India on Wednesday asserted that its energy purchases from Russia remain 'minuscule' in comparison to its total consumption and that legitimate energy transactions cannot be politicised as energy export from Russia are yet to be sanctioned. The world's third-biggest oil-consuming and importing nation has in recent weeks snapped few cargoes available from Russia at deep discounts as part of its plans to diversify its import basket. These purchases have been commented upon.
The country's foreign exchange reserves rose by $2.865 billion to a record high of $592.894 billion for the week ended May 21, boosted by gold and currency assets, RBI data showed on Friday. The previous all-time high for the forex kitty was $590.185 billion for the week ended January 29, 2021. For the previous week ended May 14, the reserves had increased by $563 million to reach $590.028 billion.
The Delhi Police has sent a notice to micro-blogging site Twitter seeking details about steps taken by it against circulation of child pornographic content on its platform, officials said.
The country's foreign exchange reserves rose by $563 million to reach $590.028 billion in the week ended May 14, RBI data showed on Friday. The reserves had touched a lifetime high of $590.185 billion in the week ended January 29, 2021. In the previous week ended May 7, 2021, the reserves had increased by $1.444 billion to $589.465 billion.
Investments by private equity and venture capital funds in November stood at $6.8 billion across 102 deals, which is double by value when compared with the pandemic-impacted year-ago period but half of the bets in the preceding month of October, as per a report. In November 2020, such high-risk investors had infused $3.9 billion, while in October, the total investments had stood at $13.1 billion, the monthly data shared by industry lobby IVCA and the consultancy EY said. The overall investments in the first 11 months of the year have touched $72.6 billion, which is 53 per cent higher than the all-time high for a year achieved in 2020, it said.
Corporate India is more dependent than before on exporters of IT services such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro for earning foreign exchange. Such companies account for nearly 43 per cent of the forex revenues of listed firms, up from 22 per cent a decade ago. The listed IT services companies earned nearly Rs 4.2 trillion through exports in FY22, up 15 per cent from the Rs 3.65 trillion a year earlier. In comparison, the forex revenues or exports of the rest of the BSE500 companies were down 11.9 per cent to Rs 5.6 trillion last financial year.
Continuing their selling spree for the sixth consecutive month, foreign investors pulled out a massive Rs 41,000 crore from the Indian equity market in March on anticipation of rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and deteriorating geopolitical environment amid the Russia-Ukraine war. Further, flows from foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are expected to remain volatile in the near term given the headwinds in terms of elevated crude prices and inflation, experts said. According to data available with the depositories, FPIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 41,123 crore in the equity market last month.
Bharti Airtel and Tata Group on Monday announced a strategic partnership for implementing 5G network solutions for India. Tata Group has developed "O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) based Radio and NSA/SA (Non-Standalone/standalone) Core and has integrated a totally indigenous telecom stack, leveraging the Group capabilities and that of its partners", according to a joint statement. This will be available for commercial development starting January 2022.
The tax authorities may tell banks and crypto exchanges to report transactions of virtual digital assets (VDAs) as the government begins taxing gains from cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens from April 1. So far, the tax department has relied on voluntary disclosures on transactions of VDAs. Once implemented, the sale and purchase of digital assets will reflect in the Annual Information Statement (AIS). The AIS contains details of at least 46 of the financial transactions done by a taxpayer in a financial year.
These entities did not apply for renewal of their FCRA licence. In addition, the Union home ministry also rejected renewal applications of 179 organisations, officials said.
Three persons, including a Muslim cleric, have been arrested in connection with the killing of 27-year-old man over a Facebook post in Dhandhuka town of Gujarat's Ahmedabad district, a senior police official said on Friday.
The Pune-based firm had submitted interim safety and immunogenicity data of phase 2/3 bridging clinical trial conducted in the country as well as interim clinical trial data of safety and efficacy from phase3 clinical trials conducted in the UK and the US along with its application.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said with the country's foreign exchange reserves at $677 billion, it is comfortably placed to deal with any spillover effects and for financing of the current account deficit. Over the last three years, the country's foreign exchange reserves have surged by $270 billion. He said as per the latest data, the foreign exchange reserves are $622 billion.
