Weekly Wrapup: Highs and Lows
In this week's wrapup, we'll talk about the challenges with achieving India's solar energy goals, why Biocon recently made headlines, why India's foreign exchange reserves have hit a new high, whether cheque bouncing should be de-criminalised and the problems plaguing India's restaurant industry.
The dark clouds over India's solar dreams
On Monday, we talked about the challenged in meeting India's lofty solar energy goals.
So the government wants to install 100 GW of solar capacity by the year 2022. Right now, solar only makes up about 37 GW of our energy mix, which means we need to add another 63 GW in 2 years to achieve the target.
The government plans on getting about 40 GW of energy from an ambitious project that involves setting up on-grid solar rooftops. The system will convert sunlight into energy, which could then be consumed or transferred to another household through the utility grid. It's pretty neat. However, there is a problem — the distribution companies responsible for shipping electricity to your homes aren't totally in on this scheme.
Find out why this is a problem here.
Entering the world of Biosimilars
On Tuesday, we talked about a recent headline- “Biocon gets US FDA nod to launch insulin glargine, third biologics by Indian firm”.
There's plenty to unpack here. First off, when it comes to pharmaceuticals, the deep pockets of US consumers provide an extremely lucrative opportunity to Indian manufacturers. However, FDA approvals aren't exactly easy to come by, so it's always exciting when an Indian firm gets in.
And secondly, there's the 'biologic' that the company is launching itself. Learn all about it here.
An abundance of foreign exchange
On Wednesday, we wanted to figure out how India’s Forex reserves breached the $500 billion mark for the first time ever despite deteriorating economic conditions.
For starters, you could attribute this to oil. Prices are low now and we haven't been importing a lot anyway. Therefore, we haven't been expending as much forex reserves as we usually do. But that's only one variable affecting the outcome here. There are so many other things aiding the reserves surplus. And if you want to know about all of this, go ahead and read the full story here.
To de-criminalise or not to de-criminalise?
On Thursday, we talked about whether cheque bouncing should be treated as a criminal offense.
Right now, if a cheque is dishonoured because the issuer doesn't have adequate funds in the account, he/she could be imprisoned for up to two years and fined a hefty amount.
But now, the government wants to de-criminalise certain minor offenses to make it easier to do business in India and also give the country's overburdened courts time to deal with more important matters. Cheque bouncing is in this list. But should it be? Here's what we think.
The Fault in our Restaurants
On Friday, we talked about the problems plaguing the restaurant industry in India. Lately, there have been reports of several well-known restaurants all over the country shutting down.
This is distressing, because India's food services market was expected to be worth 5 lakh crore by 2021. It was supposed to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 10%. And now, all of this is a distant dream.
But what if restaurants pivoted from dine-ins to takeaways? Would that help them stay open? Find out here.
Well, that's all from us. Have a great weekend!
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