Top Business & Market Headlines Today — BL Morning Report, January 13, 2025

Retail inflation rises to 1.33% in December Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 1.33 per cent in December as against 0.71 per cent of November, Statistics Ministry reported on Monday. some of the data points are as follows Rural Inflation: An increase in headline and food inflation in rural sector was observed in December, 2025. The headline inflation in December was at 0.76 per cent while it was 0.1 per cent in November. Urban Inflation: An increase from 1.4 per cent to 2.03 per cent was observed in headline inflation of urban sector. Increase is also observed in urban food inflation from (-)3.6 per cent in to (-) 2.09 per cent. Social security. Govt mulls raising EPFO, ESIC wage ceiling to ₹30,000 Following a recent directive from the Supreme Court of India and a long-standing demand from labour unions, the Ministry of Labour and Employment is actively examining a proposal to revise and standardise the wage ceilings for both the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). At present, the EPFO wage ceiling stands at ₹15,000 per month, while the ESIC threshold is ₹21,000. It is proposed that both ceilings be revised and capped at a uniform monthly level of ₹25,000 to ₹30,000, sources familiar with the matter said. TCS profit falls nearly 14%at ₹10,657 crore for Q3 Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) net profit declined 13.9 per cent to ₹10,657 crore for the third quarter of the financial year 2025-26, compared to the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, owing to exceptional items like restructuring expenses, new labour code impact, legal claim. Net profit declined by 11.7 per cent on a sequential basis compared to ₹12,075 crore reported in Q2 of FY26. Exceptional items including cost of restructuring cost of ₹253 crore, impact of new Labour Code amounting to ₹2,128 crore, and provision towards legal claim of Rs 1,010 crore. Setback for ISRO: PSLV-C62 mission faces anomaly at the end of third stage The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) encountered an anomaly at the end of the third stage of the PSLV-C62 mission, which was carrying the EOS-N1 Earth Observation satellite along with 15 co-passenger satellites from domestic & international customers on Monday. The mission saw successful takeoff at 10:18 AM from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. After completion of the first two stages, the mission saw anomalies towards the end of the third stage. As a result, the payload, which included domestic and international satellites along with a special DRDO spy satellite, was not deployed into the intended orbit.