The Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMI) has sought immediate regulatory intervention to correct the fee structure in the loss-making ATM deployer industry.It says the latest RBI direction to reconfigure cash vending machines will increase their cost by at least 25 per cent, leaving them unviable.The industry also said that meeting the RBI directive will be contingent solely on banks taking on the additional cost, as this will increase their operational cost by 40 per cent.On June 21, RBI had issued a circular mandating control measures for ATMs and also to reconfigure the machine cassettes to accommodate the new set of banknotes coming to the markets.The industry is crying foul over the mounting losses as the transaction fee is only Rs 15, which was fixed in 2012."The white-label ATM operators are already under tremendous financial stress and the cost of additional investments required to meet the RBI stipulated security standards will further increase their transactions cost by at least 25 per cent, CATMI director general Lalit Sinha told PTI."RBI should take all the stakeholders including banks and ATM service providers into consideration to find out the way forward to ensure compliance to the newly announced measures," he added.He also said, "the cost of a transaction on ATM works out to be Rs 23 for a 150 hits/day ATM. Against this, the interchange fee that the acquiring bank/white-label ATM operator gets is only Rs 15."The interchange fee of Rs 15 on cash and Rs 5 on non-cash transactions is constant and not revised since 2012 despite repeated requests by the industry," he said.While welcoming the RBI notification of June 21, that mandated more control measures for ATMs, Sinha said meeting the directive is contingent on banks bearing the additional expenses.According to him, the recent compliance-related directives by the RBI such as cash management/logistics, cassette swap, etc will demand a sizable investment that may account for up to 40 per cent of the cost of ATM machines."White-label ATM operators are on a very weak viability structure as the cost of transactions are way higher than the interchange fee they receive. The new compliance cost will put the already-stressed operators into further viability turmoil," he said.Claiming that white-label ATM operators are the only entities deploying ATMs in remote villages, he said "with this additional cost of compliance and cash management costs, future deployments may come to a grinding halt unless interchange is increased on a priority basis."ATM growth is already at standstill while the card issuance continues aggressively powered by Jan Dhan scheme and other government initiatives.As banks, especially the state-run banks, are rapidly shutting down ATMs, the debit card to ATM ratio has gone up especially in semi-urban and rural areas. But this also increases investment burden on the industry players and banks should come forward and fund this "in the form of an increase in the interchange fee paid by the card issuers to the ATM deployers, else we will continue to see a lull in expansion of the ATM network, Sinha said.

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FoodSwitch also asks users to crowdsource information on new and changing foods.

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By Harshal Dewangan

Instagram Stories have over 400 million daily users and is leaps and bounds ahead of Snapchat.

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By Harshal Dewangan

At present, there are only 6,000 developers devoted to the agricultural sector in the country, which is only 1 per cent of the overall number of developers, said IBM's The Weather Company.

