Knee-jerk reaction
The decision to hike the foreign portfolio investment ceiling in Indian listed companies cannot but be viewed with askance. Ostensibly, the government wants to create room for NRIs. The budget had doubled the aggregate ceiling for non-resident investment to 10 per cent and raised the individual ceiling to 5 per cent from one per cent.

A sentimental blow
The southward spiral of the rupee could continue unabated, unless the market is convinced that there are some fresh avenues for forex inflows. The nuclear tests which invited sanctions from the United States led to the postponement of loans from the World Bank and Moody's downgrade of India's sovereign rating to speculative grade.

Budget: A mixed bag for steel industry
Steel Industry has been reeling under recession for the past three years. In the preceding two years, it has been suffering on account of drastic reduction in the rates of customs duty on several items of iron and steel. It also had to contend with dumping of flat products by CIS countries as well as SE Asian countries.

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