Mamata Banerjee’s first Railway Budget was presented today without too much pomp or show. The sort of entertainment that we have seen from the former Rail Minister Lalu Yadav was noticeably missing and definitely missed.

The woman personally responsible for the shifting of the Tata Nano project from West Bengal to Gujarat has delivered a Railways Budget that can at best be classified as ‘neither here nor there’. An average Budget – not very commercial or economically minded but balanced by its populist and socialist nature.

Six months ago the government made a decision to cut fuel prices. A litre of petrol was cheaper by five rupees. Around this time I overheard a conversation, one man was saying this to another in his local vernacular “Whenever they (the government) want they raise fuel prices, whenever they want they lower it. Once the election is over they’ll not hesitate to hike the cost again...”

That man sure got it right, Murli Deora has not hesitated to hike the price of fuel. A cross the board hike of petrol by Four rupees a litre and diesel by Two rupees.

 Air India has been grounded. Now that its official that the country’s national carrier will be bailed out by the government, the easy part is over. The hard part starts now. Restructuring a gargantuan company which is packed to the brim with too many employees, a lackluster business model, over dependence on the government and huge losses is a very difficult and time consuming task. There are simply way too many people to satisfy and the fact that it’s a Public Sector Company does not make it a single bit easier.

The first high profile IPO to hit the Indian markets this year takes off today. The launch is significant as it could restart the IPO market which has been dormant since the economic downturn. It does help that the markets are doing a lot better now than they were even a few months ago. Many companies are likely to evaluate the IPO market based on how the Mahindra Holidays IPO does. The issue opens today and will be on for the next three days. In this article we take a look at the company, its prospects and whether your money is well spent on the stock.

As I write this the rain clouds have burst over Mumbai city .There is hope that this shower of rainfall is the real deal. Not a sporadic passing shower but the onset of the Monsoon in most of India. The monsoon officially hit the country more than a fortnight ago yet it has not impacted the majority of Indian states. Undoubtedly that’s a cause for concern, a delayed monsoon is still better than a failed monsoon and right now economists and farmers best hope that the monsoon does not fail. If it does it will be nothing short of a disaster.

The economy is heavily dependent on the monsoon. Most food crops depend on the water that it delivers. Irrigation facilities still being nascent, the economy pretty much runs because of the monsoon. This however being a variable cannot be controlled. If it rains and rains well then everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

After a 14 week winning streak the Sensex has broken the momentum by showing an inter week fall. It’s been a period which has been very successful for the bulls. They’ve been on the march for the past one hundred days .Market watchers have been skeptical though, saying that the period is not yet ripe for the birth of a new bull market. This could have been a ‘fake rally’ with investors sizing up their positions. Nonetheless even though the market has broken the winning streak it is still a good thing because the Sensex is now at a position where it can consolidate.

The airline companies simply can’t seem to catch a break and unfortunately neither can airline passengers. Once again the airline sector is all set to hike air fares across domestic routes on all flights. The country’s two biggest airliners, Kingfisher and Jet Airways have already announced that they will indeed be raising prices by as much as Four Hundred rupees a ticket. This time the excuse for the price hike being given is the all too often heard ‘fuel surcharge’.

For the past one year airline passengers have been subject to  one agony after another ,all of which have been ways of raising money for the airline companies either in the name of ‘maintenance fees’, ’infrastructure fee’, ’user development fee’ or simply the fuel surcharge.

Yet another chapter in the story of the Ambani brothers has been written today. This battle though has clearly been won by the younger Ambani brother- Anil. Mukesh Ambani’s hopes of exercising control over the Natural Gas sector by throwing a wrench at his brother’s similar ambitions have been squashed for now. While one brother celebrates his victory in the Bombay High Court, the other is planning his next move. For investors and traders meanwhile, two money making opportunities have risen.

Divesting a PSU has proven to be a tricky affair in the past. For one those who want to make the decision are severely hounded by political groups on charges of ‘selling out’ to private investors. The earlier NDA regime was the first  government to take the matter seriously in the sense that they actually went about the process of divesting public sector units. The previous UPA government tried to pick up from where the NDA left off but being in a coalition with a communist partner has its disadvantages.

Thanks to the election however, the communists are no longer in a position to call the shots. The result: The government is now ready and capable of going about the business of divesting public sector units.

 The buzz word on the Indian markets is ‘INFRASTRUCTURE’. Ever since the UPA romped home with a thumping mandate in the recently held election, market watchers and investors alike are very hopeful about the huge infrastructure sector in India. Coupled with the prices of realty, an additional investment in infrastructure according to them is a guaranteed return of investment and then some. This is due to the fact that many political parties have highlighted in their election manifestos; India’s need for an aggressive and revamped infrastructure network.