96 New Entrants Join the EdelGive-Hurun India Philanthropy List 2024

The 2024 edition of the EdelGive-Hurun India Philanthropy List has welcomed 96 new philanthropists, highlighting the increasing generosity among India’s wealthiest individuals and families. Leading the new entrants is Krishna Chivukula, whose donation of INR 228 crore places him as the most generous newcomer this year. His contributions are dedicated to education, facilitated through his company, INDO-MIM.

Following him are P N C Menon & family, with a donation of INR 71 crore for educational initiatives through Sobha, and Nandlal Rungta & family, who have donated INR 61 crore, also focused on education via Rungta Sons.

Click here to access the full list.

India home prices to rise 6.5% in 2025, driven by demand from wealthy: Reuters poll

After rising 4.3% last year, home prices in India - broadly referring to housing in major cities - were expected to rise 7.0% this year, 6.5% in 2025 and 7.5% in 2026, median forecasts from the November 12-29 survey of 12 property market experts showed.

Average home prices in India are set to rise steadily over the coming years driven mainly by demand from wealthy individuals, while the rising cost of living will make owning a property unattainable for most people, a Reuters poll found.

While India's middle class tightens its belt, cutting back on everything from tea to two-wheelers due to soaring consumer inflation, the richest 1% who own 40% of the country's wealth are snapping up homes in cities with well-paying jobs.

Though that is enough to sustain price rises in the short-term, property analysts say there are limits to how much the rich can keep demand alive in an economy which is already slowing down.

After rising 4.3% last year, home prices in India - broadly referring to housing in major cities - were expected to rise 7.0% this year, 6.5% in 2025 and 7.5% in 2026, median forecasts from the November 12-29 survey of 12 property market experts showed.

"The segment which is driving all this price increase is the luxury segment. And this will continue for some more time, but the entire narrative we all are seeing is very rosy," said Ajay Sharma, managing director of Valuation Services at Colliers International.

But Sharma said there are clear signs that most people are struggling with the cost of living.

"Nobody is talking about structural issues in the demand. Once the top cream stops buying, you will have a massive fall in sales."

In the meantime, rents are expected to rise even faster than house prices, by 7.5% to 10% over the coming year, according to the median range given by 11 property experts.

"The stress on housing affordability will pressure more people to opt for renting, pushing the demand up in this segment," said Sunita Mishra, research lead at Housing.com and PropTiger.com.

With property developers focusing on the luxury market, the shortage of affordable homes continues to sideline many first-time buyers - particularly those from middle- and lower-income groups.

"The fact that most new launches and available new stock in the country's urban centers are in the premium and high-end segment would have a deep impact as well, fuelling upward growth in rents," Mishra added.

While not being able to build enough affordable homes is a common problem in most countries, the scale of the challenge is staggering in India, home to the world's largest population of over 1.4 billion people.

Asked what would happen to affordability for first-time home buyers over the coming year, eight property experts said it would worsen and only four said it would improve.

A substantial decline in interest rates could alleviate some of the pressure on homebuyers, but economists do not expect more than 50 basis points worth of cuts from the Reserve Bank of India, and not likely until early next year.

India’s November GST mop-up at Rs 1.82 lakh crore, up 8.5% on-year

However, on a month-on-month basis, the collections are lower by around 2.7 percent. Gross GST mop-up had risen to a six-month high of Rs 1.87 lakh crore in October.

India's Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection for November 2024 came in at Rs 1.82 lakh crore, in gross terms, exhibiting a growth of 8.5 percent on-year and staying above the Rs 1.7 lakh crore mark for the ninth consecutive month, data released on December 1 showed.

However, on a month-on-month basis, the collections are lower by around 2.7 percent. Gross GST mop-up had risen to a six-month high of Rs 1.87 lakh crore in October.

For the period of April-November, the collections are at Rs 14.57 lakh crore, as per data made available by the finance ministry.

Total refunds for November were down nearly 9 percent at Rs 19,259 crore versus the same month last fiscal.

In net terms, GST mop-up stood at Rs 1.63 lakh crore last month, 11.1 percent higher on-year. And, for the April-November period it rose 9.2 percent to Rs 12.91 lakh crore.

