Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Friday, July 12, 2024. My name is Nelson John. Let's get started: Indian stock market benchmarks- the Sensex and the Nifty 50- closed flat on Thursday, as gains in shares of ITC, ONGC, Tata Motors and SBI were offset by losses in those of Mahindra and Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, Larsen and Toubro and HDFC Bank. Delhi's summer has been nothing short of extreme this year. With temperatures frequently soaring well beyond the usual, hitting near 50 degrees Celsius, the capital found itself grappling with intense heatwaves. The sweltering heat prompted a significant response, with public hospitals establishing special heat treatment wards and reported heat-related fatalities reaching 58 by mid-June. However, as June ended, the weather took a drastic turn. The city experienced its highest single-day rainfall in 88 years on the 28 June.This sudden deluge not only disrupted daily life but also resulted in significant infrastructure damage, including the collapse of a canopy at Delhi Airport which tragically resulted in a fatality. The first half of 2024 has indeed been challenging for the residents of Delhi and the surrounding National Capital Region, home to a combined population of over 70 million. And the outlook for the remainder of the year suggests no respite, with the meteorological department predicting an unusually wet monsoon, which could lead to further flooding. Looking ahead to the winter, the situation appears equally grim with the anticipated onset of Delhi's notorious smog, which annually contributes to a high number of respiratory-related illnesses and deaths. This persistent cycle of extreme weather conditions underlines the urgent need for comprehensive environmental and infrastructural strategies to mitigate these impacts. Delhi’s weather also begets the question - Is it time for you to leave Delhi? Mint’s Sayantan Bera examines in today’s Long Story. India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services has set a strong pace in the first quarterly earnings of FY25, outperforming its average growth rate over the past five years. TCS reported a quarterly revenue of $7.5 billion, a 1.9% increase from the previous quarter, surpassing expectations from analysts who had projected a revenue of $7.44 billion. A significant portion of this growth, however, is attributed to an unusual surge in its India operations, Mint’s IT correspondents Jas Bardia and Shouvik Das report. The push in revenue is primarily because of a $1.83-billion 4G network project from BSNL. This has raised questions about the organic nature of TCS's growth, as half of its $142 million sequential revenue increase was derived from this Indian deal, marking a deviation from its traditional revenue streams predominantly from the Americas, Europe, and UK. Despite these doubts, K Krithivasan, TCS’s CEO, asserts that the company's growth isn’t solely reliant on the BSNL project. He acknowledges the current volatile market conditions, which affect decision-making and client investments but remains cautiously optimistic about the broader growth beyond this single project.India is gearing up for an expansion of its aviation infrastructure by doubling the number of airports from the current 138 to 300 by the 100th year of independence in 2047. Mint’s aviation correspondent Anu Sharma resorts that the plan is outlined in a draft by the Airports Authority of India. This ambitious project aims to accommodate an eightfold increase in passenger traffic, potentially reaching 3-3.5 billion passengers annually by the target year. The initiative aligns with efforts to enhance connectivity to tier 2 and tier 3 cities through programs like UDAN, which aims to make air travel affordable and widespread, particularly in less served areas. Locations identified for potential new airports include Kota in Rajasthan, Parandur in Tamil Nadu, and Puri in Odisha, among others. The plan also proposes converting existing airstrips in places like Mandavi in Gujarat and Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh into operational airports.The Agnipath scheme is under review for potential modifications to enhance its appeal. Introduced in June 2022, to recruit young individuals aged 17.5 to 21 years into the armed forces, the scheme has been pivotal in rejuvenating the youth profile of the armed forces. It also addresses the ballooning defence pension liabilities. Currently, the scheme recruits these young individuals for a four-year tenure, with a fourth of them being offered a chance to join the permanent cadre afterwards. As of now, the scheme is expected to continue with possible modifications either in the FY25 Budget or later to make it more attractive to potential recruits, Mint’s Gireesh Chandra Prasad reports. The financial implications of the scheme are significant, given that the defence pension allocation for FY25 is ...
