The Finance Minister may not have done too much in terms of boosting employment in the social sector, however, corporate India seems to be on a hiring spree. The boom in the job market is akin to the surge in 2007 prior to the global economy crash.

In light of the global crisis in 2008-09 many firms had to resort to retrenching to cut costs and stay afloat to ride the crisis.  But now with an expected economic growth of 9% in India, this piece of news hardly comes as a surprise.

A Manpower Employment Outlook Survey conducted revealed that employers in India have the strongest hiring intentions for the second quarter of 2011.

Salary hikes on the cards

The corporate sector employees have even more reason to cheer as it's not only a spike in hiring but reports also suggest that the average salary across sectors could increase by a sumptuous 13%, higher than the 11.7% in 2010 and 6.6% in 2009.

The biggest beneficiaries are likely to be those in the engineering services segment, with an

The Reserve Bank of India is all set to announce its monetary policy on March 17. Continuing with its stance of gradual policy tightening, the central bank may have to hike interest rates in a bid to tame surging inflation figures. However, considering India's sluggish industrial output and other global crisis, the central bank may resort to only a mild hike in key policy rates, so as to not hamper India's growth momentum.

Meanwhile, some bankers expect the RBI to pause its rate hike spree as inflationary pressures seem to have cooled down.

High inflation has been a major point of concern since 2008 and most experts say that high inflation numbers are something that India would have to learn to live with, in the long run. Efforts, however, are still being made to bring down the numbers further.

The RBI has hiked rates seven times since March 2010 in an attempt to bring down inflation. These measures seem to have finally borne fruit as inflation came in at a three month low at 9.25% for

The Tokyo stock market spiraled downward Monday, its first business day after an earthquake and tsunami of epic proportions caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and lay waste to cities along the northeast coast. Other Asian markets were mostly down.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average fell 453 points, or 4.5 percent, to 9,789.55. Worries about the economic impact of Friday's disaster, including massive power shortages, triggered a broad sell-off that hit all sectors. Export stocks across the board registered staggering losses as investors dumped shares over concerns about economic production and consumption.

Hitachi Ltd. lost 15.4 percent; Mitsubishi Motors Corp. was down 9 percent; Nissan Motors Co. Ltd. and Isuzu Motors Ltd. both dropped 8 percent; Sony Corp. plummeted 7.5 percent. Insurance companies also suffered sharp drops. Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. was down 16 percent.

Fast Retailing Co., operator of Japan's biggest clothing store, lost 4.7 percent.

Industrial and