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Venture capitalists and business experts often say that Indian startups are copycats, that they take an idea that’s been successful abroad and adapt it to the Indian market. This model has been successful and has produced a number of unicorns — companies with a valuation of $1 billion or more — as well, but there are also a number of startups that are tackling problems unique to India and applying technology to find solutions. The sectors in which these startups work include agriculture, water, healthcare, transportation, sanitation, localisation of content and more. The diversity in culture and language complicate matters further but more founders are working on ways to cater to the varied needs of consumers. While a startup solving an India-specific problem might seem like it has a limited market, Arpit Agarwal, principal, Blume Ventures has no doubt about its potential. “Ideas that work in India are almost always applicable to other emerging countries. So, the market size becomes even larger,” he said. Further, India’s 1 billion-plus-and-growing population is a lucrative market in itself. Given the opportunity, Google is building a local accelerator programme in India to support startups that are solving India-specific problems. Here are some areas in which startups are looking for solutions that are unique to India.AIR/WATERFourteen of the world’s 15 most polluted cities are in India, and poor air quality is a problem Air Ok Technlogies is trying to tackle. Its purifier is made for India, and the team is hoping to sell to hospitals, industries, IT parks and the hospitality industry. Co-founders Deekshith Vara Prasad, Yasa Pavan Reddy and VS Krishna say they’ll be in the market this month.While water management is a global issue, India is probably among the worst affected due to poor infrastructure and a large population. Varun Sridharan’s Greenvironment Innovation is using data analytics to offer real-time monitoring for water and wastewater treatment plants. The startup has bagged a Rs 50 lakh grant from the Karnataka government to install systems across 50 projects in Bengaluru. “One of the buildings where we implemented our system has reduced fresh water consumption from 45 litres per person to 22.5 litres. The idea is to use more recycled water and reduce purchase of fresh water,” says Sridharan.LANGUAGE LOCALISATIONWhile English works in urban India, for rural areas content has to be in local languages and dialects. Startups like Indus OS, Pratilipi, Reverie and Slang Labs see opportunity here. Indus OS, for instance, is an indigenous operating system for the next billion smartphone users. “We have regional keyboards with matra and word predictions and auto-correct, the patented Indus Swipe (to translate and transliterate English to regional languages), Indus Reader (text-to-speech feature in regional languages for English content), and App Bazaar to bring regional language apps to the user,” said one of the co-founders Rakesh Deshmukh.After Kumar Rangarajan sold his startup Little Eye Labs to Facebook and returned to India in 2017, he decided to use voice to tackle the language problem. He set up Slang Labs to help mobile apps have a multi-lingual voice interface. “Our software allows any mobile app to build a voice layer on top,” he says. Slang Labs, which has raised Rs 8 crore ($1.2 million) from Endiya Partners, plans to launch Hindi in a month.Ranjeet Pratap Singh set up Pratilipi in 2014 with four others as an online platform connecting readers and writers in regional languages. It’s grown to support eight languages, and raised over $1 million from various investors. While they are yet to monetise content, Modi says there are multiple potential revenue streams. “There is demand for validated content. We are looking at revenue sharing and licensing models with creators,” she said.AGRITECH AND ENERGYAgriculture remains a large employer but it remains unorganised and is a tough nut to crack for startups, but solutions they have come up with range from testing products to marketing platforms.To improve testing, Tanmay Sethi and Yogesh Gupta set up Nebulaa Innovations in 2016. “Testing of agri commodities is done manually. Even if a machine is used, it takes 30-40 minutes for 1,000 kg. Our product uses image processing and AI to test the quality of food grains within a minute,” says Sethi. The startup has raised funding from a Hyderabad-based investor and has partnered with Nagarjuna Fertilizers for domain expertise.At the other end of the spectrum are startups like farMart, an online agri-machinery rental platform. “We help farmers rent out under-utilised machinery to fellow farmers,” says co-founder Alekh Sanghera. Farmers from over 100 villages use their platform.Some startups have taken on the dairy and poultry side. Blume Ventures-backed Stellapps offers IoT solutions in for the dairy market while T-Hub-incubated MLIT Solutions offers real-time remote monitoring of poultry incubators and farms using IoT.HEALTHCAREHealthcare, especially for women, is a space that startups are working on to improve awareness as well as access. Startups like Plackal Tech and Menstrupedia are attempting to change the narrative around menstruation. Plackal’s app Maya is a period tracker app that helps women track their cycles, Menstrupedia looks to make conversations about periods easier with comic books, workshops and blogs. PregBuddy, founded by Sivareena Sarika, Subhadeep Mondal and Yash Ladia, is an antenatal care platform which provides peer connections based on location, language and medical conditions with content in Hindi. TRANSPORTATIONCommuting in India, whether within a city or between towns, can be a fraught affair, and startups are using tech to sort it out. Mobond, for instance, is a chat-based app on which Mumbai’s 75 lakh commuters share real-time information about train services. The Railways has opened opportunities for several startups. RailYatri provides information on delays, platform numbers, coach position, on-time history of a train and more. Trainman, founded in 2014, provides intelligence on confirmation chances of a waitlist ticket. Startups like TravelKhana, KhanaGaDi and Yatrachef target passengers’ need for good quality food during travel.

