Healthy crop

Food production for the year 2022-23 is estimated at 329.7 million tonnes, marking around a 4.5% increase from the previous year, data released by the ministry of agriculture showed. The output of primary cereals such as rice and wheat saw an uptick of 4.9% and 2.6%, respectively, and the production of coarse grains saw a surge of 12%. The record high production was achieved even after subpar rains in rice-growing areas affected 7 million tonnes of kharif rice output.

Vulnerable investors

Retail investors who entered the market in August and September may experience the worst impact if the broader market indices experience a further decline from their current levels, amid the rising bond yields in the US and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in West Asia, Mint reported. Cumulatively, retail investors have invested ₹21,900 crore in those two months, after net sales of ₹21,400 crore from April to July. However, this is in contrast with foreign portfolio investors (FPI) selling ₹27,800 crore in cash during the two-month period.

AI fund

₹30 crore: That’s the amount in the VSS Investments Fund launched by Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The Category II Alternate Investment Fund (AIF), launched to invest in Indian artificial intelligence (AI) and electric vehicle startups, has a total size of ₹20 crore and comes with an additional green-shoe option of ₹10 crore. The Paytm chief said various follow-on investments in the consumer and B2B tech space will also come from this fund.

Urban landscapes

The constantly changing demography of Indian cities, driven by migration and urban development, necessitates the need for robust long-term plans to prepare quality services and sustainable infrastructure. However, a recent Jaanagraha report showed that at least 39% of India’s capital cities lacked active spatial plans and only nine had plans for all key urban needs. No state has enforced standardized street design regulations for urban roads or established provisions to prohibit the approval of projects that contravene their urban development plans, the report said.

Hiring freeze

With the information technology (IT) industry facing headwinds from the global growth slowdown, college freshers are likely to bear the brunt as Infosys Ltd and Wipro Ltd, which together hired over 200,000 engineering graduates in the past three years, have said they don’t plan to go to the campuses this year. This means that out of the top four IT giants only two will be hiring. The last time such a situation arose was during the global financial crisis in 2008, Mint reported.

Export rethink

$950 per tonne: That’s the new minimum export price (MEP) the government has decided to set for basmati rice, Hindustan Times reported. The Centre had imposed a floor price of $1,200 a tonne for overseas shipments in August to tame domestic prices but traders had complained the decision had made the shipments unviable. MEP is a price threshold below which exporters can’t sell to global buyers. India is a leading exporter of the premium aromatic grain, shipping over 4 million tonnes a year.

Attrition woes

India’s top listed companies appear to have been seeing high attrition. The median attrition rate of BSE 100 firms stood at 17% in the year ended 31 March, sharply up from 10% rate in 2020-21 and 15.4% in 2021-22, showed a Mint analysis of annual reports. The case was worse for women, who dropped out more than men. A little over half of the companies have seen two back-to-back years of increasing employee exits, 42% of which have seen the rate rise by over 10 percentage points since 2020-21.

Chart of the week: Pollution pangs

With the temperature dropping, Delhi’s air quality has once again worsened. However, data on stubble burning—a key reason for north India’s polluted air at this time of the year — shows an improvement from previous years.

Follow our data stories on the “In Charts” and “Plain Facts” pages on the Mint website