The metro, it seems, is politics-proof -- even if it comes at a high cost.
'Could the impending new crisis, vibe coding, similarly create not a disaster like what befell Indian handlooms during the Industrial Revolution but another opportunity like what the Y2K crisis created?' asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
The move came against the backdrop of Turkiye backing Pakistan and its condemnation of India's strikes on terror camps in the neighbouring country and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor.
Institutional investments in Indian real estate have seen a strong start to 2025, with inflows reaching $ 1.3 billion in the first quarter - a 31 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase. This growth was primarily driven by domestic investments, which accounted for 60 per cent of the total inflows during the quarter. With $ 0.8 billion inflows, domestic investments saw a 75 per cent annual rise and were largely focused on industrial & warehousing and office segments.
The growth was primarily driven by domestic investments, which accounted for 60 per cent of the total inflows during the first quarter of the financial year.
Demand for the Christmas period is expected to rise further in the coming days.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
E-commerce firm Amazon India has announced the creation of over 110,000 seasonal job opportunities across its operations network as it prepares to serve millions of customers throughout India during the upcoming festival season. These positions include both direct and indirect roles in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Chennai, among others. Notably, Amazon has hired thousands of women and nearly 1,900 individuals with disabilities into its existing network.
For Dinesh Nirmal (pictured), who heads IBM Software, one of his mandates is to integrate generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into all products IBM builds and leverage it to enhance developer productivity across global labs. Nirmal believes that one of the biggest benefits of GenAI is automation, leading to optimisations and productivity gains. He shares that IBM Software has observed productivity gains of 30-40 per cent in some segments of software development.
'The overall market cycle is very positive.'
The seven major cities are Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata.
After a tentative start, quick commerce (q-commerce) is ablaze, with Blinkit and Zepto slugging it out in a market distinct from other competitors. The latest entrant is Flipkart, which is ramping up its infrastructure in around 12 cities where it will launch the service in the next six to eight weeks, taking on existing players such as Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, and BigBasket, among others. According to data analysed from Sensor Tower by BofA Global Research, the daily active user (DAU) base of Blinkit has grown by 58 per cent between February 2023 and February 2024.
There's a hint of new competition riding into a sector that has attracted attention for being in a duopoly-like situation. Rapido, a commute app known for its budget-friendly bike-taxi services, on Tuesday announced its entry into the cab market, which is currently dominated by marquee brands Uber and Ola. Rapido's cab foray will be enabled by a software as a service (SaaS)-based platform.
Akasa Air has reduced its service on 10 routes and stopped operating flights on eight others since the exodus of pilots began in early July. The airline's flights per week reduced from 945 in June to 754 in October, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data, which has been reviewed by Business Standard. The airline currently operates flights on 34 routes. Between June and October, Akasa Air ceased operations on the following: Ahmedabad-Kochi, Ahmedabad-Hyderabad, Ahmedabad-Pune, Bengaluru-Hyderabad, Bengaluru-Chennai, Kochi-Hyderabad, Goa-Lucknow, and Goa-Hyderabad.
Deploying additional Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, providing real-time updates through social media, adding more immigration counters and ensuring 100 per cent manning of immigration counters - these are some of the steps that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is now taking in coordination with other stakeholders to avoid congestion at major airports during the upcoming festival season. During the last year's festival and winter season, major airports in the country suffered from congestion due to lack of sufficient airport infrastructure, inadequate X-ray screening machines, bunching of flights at peak hours, as well as inadequate CISF and immigration personnel, the MoCA stated on Thursday. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, after last year's congestion issue, had asked major airports - including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai - to identify bottlenecks and augment capacity to meet the growing passenger demand.
The PCB has written to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, seeking official clearance to travel to India for the ODI World Cup.
GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited plans to develop an aerotropolis on 1,000 acres, which will promote education, healthcare, entertainment, hospitality, commercial and logistics ports around the airport.
With a little over four months left for the marquee event to begin, there has been an unprecedented delay in releasing the schedule.
'The PCB will share the report with the ICC and BCCI if the delegation has any concerns.'
'The World Cup alone is expected to create an additional 100,000 jobs, most of which will comprise gig workers in the delivery space, transportation, hospitality and event management.'
Housing sales rose 8 per cent annually during the April-June period to 80,250 units across eight major cities, mainly on increased demand in Mumbai and Pune, according to PropTiger. Sales stood at 74,320 units in the year-ago period across primary (fresh sales) residential markets of the top eight cities. The housing brokerage firm on Wednesday released its Real Insight Residential - April-June 2023 report, stating that housing sales rose in three cities Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad but declined in other five major cities -- Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.
More and more women are making their presence felt in jobs related to sciences, technology, and engineering across organisations.