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India is in the process of inducting the first batch of its intercontinental ballistic missile system -- Agni-V -- which will bring targets across China within its range, and is expected to significantly bolster the country's military prowess. The missile system, with a strike range of 5,000 km and capable of carrying nuclear warhead, are being inducted into the elite Strategic Forces Command (SFC), official sources said. They said a series of user trials are being conducted before the country's most sophisticated weapon is handed over to the SFC. Defence experts said the missile is capable of bringing targets across China including its prominent cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong under its range. Last month, Agni-V was successfully test-fired off the Odisha coast and the sources said a number of other pre-induction tests are being planned in the next few weeks. "It is a strategic asset which will act as a deterrent. We are at the fag end of the strategic project," said an official, who is part of the Agni-V programme. He said it is the most advanced weapon in its series as it has latest technologies for navigation and its capability of carrying nuclear warhead is much superior. The first batch of Agni-V will be handed over to the SFC "soon", the sources said while declining to elaborate further on the closely-guarded defence project. The missile is being inducted at a time when India's neighbourhood is witnessing evolving security threats. Very few countries including the US, China, Russia, France and North Korea have intercontinental ballistic missiles. In its armoury, India currently has Agni-1 with 700 km range, Agni-2 with a 2,000-km range, Agni-3 and Agni-4 with 2,500 km to more than 3,500-km range. The first test of Agni-5 was conducted on April 19, 2012, the second on September 15, 2013, the third on January 31, 2015 and the fourth on December 26, 2016. The fifth test was held on January 18. All the five trials were successful. As part of its efforts to enhance the country's defence capabilities, the government is also working on several key projects including integrating the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile on 40 Sukhoi combat aircraft. The air-launched variant of the Brahmos, the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile, was successfully test fired from a Sukhoi-30 combat jet on November 22, marking a major milestone to enhance the precision strike capability of the air force. The defence ministry is now expediting the process to integrate the Brahmos missile on 40 Sukhoi combat aircraft. The fleet of 40 Sukhoi jet is undergoing structural modifications at the state-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) for integration of the missile on them.

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Auto major Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) today reported a 26 per cent increase in total sales at 45,155 units in June.It had sold 35,759 units in the same month previous year, M&M said in a statement.In the domestic market, sales were up 23 per cent to 41,689 units last month, compared to 33,904 units in June 2017.Exports also registered a growth of 87 per cent at 3,466 units as against 1,855 units in the year-ago month.Sales of passenger vehicles, including Scorpio, XUV500, Xylo, Bolero and Verito, were up 12 per cent at 18,137 units as against 16,212 units in June 2017.Medium and heavy Commercial vehicle sales were up 58 per cent at 1,108 units last month against 700 units in the year-ago period, it said."We are happy to have garnered an overall growth of 26 per cent for June. This growth is driven by both our commercial and personal vehicles portfolio. We hope that macro conditions such as fuel prices, interest rates and raw material prices remain at satisfactory levels to enable us and the auto industry to grow in the coming months,"Rajan Wadhera, President, Automotive Sector, M&M Ltd, said.

