'The events of 2020 have actually put our relationship under exceptional stress.' What External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the All India Conference of China Studies on Thursday, January 28, 2021.
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
'The huge amount of investments being made by telcos in India for telecom gear, there is no way this demand could be met only by Europeans.' 'The Chinese are quick in installation and offer great value for money.'
He said that the Communist Party of China has used the COVID-19 pandemic as a smokescreen for ratcheting up their oppression of Hong Kong and advancing their control and influence throughout the region.
'I feel more like a chess player, thinking for long hours how to make the next move," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan tells Surajeet Das Gupta.
'Our strategy should be to 'hold the line' in the north on the Sino-Indian land frontier, but maintain and, if possible, enlarge India's current edge in the maritime south.'
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported an 11 per cent drop in its June quarter net profit largely due to weak oil-to-chemical (O2C) vertical and higher interest and depreciation cost. Net profit was Rs 16,011 crore, or Rs 23.66 per share, in April-June - the first quarter of current 2023-24 fiscal year - compared with Rs 17,955 crore, or Rs 26.54 a share, earning a year back, according to a company's stock exchange filing.
Exports to China saw sustained double-digit growth for the fourth straight month in August, led by eightfold rise in iron and steel shipments.
'China feels India will be hard-pressed not to go after China because we are so badly dependent on them -- and that is the reality.'
In the year 2020 to date, these funds deployed capital worth a record $14.8 billion in India, which is nearly three times more than what they have put in China - $4.5 billion.
Kotak Bank was the top laggard in the Sensex pack, shedding over 2 per cent, followed by ITC, PowerGrid, M&M, HDFC, Asian Paints and NTPC. On the other hand, Maruti rallied over 4 per cent. Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank and Bajaj Finance were also among the gainers.
With regard to where relations between New Delhi and Beijing stand, the Union minister said that he does not have a definite answer to offer at "this moment".
A year after Bharti Airtel launched 4G services, there are only 6.5 mn users in the country
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) pumped in Rs 43,838 crore in Indian equities in May, the highest level in nine months, supported by strong macroeconomic fundamentals, and reasonable valuations. FPIs continued the buying stance in June too, and invested Rs 6,490 crore in just two trading sessions of the month, data with the repositories showed. VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said that inflow by FPIs will continue in the current month since the latest GDP data and high-frequency indicators reflect a robust economy gaining further strength.
The warning came a day after China cautioned its students against going to the US for studies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US is expected to see discussion on India's possible entry into a US-led global alliance on critical minerals, officials told Business Standard. In June last year, the US, the European Union, and other G7 partners launched the Minerals Security Partnership to ensure that China did not further strengthen its grip on supplies of critical minerals the world over. Various ministries, including the Ministry of Finance, have communicated to the Ministry of External Affairs to explore the possibility of India joining the partnership, officials said.
It was expected that supplies from China will be back to normal by end-June as their factories are now operating at nearly 90 per cent of normal capacity. But the recent issue with shipments has placed an obstacle that manufacturers can't bypass.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting convened by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and attended by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), Border Roads Organisation (BRO) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) among others.
According to industry insiders, India has 400 million smartphones and is the world's fastest-growing app market. So the addition or deletion of apps impacts the global valuations of these platforms. "Based on calls given by various local organisations to delete Chinese Apps, there will be an impact," said Blaise Fernandes, director at foreign policy think tank Gateway House. "All of them eventually will go the IPO (initial public offering) route so there would be economic impact also."
Clearly, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu and his team are looking to raise their game in India.
NavIC consists of a constellation of seven satellites and a network of ground stations and is touted to be more accurate than GPS.
Indian telcos have been able to garner over 20 million 5G customers in less than four months after the official launch of the service last October, according to industry estimates. With telecom operators like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel aggressively rolling out their 5G services in over 190 cities across the country to date, India is now only behind China and the US in terms of the number of cities in a country where 5G services have been extended. Top executives in telcos say that the number of 5G subscribers in India is a conservative estimate and that it will rise as the roll-out gains momentum.
Coming to the valuation parameters of both the companies, at first glance, Bharti Tele's valuations look much more expensive than its counterpart China Mobile.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd climbed eight spots to the 45th rank, the highest for an Indian company on Forbes' latest Global 2000 list of public companies worldwide.
Vodafone on Wednesday said it will offload its entire 3.2 per cent shareholding in China Mobile, a divestment that will fetch the British telecom major about 4.3 billion pounds.
Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra together have Global Delivery Centres in Shanghai and Nanjing.
Telecom gear makers say will take six to eight months for the top 10 cities to have some reasonable coverage of 5G network services.
A healthy growth in India's services segments has helped the country's total exports and imports of goods and services to cross the $800 billion mark during the first half of 2023, despite a slowdown in global demand, think tank GTRI said in a report on Monday. According to the analysis of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), exports of goods and services rose by 1.5 per cent to $385.4 billion during January-June this year, as against $379.5 billion in January-June 2022. Imports, however, dipped by 5.9 per cent to $415.5 billion during the six months of this year, as against $441.7 billion in January-June 2022.
Nokia sold its once-dominant handset business last year.
Reliance Jio is close to finalising its contract with telecom gear maker Ericsson to roll out its 5G network in Mumbai and Maharashtra and Kolkata and West Bengal in the first phase of its launch in October. And it is going with Nokia for the lucrative Delhi circle, and Chennai, which includes Tamil Nadu, say sources aware of the development. This is the first time that Jio is opting for multiple vendors.
One Chinaman is three time more productive than an Indian at the workplace through his life, observes Virender Kapoor.
The Bangalore-based telecom software product company Subex Systems on Tuesday launched its operations in China, where it is targetting a 15 per cent market share in two years, contributing $8 million to its revenues.
Reliance Jio may not ask for a premium for its 5G services in the initial stages of the launch, according to sources in the company. The company will roll out 5G commercial services in four cities -Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata - around Diwali this month and slowly ramp up the processes for other cities, too. A senior executive, when asked whether Jio will charge higher tariffs for 5G against 4G, said: "In the initial stages, customers have to adopt 5G, then they will have to find value in the service, and then one can look at monetisation."
China is the "most active source" of national and industrial cyber espionage in the world, a report by US-based telecom major Verizon alleged.
Reliance Industries (RIL's) annual report released on Sunday highlighted the company's focus on new energy solutions, with chairman and managing director (MD) Mukesh Ambani stating that the age of fossil fuels will not continue much longer. RIL has sought shareholders' approval to give Ambani another five-year term as MD till 2029 at nil salary. The recently demerged Jio Financial Services, which "will leverage the prowess of digital and retail businesses", was expected to be listed soon.
Foxconn means serious business in India. Its delegation to India was led by its Chairman Young Liu who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The executive order, which was signed by Trump on Thursday, prohibits certain purchases involving publicly traded securities or any securities that are derivative of or are designed to provide investment exposure to such securities of any Communist Chinese military company.