US Black Friday spending in stores and online rose 3.4% year-over-year, data show

Nov 30 (Reuters) - Black Friday spending in U.S. retail stores was muted this year in contrast to a more robust rise online, as bargain-hungry Americans skipped stores in favor of their phones and laptops, according to data from Mastercard and other data providers.

Sales at brick-and-mortar stores grew just 0.7% year-over-year, according to preliminary estimates by payments processor Mastercard, and were lower according to data firm Facteus.

Yet U.S. e-commerce sales increased by a hefty 14.6% online, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, a metric measuring U.S. retail sales across the Mastercard payments network combined with estimates for cash and check payments.

The estimates aren't adjusted for inflation. "If you layer in inflation, in-store (spending) is even lower," said Jonathan Chin, co-founder and head of data at Facteus. The firm looked at spending patterns on debit and credit cards online and in stores on a seven-day rolling basis year-over-year.

Facteus said online sales grew 11.1% and in-store sales fell 5.4%. With inflation, those numbers drop to 8.5% online growth and an 8% in-store decline.

Michelle Meyer, chief economist at Mastercard Economics Institute, noted that while overall inflation is running at more than 2%, popular holiday-related purchases, such as appliances, clothing, sporting goods, personal care products and jewelry, have been either declining in price, or increasing only modestly, over the last year.

Black Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, kicked off the holiday shopping season for retailers. Competition has intensified to win shoppers seeking discounts, such as Corey Coscioni, age 58.

Coscioni looked for bargains both online and in Chicago-area stores on Friday, seeking "gifts for everyone: my wife, my daughter, and myself." His stops included Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and Anthropologie . “While we’re waiting in line, I’ll be shopping.”

MUTED SALES

Ahead of Black Friday, many shoppers visited stores to browse, taking in what merchandise and prices were available. "They were waiting," said Meyer, the Mastercard economist. "But then when the Black Friday sales hit, we had this big concentration of spending, which was really done online given that's where you have the greatest amount of power and choice as a consumer."

Department store chains such as Macy's (M.N), opens new tab and Kohl's (KSS.N), opens new tab, as well as big-box retailer Target (TGT.N), opens new tab, could see muted sales this season, which is shorter with only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Sales at Best Buy (BBY.N), opens new tab and Target on Friday were relatively flat year-over-year, according to Facteus.

U.S. shoppers' strong purchases online from mobile phones, laptops, desktops and other devices potentially favored e-commerce giants such as Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab. Walmart, which operates 4,700 U.S. stores, has invested heavily in store-to-home deliveries for its online shoppers.

E-commerce retailers including Shein, PDD's (PDD.O), opens new tab Temu, and TikTok Shop, of Beijing-based ByteDance’s TikTok social media platform, also showed strong growth in sales in the seven days through Friday, compared to a year earlier, Facteus said.

Overall spending on Friday rose 3.4% year-over-year, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which excludes automotive sales and is not adjusted for inflation. From Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, spending in stores and online is expected to be up 3.2% year-over-year, according to its earlier estimates.

A tally by Adobe Inc on Saturday showed that Americans spent roughly $10.8 billion online on Friday, up 10.2% from a year earlier. Makeup, bluetooth speakers and espresso machines were top sellers, it said. Adobe keeps track of devices that use its software to help power more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.

Separately, Salesforce, a cloud-based software company that tracks a different array of spending categories, said U.S. online sales rose 7% on Friday to $17.5 billion. Shoppers bought more home appliances and furniture online, according to Salesforce, which said it analyzed the activity of more than 1.5 billion global shoppers.

US third-quarter economic growth unrevised at 2.8%

WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew at a solid clip in the third quarter, the government confirmed on Wednesday, amid robust consumer spending.

Gross domestic product increased at an unrevised 2.8% annualized rate, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its second estimate of third-quarter GDP.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP would be unrevised. Slight downward revisions to consumer spending, government outlays and exports, were offset by upgrades to private inventory accumulation, business investment as well as state and local government spending.

The economy grew at a 3.0% pace in the April-June quarter. It is expanding at a pace that is well above what Federal Reserve officials regard as the non-inflationary growth rate of around 1.8%.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, grew at a still-brisk 3.5% pace. That was revised down from the previously estimated 3.7% rate.