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MUMBAI: Global IT major IBM is looking at technological inputs for the farm sector to be a Rs 5,000-crore opportunity in the next five years, according to a senior official."IBM sees a Rs 5,000-crore opportunity from agritech in India over the next five years," Himanshu Goyal, India sales and alliances leader, The Weather Company, which is an IBM division, told PTI here.The revenue will come from providing both business services and advisory for the entire agriculture ecosystem or agriculture value chain on weather data, big data, the Internet of things, blockchain, analytics and artificial intelligence services, he said.The Weather Company, which is a unit of the IBM, recently tied up with the NITI Aayog for piloting certain solutions for the farm sector using technological interventions, Goyal said, adding his company already works with 70 startups engaged in the agritech sector.Without divulging any numbers, Goyal said agriculture contributes a sizeable part of the revenue for The Weather Company in the country at present.It can be noted that around 60 per cent of the countrys over 1.3 billion population depends on agricultural or allied activities, but contributes only about 15 per cent to GDP, resulting in government introducing a slew of targeted programmes for the sector.The government is targeting to double the farmer income by 2022.Through its partners, the company is reaching out to up to 35 lakh farmers in the country now.At present, there are only 6,000 developers devoted to the agricultural sector in the country, which is only 1 per cent of the overall number of developers, he said.The company is investing in course-ware and other content with live projects to help over 100 educational bodies, including universities and institutes devoted to engineering and management, to upgrade the agritech skills, Goyal said.He said the project with Niti Aayog involves developing crop-yield prediction model using artificial intelligence to provide real-time advisories to farmers in backward districts.The company covers 15 agrarian states and has developed "models" for most of the key crops, he concluded.

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India continued to remain the top receiver of remittances in 2017, getting funds of $69 billion, according to the World Bank. The previous two years had registered a dampening of outbound remittance flows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries due to policies discouraging the recruitment of foreign workers.The rebound came on the back of high employment rates in the US as well as a steep rise in oil prices in the GCC countries. Indians in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) remitted the largest volumes of funds to India. The US, with thousands of skilled professionals, came second.Keeping in mind the interests of the low-skilled Indian workers in the Gulf, from where roughly $37 billion remittances flowed into the country in 2017, the Reserve Bank of India is committed to keeping the cost of remittances low. 64809267 “A major concern is over the end-use of remittances and the fact that often the funds are used up for family commitments. To help workers meet future needs, financial institutions have to develop saving instruments,” TLS Bhaskar, researcher, India Centre for Migration, tells ET Magazine.There are other challenges, too. Kerala, the state receiving the largest amount of remittances in the country, is seeing a slowdown in the number of migrants — from 24 lakh two years ago to 22 lakh in 2017. “There has been immigration crackdowns in various countries, including the US, Saudi Arabia and the UK,” says Irudaya Rajan S, professor at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram and an expert on migration. Overall, the order of countries that are sources of remittances to India have remained the same. But the demographics are changing. “In the last few years, the GCC countries have attracted more skilled workers, as compared with unskilled workers,” says Sudhesh Giriyan, COO of Xpress Money in Dubai.Here is a break up of remittances Indians sent back home:The average volume per each remittance for a blue-collar worker is $400, whereas it hovers between $1,500 & 2,000 for a white-collar worker1. UAE Remittance: $13.8 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 2.8 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 3.4 lakh 2. USA (White-collar remitters from western countries such as the US, remit money infrequently, depending on when they get good exchange rates)Remittance: $11.7 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 4.5 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 1.8 lakh 3. Saudi ArabiaRemittance: $11.2 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 3.3 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 2.4 lakh 4. KuwaitRemittance: $4.6 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 0.9 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 3.4 lakh 5. QatarRemittance: $4.1 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 0.7 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 4.1 lakh 6. United KingdomRemittance: $3.9 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 1.8 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 1.5 lakh 7. OmanRemittance: $3.3 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 0,8 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 2.8 lakh 8. NepalRemittance: $3 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 0.6 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 3.4 lakh 9. CanadaRemittance: $2.9 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 1 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 1.9 lakh 10. Australia (It has been among the top 10 source countries in the past 2 years, becoming one of the most sought after destinations for Indians)Remittance: $2 billionPopulation of Overseas Indians: 0.5 millionPer capita annual remittance: Rs 2.6 lakh Per capita annual remittances calculated using exchange rate of Rs 68.6 to a $Source: Ministry of External Affairs, Migration & Remittances of the World Bank Group, Xpress Money

