News

• Generation of coal-based power rose to the highest level in nine months (5% m-o-m and 15% y-o-y). Power demand witnessed nearly 13% y-o-y growth in Oct’20. However, demand was 2% lower on a m-o-m basis.

• The Centre is looking at mining reforms, including amendments to the Mining Act and auction rules, coal and mines secretary Anil Kumar Jain has said. These are progressing well and in the next six to eight weeks the reforms are likely get adopted in the statute book, he added.

Union coal minister Pralhad Joshi said the next tranche of the auction for commercial mining of coal blocks would be held in January 2021.

The GDP is likely to contract by 8.6% for the July-September period, which means India will enter into a recession for the first time in history in the first half of this fiscal with two successive quarters of negative growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as per an RBI official.

India is planning to announce a fresh round of stimulus totalling about $20 billion this week to help pull the economy out of its historic contraction, government officials said.

• Renewable power is growing robustly around the world this year, contrasting with the sharp declines triggered by the Covid-19 crisis in many other parts of the energy sector such as oil, gas and coal, a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. And India is expected to be the largest contributor to the renewables upswing next year.