Tokyo 2020 organising committee chief executive Toshiro Muto said, on Tuesday, it is not clear who will pay the extra costs arising from the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics.
The country's foreign exchange reserves declined by a massive $6.24 billion to reach $583.945 billion in the week ended February 5, RBI data showed on Friday. In the previous week, the reserves had touched a record high of $590.185 billion after rising by $4.852 billion. In the reporting week ended February 5, the decline in the forex kitty was mainly on account of a fall in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves.
Making a strong case for banning cryptocurrencies, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar on Monday said they are even worse than ponzi schemes and threaten the financial sovereignty of a country. Observing that crypto-technology is underpinned by a philosophy to evade government controls, he said they have been specifically developed to bypass the regulated financial system. More substantially, he added, cryptocurrencies can wreck the currency system, monetary authority, banking system, and in general the government's ability to control the economy.
Messaging platform WhatsApp on Wednesday said it has rolled out a pilot program across 500 villages across Karnataka and Maharashtra, aimed at empowering villagers with access to digital payments through 'payments on WhatsApp'. The announcement was made at Fuel For India 2021 - Meta's annual event in India. WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose said the pilot aims to effect a behavioral transformation to digital payments at the grassroots.
After the massive tax evasion of GST by cryptocurrency service provider WazirX, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence has come down heavily on cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country, said sources. "Around half a dozen offices of cryptocurrency service providers have been searched and massive Goods and Service Tax (GST) evasion has been detected by DGGI," sources told ANI. Crypto wallet and exchange are platforms where merchants and consumers can transact with digital assets like bitcoin, ethereum, ripple, etc.
The Delhi Police has registered a first information report (FIR) against Twitter for allegedly allowing access to child pornography on the microblogging platform on a complaint by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), officials said.
The country's current account deficit is likely to hit a three-year high of 1.8 per cent or $43.81 billion in FY22, as against a surplus of 0.9 per cent or $23.91 billion in FY21, a report said on Thursday. According to an assessment by India Ratings, the Current Account Deficit (CAD) has moderated to $17.3 billion or 1.96 per cent of GDP in the fourth quarter of FY22 as against $8.2 billion or 1.03 per cent in the year-ago period, and massively down from $23.02 billion or 2.74 per cent in Q3, which was a 13-quarter high. The improvement in the key numbers are due to the remarkable improvement in merchandise exports in FY22, when it grew 42.4 per cent as against a negative 7.5 per cent in the pandemic-hit FY121.
Many artists have used pencils to create works of art - but Jasenko Djordjevic creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils.
The administrators or creators of a WhatsApp group cannot be held vicariously liable for any objectionable content posted on it by any of its members, the Kerala high court has held.
Aggarwal, in this role, will define and lead important policy development initiatives for Facebook in India on an agenda that covers user safety, data protection and privacy, inclusion and internet governance, a statement said.
Changes in global oil and gas rates matter more to India's economy than other major economies because the country imports around 87 per cent of its oil, half of its gas in the form of LNG, and over 60 per cent of its LPG.
The development comes a day after the Delhi Police's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit which works under the supervision of Special Cell filed a first information report (FIR) against the unknown persons in the matter.
The Omicron variant of Covid-19 adds new uncertainties to the global economic outlook but much will depend on its speed of transmission, hospitalisation and death rates, and also the effectiveness of vaccines, Moody's Analytics said on Monday. In its commentary titled 'Much to Learn About Omicronast', Moody's Analytics said although the variant appears to spread "remarkably quickly", it will be at least two more weeks before more will be known about this new variant. "The Omicron variant of COVID-19 adds new measures of uncertainty to the outlook for the global economy, although it is too soon to adequately quantify that risk.
