HSBC’s purchase of a minority stake in a private Indian bank has been pruned to 14.6%, confirming that the move made last year by the Indian government to raise the foreign investment limit in private banks to 74% is not an open invitation to foreign banks.
India’s Congress Party will lead an alliance of political parties that will form the next government after it emerged the surprise victor in the country’s national elections in early May. Voters shunned the previous regime led by the Bharatiya Janata Party whose economic reforms appear to have left a large majority of rural Indians unmoved.Manmohan Singh, the former finance minister, will be the new prime minister after Congress party president Sonia Gandhi turned the job down.