changing Hands That’s the stake the central government now has in Vodafone Idea, making it the largest shareholder in the telecom company. The government had earlier directed the company to convert ₹ 16,133 crore in interest dues into equity.

This was the outcome of a relief package the Centre had come up with in September 2021 as telecom companies were struggling to repay their dues and were deep in debt. The promoters will retain management control. MINT PREMIUM See All Premium Investors are all for ESG.

Except, that is, when times . . .

Premium Risk profiles: Startups, tech cos face 20k job cuts in . . .

Premium Data recap: AI race hots up, RBI increases rates Premium How Sebi is all set to make AIFs more investor-friendly Battle of Bots View Full Image Mint Share Via The phenomenal success of artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT is set to turn into a new race among tech titans. If Microsoft is set to invest billions of dollars in ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI, Google is to come up with a similar software, Bard. But while Microsoft unveiled a new version of its browser powered by ChatGPT-like features, Google’s attempt backfired when Bard gave an inaccurate answer in a promo.

Alphabet Inc. lost market value equal to $100 billion on Wednesday after the gaffe. Chart of the Week: Gender Bet View Full Image Mint Share Via India’s gender budgeting exercise has not always impressed in terms of its share in total spending.

But several states try to match the Centre with their own efforts. States such as Odisha, West Bengal, and Gujarat were early adopters of the strategy. Schemes for women need more teeth to make a dent, experts say.

Follow us on #MintCharts on our social media handles. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tanay Sukumar Tanay leads Mint’s data journalism team. His role involves editing and overseeing the newspaper’s diverse data offerings, ranging from deep analytical pieces to bite-sized social media charts.

Read more from this author Catch all the Business News , Market News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates. More Less Topics plain-facts.