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Keeping its vigil on service quality in the sector, Trai has imposed penalties on leading operators, including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, for failing to meet various Quality of Service benchmarks in the December quarter, according to a source.Around Rs 31 lakh fine has been imposed on Reliance Jio, the newest entrant in the telecom sector whose aggressive offerings have led to a bruising tariff war in the market.The penalty on Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio for December quarter is on account of Trai-defined service quality parameters including Point of Interconnect congestion, accessibility of call centres and customer care, and also those pertaining to termination or closure of service complied to within the stipulated seven days, according to the source.The fine imposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) relates to multiple circles or service areas in which the company operates.An e-mail sent to Reliance Jio seeking their response on penalties remained unanswered.Trai Chairman R S Sharma had recently confirmed that "financial disincentive" has been levied on operators for December quarter 2017, but had declined to divulge details.Trai has been maintaining that it does not wish to name specific operators or penalties slapped on them for not meeting the service quality criteria. Accordingly, it has never published this information either on its website or through a statement.The fines imposed on Idea Cellular adds up to about Rs 28-29 lakh for the December quarter.The penalties are to do with benchmarks on call drops, metering and billing, both pre-paid and post-paid, accessibility of call centre or customer care and its timelines (measuring the response time to a customer for assistance), for various circles.Bharti Airtel -- currently the largest telecom operator in the country -- has been fined to the tune of about Rs 23 lakh for the three months ended December, the source said.Its penalties are on account of non-compliance on parametres entailing metering and billing (postpaid and prepaid) and accessibility of call centres, and stipulated response time on operators answering calls for specific circles.In case of Vodafone - whose operations in India are planned to be merged with Idea Cellular - penalties add up to about Rs 9 lakh for non-compliance of select criteria. These are time-bound refund of deposits after closure, response time for calls answered by operators, as well as call drops.Idea Cellular, Vodafone, and Bharti Airtel did not respond to e-mails seeking their comments on the development.Other operators who have been slapped with penalties include Aircel and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). BSNL and Aircel could not be reached for comments.In an interview to PTI recently, Sharma had said that the regulator has also issued showcase notices to operators who have not met call drop norms for the March quarter.Trai had earlier tightened the rules and asked players to abide by its new quality of service benchmarks from October 1, 2017.Under new rules, call drops are measured at mobile tower level instead of telecom circle level. Trai was of the view that average calculated at circle level may hide many issues.Trai proposed financial disincentive in the range of Rs 1-5 lakh in a graded penalty system depending on the performance of a network, with stringent fines for repeat violations under the new Quality of Service (QoS) rules, that are applicable on various service areas. However, there is a cap of Rs 10 lakh on financial disincentive.Also, earlier rules did not address temporary issues in telecom networks like non-functioning of mobile towers or geographical issues like network quality in an underserved town. Many other parameters too were tightened, and the regulator fixed benchmark for radio-link timeout technology (RLT) -- purportedly used by operators for masking call drops.

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NEW DELHI: Dairy firm Ananda is looking for a land to set up a new processing plant in eastern Uttar Pradesh and plans to invest about Rs 50 crore to open 1,100 retail outlets in the national capital by 2020, a top company official said.Noida-based Ananda Dairy, which achieved a turnover of Rs 1,500 crore in the last fiscal, has three manufacturing plants at Bulandshahr, Gajraula and Pilkhuwa in Uttar Pradesh (UP) with a processing capacity of 12 lakh litre milk per day. The company has also taken on lease two plants at Kanpur and Moradabad with 6 lakh litres capacity."We are identifying land in eastern UP to set up a new processing plant. This is part of our commitment to invest Rs 500 crore in the state which was made during an investor's summit held this year," Ananda group CMD R S Dixit told PTI.The plans would be of 4-5 lakh litre processing capacity, he added.Dixit said the company is also strengthening its retail presence and has already opened 400 company-owned outlets, of which 400 stores are in the national capital and the rest are in UP and Uttarakhand."We plan to have 1,500 outlets in Delhi by 2020 from the current 400 stores. In Delhi, we opened 105 stores on a single day in February and another 200 stores on a single day in June," Dixit said, adding that the company was opening many stores at metro stations.Asked about investment plans, he said retail stores are taken on lease and it costs anywhere between 3-5 lakh per store depending on the size and location of the outlet.The rental of each store is below Rs 15,000 per month.Dixit said the company sells pouched milk and other dairy products except for cheese and ice cream.On the turnover, he said the company achieved a revenue of Rs 1,500 crore in 2017-18 and is growing at 25-30 per cent annually."We are targeting to reach Rs 3,200 crore turnover by 2020-21," Dixit said in a statement.Ananda Dairy has also started exporting dairy products. It shipped cheese and some other products to the US.Talking about issues faced by the dairy sector, Ananda's CMD said the government should consider reducing GST on ghee from 12 per cent as it is high.The branded and packaged cheese attracts 5 per cent GST, while there is no GST on loose cheese, he said and sought that the government should address this anomaly.