Internet giant Google is investing $10 billion in India's digitisation fund, its CEO Sundar Pichai has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a step that will recognise India's leadership on fintech and will support small and large businesses in India, the US and around the world. Pichai met Prime Minister Modi in Washington on Friday and also announced the opening of Google's global fintech operation centre in the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) in Gandhinagar. "It was an honour to meet Prime Minister Modi during the historic visit to the US. We shared with the Prime Minister that Google is investing $10 billion in India's digitisation fund," Pichai said.
Sanjive Narain, owner of Assam's oldest news channel, and Sanjay Aditya Singh, promoter of a cabin crew training academy, are coming together to launch a regional airline providing business and premium economy services in the Northeast. Jettwings Airways will be based in Guwahati and will connect places with twin-class Embraer E175 aircraft. The airline has secured an initial no-objection clearance from the civil aviation ministry and plans to launch services in October.
India got 124% fitter in 2022, burning a total of 2,48,62,19,657 kCalories
'All the venues are high-scoring venues. So what you need is pace.' 'You really want someone to come there and control the flow of runs in the death overs, whether you are setting a target or setting a target.' 'It is going to be the fast bowlers because at how many venues have you seen spinners bowling the death overs?'
Bharti Airtel on Thursday said its 5G services have gone live in eight cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi. The customer availing 5G services will have to pay as per their existing 4G plan, it said. "Airtel has been at the forefront of India's telecom revolution for the last 27 years.
Lauding India's ambitious space programme, The New York Times has said the country, currently witnessing an 'explosive' growth in space-tech start-ups, is set to 'transform the planet's connection to the final frontier' and can emerge as a 'counterweight' to China.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also expects that consumers may spend about Rs 2 lakh crore during the Diwali festival sale period. "Like previous year, this year too CAIT has given a call of 'boycott Chinese goods' and it is certain that China is going to suffer a business loss of about Rs 50,000 crore in terms of stoppage of import of chinese goods by Indian traders," CAIT stated.
'That the South and West regions are more women-friendly in terms of employment is not a surprise.'
Housing sales hit an all-time high this year to nearly 3.65 lakh units across seven major cities, beating the previous high of 2014, on strong demand for residential properties despite a hike in mortgage rates, according to Anarock. The prices of residential properties have risen in the range of 4-7 per cent primarily due to an increase in the input costs and demand comeback post-COVID, it said. Releasing the demand-supply data of India's top residential primary (fresh sale) markets, property consultant Anarock said that the housing sales rose 54 per cent this year to 364,900 units as against 236,500 units in 2021 across the seven cities -- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.
Real estate developers are sitting on around 7.85 lakh unsold housing units across eight major cities and it will take them 32 months to clear these stocks at current sales velocity, according to PropTiger. However, in Delhi-NCR residential market -- which has been adversely impacted due to defaults of many big builders like Amrapali, Jaypee Infratech and Unitech -- it will take 62 months to sell over 1 lakh unsold housing units. Housing brokerage firm PropTiger.com data showed that unsold housing inventory has increased to 7,85,260 units as on September 30, 2022 from 763,650 unsold units at the end of previous quarter.
India and Pakistan have not played bilateral cricket for close to a decade now due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
Aviation regulator DGCA on Tuesday said it has imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Air India for denying boarding to passengers holding valid tickets and thereafter not providing the mandatory compensation to them.
Tharoor argued that the proposed bill represents a "grave chapter in the history of the Indian republic, seeking to ratify an ordinance that in many ways is an assault on our democratic heritage and the spirit of federalism."
Commercial 5G services will be rolled out in 13 cities in India, including the metropolises, in 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said in a statement on Monday. These cities are Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, and Jamnagar. "These metros and big cities would be the first places for the launch of 5G services in the country next year," the DoT said.
Competition Commission has approved Tata Group's proposed acquisition of debt-laden Air India as well as its two subsidiaries. The Rs 18,000 crore-deal that includes the winning bidder Talace taking over Rs 15,300 crore-worth debt, is a major step in the government's efforts over the years to revive the ailing airline. Talace Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, emerged as the winning bidder in October.
Housing sales are likely to rise by 30 per cent across seven major cities to nearly 1.8 lakh units in 2021, but demand will still be lower than the pre-COVID levels, according to property consultant Anarock. According to Anarock research, housing sales are expected to increase 30 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 1,79,527 units across seven cities in 2021 from 1,38,344 units last year. In 2019, housing sales stood at 2,61,358 units across seven cities -- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.
This is probably for the first time that the two former party colleagues-turned-opponents shared the stage after Rane's exit from the Shiv Sena, of which Thackeray is the president.
The job market saw an uptrend in the March quarter (Q1), with job interviews increasing 13.71 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to over 30 million, according to Apna.co, India's largest jobs and professional networking platform. It recorded a 42 per cent QoQ growth in its employer base. As a result of the second wave of Covid-19 last year, sectors such as healthcare, delivery, and e-commerce were booming while others had fairly low employment.
