Net sales growth for the quarter ended December (Q3FY20) was 4.5 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for companies that have declared their results so far, compared to an 8.4 per cent rise in the first half of the financial year. This indicates that there could be a further rise in days' sales of inventory.

Recently listed companies scored 54, compared to 58 for the BSE100 firms and 61 for entities in the Sensex pack. The report noted that issues remain in IPO companies in which there seems to be a need to institutionalise governance practices.

Ghost beneficiaries aren't the only kind of issue companies face during a period of unprecedented CSR spending, touching nearly Rs 12,000 crore in 2018-19. Frauds related to procurement, construction, and end-use of funds have had companies engaging forensic auditors to keep tabs on how money is spent, revealed conversations with those involved in such investigations. Firms are also increasingly strengthening their own capabilities to better implement their programmes.

The biggest spend (Rs 4,406 crore) was for Schedule VII (II), which involves "promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills, especially among children, women, elderly and the differently abled and livelihood enhancement projects". The FY19 spend was 17.2 per cent higher than Rs 1,0128.3 crore spent during the previous year.

Indian funds did better than Asian ones in only four of the 10 months -- till October. Despite much market optimism, presumably around policy interventions and guided by buoyant flows, India's macro backdrop may be turning for the worse.

While Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is up 14.9% during the year to Rs 12,381 cr, Ashish Dhawan is up 68.4% to Rs 810 cr, Ashish Kacholia is down 23.4% to Rs 515 cr, Rajiv and Dolly Khanna are down 74.6% to Rs 116 cr and Vijay Kedia is down 6.2% to Rs 294 cr.

Around 41 per cent of these companies saw such instances, compared to the global average of 29 per cent. India's number is higher than other countries such as the United States (26 per cent), the United Kingdom (32 per cent) and Japan (27 per cent). It is also worse than other emerging markets. China had 39 per cent of firms affected by data theft. It was 19 per cent and 16 per cent for Brazil and Russia, respectively.

This is despite the private sector companies outperforming their public sector counterparts, reports Sachin P Mampatta.

The financials of six privately held companies associated with Siddhartha show an increase in debt and falling ability to meet short-term obligations.

High regulatory expectations and advent of discount broking have made old-style brokerage businesses unviable.

The average assets of an MP are now 345.8 times that of an annual income of a tax-filing individual, reports Sachin P Mampatta.

The cumulative spends on Google are in excess of Rs 27.4 crore. There have been 14,837 advertisements on Google platforms.

The Congress topped the list of pages with the highest spends for the week ended April 6.

A page called 'My First Vote For Modi' accounts for the largest number of ads by number (2,765). Another one called 'Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat' was second (2,429). 'Namo Supporters' was third with 2,153 ads, reports Sachin P Mampatta.

A combination of fewer listings and falling 'average daily traded value' contributed to the drag in Q3.

The country has been facing an ever-rising fiscal deficit, increasing debt and a hamstrung economy.

'When I came here in 2002, I said you can grow at 8%.' 'And I was told that was crazy, and (now) here we are.'

'NRI interest has gone up in the past three-four years.'

'If she contests it, then these people will have to fight it in court.'

'People always short-change the resilience of the economy.'