A measure of domestic demand that excludes government spending, trade and inventories increased at an unrevised 3.2% pace. Domestic demand increased at 2.7% pace in the second quarter.

National after-tax profits without inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments increased $0.2 billion, or were unchanged in percentage terms last quarter. They increased 9.6% from the same quarter one year ago.

Profits of domestic financial firms decreased $2.6 billion, while those of non financial institutions increased $30.8 billion. Profits from the rest of the world fell $38.3 billion.

When measured from the income side, the economy grew at a 2.2% rate last quarter. Gross domestic income (GDI) increased at a downwardly revised 2.0% pace in the second quarter.

GDI was previously estimated to have increased at a 3.4% pace in the April-June quarter.

In principle, GDP and GDI should be equal, but in practice they differ as they are estimated using different and largely independent source data. Annual benchmark revisions have sharply narrowed the gap between GDP and GDI.

The average of GDP and GDI, also referred to as gross domestic output and considered a better measure of economic activity, increased at a 2.5% rate last quarter, matching the second quarter's downwardly revised pace.

Gross domestic output was previously reported to have advanced at a 3.2% pace in the April-June quarter.

Stellaris closes its third fund at $300 million, ropes in Naman Lahoty as new partner

Stellaris Venture Partners has announced closing its $300 million Fund III to back 25-30 startups over the next 3-4 years, signaling renewed confidence in India’s startup ecosystem after a tough startup funding winter this past year.

Stellaris’ Fund III saw repeat investments from existing limited partners as well as new commitments from global investors including university endowments, foundations, pension funds, and reputed Fund of Funds (FoF), the firm said in a media statement on November 28.

Stellaris has more than $600 million in assets under management. The firm will back startups within the AI, SaaS and fintech category, the firm added.

Stellaris, founded by three former partners of Helion Ventures- Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal and Rahul Chowdhri, counts software firms Cisco and Infosys as well as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) as its Limited Partners (LPs) or backers, among others.

“With this new fund, we’re excited to back founders using technology to solve deep problems in large markets. Our team, consisting of former entrepreneurs and business builders, brings deep expertise and global networks in key sectors like consumer tech, AI, SaaS and financial services to support our portfolio companies throughout their journey,” said Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners.

As part of the launch, Stellaris also announced some leadership appointments. Naman Lahoty, who was previously a Principal with the firm, has been appointed as Partner.

Additionally, Vardhan Dharnidharka, an AI/ML engineering leader previously based in New York, has joined as an Investment Principal and relocated to Bangalore.

Stellaris has backed 44 tech startups across two funds, 60 percent of which were inception-stage businesses. The firm participates as a lead investor in Seed and Series A rounds of startups.

The VC firm is an early investor in consumer brand Mamaearth which went public last year, and in Whatfix, a digital adoption platform that recently raised a $125 Million Series E round.

End of 2023 and the year 2024 has been a pivotal year for Indian IPOs, with startups like Mamaearth, Ola Electric as well as Swiggy entering public markets. Despite a challenging global economic environment, these companies managed to navigate market dynamics.

The current public markets' euphoria in India is akin to what the private markets experienced in 2021, when India minted a record 45 unicorns, or startups valued at or over a billion dollars, in a span of 12 months.

Stellaris has also backed EV financing startup Turno, credit-on-UPI provider Kiwi, AI SaaS companies Orbitshift and CARPL.ai, credit improvement platform Goodscore and D2C consumer brand Nestasia.

Stellaris' new fund launch comes at a time when top venture capital firms like Peak XV??have downsized their fund.

In October,?Peak XV Partners reduced the size of its $2.85 billion fund by 16 percent or $465 million, as it looks to deploy capital more judiciously and return uninvested monies to its sponsors or limited partners (LPs), amid a buoyant public market and its rub-off effect on private market valuations.

AI cuts discharge time for patients from Manipal Hospitals to 1 hr, sharpens cancer detection, brain mapping

Dr. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman of Manipal Hospitals, highlighted how AI has significantly improved operational efficiency, particularly in patient discharge processes. He also stressed on the need for national interoperability to ensure seamless access to patient data across hospitals.

