The government is planning to collaborate with industry stakeholders, including influencer marketing companies, to prepare and promote guidelines to help them understand the rules better and improve compliance. During a discussion with influencers, content creators, and their agencies on the recently released guidelines for celebrities, influencers, and virtual influencers on social media platforms, Rohit Kumar Singh, consumer affairs secretary, suggested forming a self-regulatory organisation for influencer marketing companies and the development of a creator or influencer recognition programme in collaboration with the industry.

Most firms anticipate high demand for ACs, refrigerators, coolers and fans, and are running at full production capacity to ensure they have enough inventory to meet demand.

'The inflection point that really happened in the sector was during the pandemic when buyers' perception changed towards consumption and that gave a trigger to pent-up demand with the increased affordability.'

The seven major cities are Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata.

Health experts express concern about the unsupervised consumption of dietary supplements, warning poor-quality products can affect cardiovascular health and kidneys.

After their near desertion in the wake of Covid-19, workplaces well and truly made a comeback in 2022 - making it the second strongest year of recovery for the office market in the past decade. The year saw record-high completions and pre-commitments after a slowdown of two years. Experts attribute the reversal to various factors including relaxation in Covid-19 restrictions, reopening of offices and job creation.

Fast-moving consumer goods major Dabur India is set to enter the branded spices and seasoning category. It has signed an agreement to acquire 51 per cent in Badshah Masala for a cash consideration of Rs 587.52 crore. The acquisition, the company says, is in line with its strategic intent to expand its food biz to Rs 500 crore in three years.

'Marginal rates will definitely affect the consumer's decision in entering a new transaction, but in reality, they don't affect much because banks/financial institutions have come up with step-up EMIs: 50% of home loans which exceed 15 years in India are prepaid, within 7-8 years.' 'This doesn't happen anywhere in the world.'

The real estate market has seen a decline in affordability due to the recent rise in median loan rates as a result of the 50 basis points (bps) hike in repo rates by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). A cumulative increase of 0.95 per cent in median home loan rate has impacted the purchase affordability and purchase decisions of homebuyers, according to the Affordability Index by Knight Frank. The Affordability Index tracks the EMI (equated-monthly instalment) to income ratio for an average household.