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NEW DELHI: Spooked by trade war worries, a sinking rupee and rise in crude oil prices, Dalal Street investors joined their global peers in a sell-off exercise. Although, the bulls made a comeback on Friday, the week belonged to the bears. Equity benchmarks Sensex shed 0.74 per cent during the week to end at 35,423 while NSE's Nifty bled 1 per cent to settle at 10,714.Here are key factors that Dalal Street will track in the coming weekTrade Tariffs: Import tariffs announced by the US President Donald Trump on Chinese products will come into effect on July 6. Earlier in June, Trump laid out a list of more than 800 strategically important imports from China that would be subject to a 25 per cent tariff starting on July 6, including cars. In response to it, China’s Commerce Ministry had said it would respond with tariffs “of the same scale and strength” and that any previous trade deals with Trump were “invalid.”Reuters reported China would impose 25 per cent tariffs on 659 US products, ranging from soyabeans and autos to seafood. Canada has also vowed to impose retaliatory tariffs on US imports from July 1. Rupee: The domestic unit touched its nadir in the week gone by. Although, it made a sharp recovery on Friday, it is still Asia's worst-performing currency this year.According to Moody’s Investors Service, RBI's efforts to tighten the availability of rupees in the market and halt a slide in the currency may squeeze profitability of the country’s lenders as it raises their funding costs, Bloomberg reported.Crude prices: Oil posted biggest weekly rise in more than two months on shrinking stockpiles and supply disruptions from Canada to Libya. Futures advanced 8.1 per cent last week in New York, above London-traded Brent crude’s gain of 5.1 per cent, Bloomberg reported. The world’s two most important oil benchmarks - Brent and WTI are diverging as Saudi Arabia’s pledge to lift output weighs on the European market, the report said. Macro data: India's manufacturing sector data for June is slated to release on Monday. The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell from 51.6 in April to 51.2 in May. Services sector data for June will be unveiled on Wednesday. Services activity witnessed a slowdown in May as the Nikkei India Services Business Activity Index fell to 49.6 from 51.4 in April.Auto stocks: Shares of auto companies will be in focus as the automakers will start releasing sales numbers for June from Sunday. Auto companies continued to register robust sales in May, driven by rural demand and government's infra push. Maruti Suzuki India, a leader in passenger vehicles, sold a total of 172,512 units in May, an increase of 26 per cent while Tata Motors registered a strong growth of 58 per cent YoY at 54,295 units, against 34,461 units. Hyundai Motor India registered 7.14 per cent growth in sales to 45,008 units.Stock-specific actions: Last week saw some big-ticket developments in individual names. First, IRDAI approved LIC’s plan to buy 51 per cent stake in IDBI Bank. The life insurer is expected to invest Rs 10,000-13,000 crore in tranches in the state-run lender. This apart, Tata Steel and Germany’s Thyssenkrupp signed final agreement on Saturday to establish a long-expected steel joint venture. In addition, state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) sold its entire stake in ratings firm Icra for a consideration of Rs 109 crore. New kids on the block: Shares of RITES and Fine Organic Industries will list on the bourses on Monday. Initial public offerings of both the companies, which ran from June 20 to June 22, saw huge investor demand. While Railways consultancy firm RITES' public offer was subscribed a mega 67 times, Fine Organics issue was subscribed nearly 9 times.Tech factors: The Nifty50 index on Friday settled above its 50-day moving average. In the process, it formed a large bullish candle on the daily chart, similar to a ‘Long White Day’ and would face resistance at other key short-term moving averages in the 10,730-10,750 range. If Nifty continues to show similar strength in the next session, then the possibility of bottom formation at Thursday’s low of 10,557 will be much higher. The same can be confirmed with a close above 10,785 by Monday, said Mazhar Mohammad of Chartviewindia.in.However, VK Sharma, Head - Private Client Group & Capital Markets Strategy, HDFC Securities, believes it would be too early to define it as a bullish trend reversal. Traders should only take aggressive longs once Nifty closes above 10,850, Sharma advises.US jobs data: Investors across the globe will keep an eye on the US jobs data for June, which is scheduled to be released on July 6. The US economy continued to add jobs at a solid pace in May, with nonfarm payrolls rising 223,000 and the unemployment rate falling to an 18-year low of 3.8 per cent.