If it was pain as the reason to be admitted to a hospital, getting discharged was another pain, thanks to the grueling?formalities. All this is over now, as artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play.

Manipal Hospitals?has cut down the?discharge time to just one hour?from four to eight hours earlier?through?AI integration across various operational areas such as patient appointments, pharmacy processes, and discharge paperwork.

"AI has certainly brought in a lot of efficiency. What used to take four to eight hours to discharge a patient, now takes just an hour," said Dr Sudarshan Ballal, chairman of Manipal Hospitals, explaining how AI has streamlined the administrative processes, reducing wait times, and allowing hospital staff to focus on more critical tasks.

Dr Ballal was joined by Geetha Manjunath, founder and chief executive of Niramai, and Laina Emmanuel, co-founder and chief executive of Brainsight AI, to discuss the broader impact of AI in healthcare at Moneycontrol Global AI Conclave in Bengaluru. They shared instances from their own experiences, highlighting the growing role of AI in transforming medical care.

Dr Ballal emphasised how AI has improved telemedicine, remote monitoring, and imaging, which have seen a dramatic growth since the pandemic. "One of the biggest changes I see is telemedicine and remote monitoring," he noted, highlighting how AI has made it easier for patients to access medical care from anywhere.

In radiology, AI technologies are increasingly proficient at analysing medical images. "Soon, we may not need radiologists, or at least not those who are not trained in AI," Dr Ballal suggested, though he quickly clarified that radiologists who can integrate AI into their work will remain indispensable. "It's a blanket statement," he added, underscoring the balance between technology and professional expertise.

While AI’s benefits are undeniable, Dr Ballal stressed that the technology should complement, not replace, human expertise. "We still need the human element in healthcare." He cited a study where AI outperformed doctors in differential diagnosis when used without human bias. However, he stressed that the real promise of the technology lies in its ability to work alongside healthcare professionals, enhancing their capabilities, rather than replacing them.

Integration challenges

Dr Ballal shared insights into the challenges of integrating AI across Manipal Hospitals' expanding network. In the last two to three years, the chain has added nearly 30 hospitals across India, each with varying levels of technological sophistication. "Integration has been one of the biggest issues," he explained, noting the challenge of accessing patient data seamlessly, particularly when patients come from hospitals outside the Manipal chain.

"For instance, if I see a patient from Calcutta, I can easily access their medical records. But if they come from a hospital outside our chain, I would have to rely on the patient providing the records," he said. This can lead to redundant tests or missed information, making the process inefficient. Dr Ballal stressed that integration should not only focus on single hospital chains but should be a national effort across all healthcare providers. "Patients should not suffer because systems aren't integrated," he concluded, calling for nationwide interoperability.

AI to bridge healthcare divide?

Geetha Manjunath shared insights on how AI is reshaping early cancer detection, particularly in underserved areas. Niramai’s AI-driven technology uses thermal sensors to detect breast cancer with high sensitivity and minimal radiation exposure. "It's extremely accurate and sensitive, with a false-positive rate of less than 10?percent," she said.

This technology is especially impactful in rural India, where access to expensive diagnostic equipment is limited. Niramai’s system simplifies screenings with colour-coded results, making it easier for local health workers to interpret. Manjunath’s technology has impacted over 250,000 women in rural India, uncovering three times more cases than traditional methods.

"AI can bridge the healthcare divide in India today," she said, emphasising how the technology makes screenings accessible in regions where resources are scarce.

Impact in neuroscience

Emmanuel from Brainsight AI discussed how AI has been transforming neurology, particularly in brain mapping. Brainsight AI’s technology helps doctors create advanced brain maps that provide detailed insights into neural connections which are crucial in complex neurosurgeries.

"AI has a huge role to play in diagnosing psychiatric disorders, detecting early signs of dementia, and performing safer neurosurgeries," Emmanuel explained. Through brain mapping, doctors can better understand how different parts of the brain interact, enabling them to approach surgeries with greater precision and confidence.

When asked if AI could replace neurosurgeons, the founder clarified, "We don’t replace doctors. We enhance their creativity." AI does not replace the professional’s judgment but empowers them to solve medical challenges more effectively, she said.