Indian benchmark indices dip on Thursday

Economists spent the day discussing the outcome of the GDP figures that were published late on Wednesday, which revealed India has fallen behind China in the race to be the fastest growing major economy.

India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped to 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2016-17 (Q4FY17), according to media reports.

GDP is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period (quarterly or yearly) and an indicator of the country's economic health.

This is India's lowest growth in four quarters.

Fourth quarter (the three months ending in March), GDP was even lower than the third quarter's 7 per cent growth.

According to official number released on Wednesday, growth in gross value added (GVA), the difference between GDP and indirect taxes, was only 5.6 per cent, the lowest in at least eight quarters.

Economists expect the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut the repo rate (the rate at which RBI lends to banks) in its monetary policy committee meeting next week.

According to media reports, India also fell behind China in the race to being the fastest growing major economy. China reported  6.9 percent growth in the same quarter.

While many economists have attributed the slow GDP growth to the demonetisation measures implemented in November 2016, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley attributed it to slowdown in global markets in the face of geo-political uncertainties, according to media reports.

Some of the key stocks that gained on Thursday were Adani Ports, HUL, Larsen, Sun Pharma,Tech Mahindra and ITC while ICICI Bank, Vedanta, ONGC, GAIL, Hindalco, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel declined.