TMS, Ep 15: Business impact of Facebook outage, Subbarao on economy, & IPOs

The services of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were disrupted for at least 6 hours on the night of October 4th India time. This was because of the collapse of Facebook's global system. And this had an impact on millions of people, if not billions. How are businesses, particularly in India, affected by such events? And what can regulators do about them? 

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After a 7% economic contraction in 2020-21 financial year, India is eyeing over 9% growth in FY22. However, with extreme job losses, migration of labour from high-productive to low-productive jobs, and high inflation, policy makers may have to rethink the target of a $5-trillion economy by 2025. Why does former Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao think doubling the economy in 4 years might be too ambitious?

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The Reserve Bank of India’s three-day monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting ends on Friday. The consensus view is that of a status quo on key rates, though the central bank could tinker with policies to help suck out excess liquidity from the system. How will the markets react to a surprise? What’s priced in and what’s not? 

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There has been a lot of activity in India's primary markets this financial year, with as many as 24 companies raising a total of Rs 47,000 crore through the IPO route in the first six months. At least two issues, Paras Defence & Space Technologies and GR Infraprojects, have listed at a premium of more than 100%, more than doubling investors' wealth. So what is an IPO? How does the process work? How much time does it take for a company to go public? 

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Get answers to these questions and more in today’s Business Standard Morning Show podcast.