Samsung's connected technology solutions provider Harman on Wednesday said it has started a 5G testing lab in India to help companies test their devices for operating them on the next generation network. The company said its 5G lab enables a holistic, device-to-cloud performance analysis -- enabling chipset conformance testing, pre-certification testing, network operator approval testing, application performance verification and more. Harman Digital Transformation Services (DTS) senior vice president David Owens said advances in technologies like 5G yield significant opportunity to accelerate innovation across nearly every industry -- from healthcare and manufacturing, transportation to consumer device support.
The country's foreign exchange reserves surged to $576.98 billion as on March 31, 2021 from $544.69 billion at September-end last year, an RBI report said. Foreign currency assets (FCA), a major component of the overall reserves, increased to $536.693 billion as at March-end 2021 from $502.162 billion, the report noted. On balance of payments basis (excluding valuation changes), foreign exchange reserves increased by $83.9 billion during April-December 2020 as compared with $40.7 billion in the year-ago period, it said.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in its latest monthly oil market report projected the world's third-biggest energy consumer to add 0.39 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil demand in 2022. India's oil demand rose from 4.51 million barrels per day in 2020 to 4.76 million bpd in 2021, recording a 5.61 per cent growth.
Police has has also sought information from GitHub platform about the 'Bulli Bai' app developer.
A few days back, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged the start-up community and public to deal in cryptocurrency with caution because everything that was floating around was not currency. In the first week of August, the country's top nine crypto exchange platforms were summoned by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in Hyderabad. The exchanges were questioned for money laundering, especially over a number of Indian non-banking financial companies and their fintech partners for predatory lending practices in violation of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines and by using tele-callers who misuse personal data and use abusive language to extort high interest rates from the loan takers.
"WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state of the art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform," a WhatsApp spokesperson said.
After dropping to a low of Rs 1,298 apiece, the stock finished at Rs 1,380, its lowest level since November 22, the second day of listing.
Investments by private equity and venture capital funds doubled to a record high of $9.5 billion in July mainly driven by higher investor interest in the e-commerce sector, a report said on Monday. Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investments stood at $4.1 billion in the year-ago period. The activity was higher by 77 per cent when compared to June's $5.4 billion, the report on monthly PE/VC investment activity by industry lobby IVCA and consultancy firm EY said.
Taking advantage of a Russian offer to sell its crude oil cheap and bear the cost of insurance and transportation, India may import as much as 2 million tonnes (mt), or roughly 15 million barrels of crude, from the sanctioned nation in 2022, Business Standard has learnt. This comes after reports that Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) bought 3 million barrels of Russian Urals from trader Vitol for May delivery. This will be on cost, insurance and freight (CIF) model, where the seller incurs the costs and pays the freight, including insurance charges.
Koo has so far raised $4.1 mn in Series A funding from existing investors Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and 3one4 Capital.
Around 25,000 total of all paramilitary paramedics and doctors will be vaccinated in the first phase.
India's widening current account deficit (CAD), driven by the massive spike in commodity prices led by crude oil, is set to put pressure on the fragile recovery, warns a brokerage report that has revised upwards its CAD forecast to $45 billion or 1.4 per cent of GDP by March. According to a report by British brokerage Barclays, the worries arise from the fact that the trade deficit has been jumping continuously since July. From an average monthly trade deficit of $12 billion till June, it has jumped to $16.8 billion in July-October, with September showing the highest-ever trade deficit on record at $22.6 billion, the report said.
Close to $18 billion that Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail mopped up from a slew of private equity transactions in 2020 has pushed up the money inflows through this route by 108 per cent to $33.8 billion, according to an industry report. As per the data collated by Refinitiv, private equity investments increased 108 per cent in 2020 over the previous year, with the number of deals jumping from 665 in 2019 to 791 in 2020 at $33.8 billion, despite the pandemic. In 2019, total PE deals stood at $16.2 billion. Most of the fund inflows were in the third quarter, fetching $24 billion, which, however, tapered off in Q4 to just about $4.57 billion, as per the data from the agency that tracks financial transactions at a global level.
INOX Group has earlier supported various sporting events, teams and leagues in table Tennis, football, badminton, running, basketball and cricket, and building awareness among masses through effective promotional initiatives.