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Overseas investors have pulled out nearly Rs 48,000 crore from Indian capital markets in the first six months of 2018, making it the steepest outflow in a decade, following high crude oil prices and trade war worries.They withdrew a net sum of Rs 41,433 crore from the debt markets, besides, a net amount of Rs 6,430 crore from equities during January-June period of the year, taking the total outflow to Rs 47,836 crore, latest update with depositories showed.This was the biggest outflow since January-June 2008, when foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) had pulled out Rs 24,758 crore from the capital markets -- equity and debt.Moreover, the latest withdrawal is much higher than than the outflow of Rs 41,216 crore witnessed in the entire 2008 -- during global financial crisis.Interestingly, this is only the second time, when FPIs had taken bearish stance on the capital markets in the first six months of the year."FPI outflow and inflow is dependent on many macro and micro factors. Our macros are very closely linked to price of crude oil, which is the largest import bill for India. Increase in crude oil leads to an increased current account deficit and high domestic inflation."Rising current account deficit is putting pressure on INR exchange rates and higher domestic inflation will put upward pressure on interest rates. Weaker exchange rates and higher interest rates make dollar return weaker for FPIs, which leads to withdrawal of funds," said Reliance Securities Head of Retail Broking Rajeev Srivastava.Besides, US interest rates are on rise, which further incentivises withdrawal of foreign liquidity, Srivastava added.Echoing similar views, R Sreesankar, co head-equities at Prabhudas Lilladher said: "We already run trade deficit and in addition we are importing roughly 85 per cent of crude requirement, any increase in global crude prices will have a further impact on trade deficit and more importantly the Rupee with everything else reaming as normal. This also adds up to the pressure".It has been a bumpy ride this year as far as FPI flows are concerned and the fluctuations in net flows at times have been massive, thus making the entire proposition unpredictable.While in January, FPIs invested a net sum of Rs 22,272 crore in the capital market. However, in February they were net sellers to the tune of Rs 11,674 crore. On the other hand, they again turned positive in March and put in Rs 2,662 crore.However, they took bearish stance in April and the momentum continued till June. Over the past three months, overseas investor withdrew Rs 61,000 crore."Undoubtedly, this year has been extremely unfavourable from FPI flow perspective. This could be attributed to multiple factors. There has been significant outflow from India focused offshore funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) which contributes a significant portion towards FPI flow," Morningstar India Senior Analyst Manager Research Himanshu Srivastava said.Moreover, he said that India is currently fraught with higher crude prices and depreciating Indian currency."The expectation is that the currency may depreciate even further if US Federal Reserve continue to hike rates. The increasing interest rates in the US does not augur well for the emerging economies like India and lead foreign investors to shift their focus to US," Srivastava said.Broadly, India has to offer a better risk-reward profile, as against comparable countries, to foreign investors to attract their investments. Currently, with the challenges Indian economy is facing, it seems FPIs have chosen to look for other alternatives, he added.

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