'This is a race where every technology can be used by the bad guys and good guys.'
Reliance Industries Ltd will acquire German firm Metro AG's wholesale operations in India for Rs 2,850 crore as the conglomerate run by billionaire Mukesh Ambani seeks to strengthen its dominant position in India's mammoth retail sector. "Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, signed definitive agreements to acquire a 100 per cent equity stake in Metro Cash & Carry India for a total cash consideration of Rs 2,850 crore, subject to closing adjustments," said a joint statement. Through this acquisition, Reliance Retail will get access to a network of Metro India stores located in prime locations across key cities, along with a large base of registered kiranas and other institutional customers, and a strong supplier network.
Embattled billionaire Gautam Adani on Thursday spoke publicly for the first time since his ports-to-energy conglomerate publicly battled a short seller's accusation of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, saying the abrupt move to withdraw a fully-subscribed share sale at his flagship firm was due to market volatility. His group continued to lose on the stock market, with the cumulative rout now nearing $108 billion in a week -- one of the biggest wipeouts in India's history. "After a fully subscribed follow-on public offering (of Adani Enterprises Ltd), yesterday's decision of its withdrawal would have surprised many.
'Everybody thought I was crazy to quit my job and jump into entrepreneurship.'
Sundararaman Ramamurthy has been an interesting choice for the publicly-listed BSE, which has seen its chief move to bigger rival -- the National Stock Exchange (NSE) -- in July. Having spent nearly two decades at the country's largest bourse, Ramamurthy is among the early architects of NSE and understands all the cogs of the exchange wheel like only a few others in the country. Just like NSE's core team, which includes its founder RH Patil, the 59-year-old Ramamurthy has worked at the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) before moving to NSE in 1995.
The rout in Adani Group stocks after US-based short seller Hindenburg Research released a report on January 24 has sparked a rebound in trading activity this month. The average daily trading volume (ADTV) for the cash segment (both NSE and BSE combined) so far in February stands at Rs 59,346 crore, and is around 15 per cent more than the previous month's tally of Rs 51,844 crore, which was the lowest in six months. The ADTV for the futures and options (F&O) segment rose to a record Rs 204 trillion (notional turnover) against Rs 202 trillion in January.
'A fair bit should be allocated towards fixed income.'
Embattled Adani Group on Monday said it has put on hold major equipment procurement and site construction activities for the Rs 34,900 crore petrochemical project at Mundra in Gujarat as the project has not yet tied up finances. The group's flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary, Mundra Petrochem Ltd in 2021 for setting up a greenfield coal-to-PVC plant at Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) land in the Kutch district of Gujarat. Asked by stock exchanges to comment on a PTI report on Sunday that the group has suspended work on the project, AEL said, "The financial closure of the Green PVC project of Mundra Petrochemicals Limited ( MPL) is pending with the financial institutions and it is in their active consideration."
Virtualisation is going to be a key opportunity for software players in the next 3 to 5 years, according to Amit Chatterjee, general manager, Windows Group of Microsoft India (R&D) Private Limited.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to make this decade a "techade" for India and the push for 5G, semiconductors and transformation through digital services is going to boost the technology sector in the country, industry players said on Monday. Modi, in his speech on the 76th Independence Day, touched upon all-round development of technology in the country, from 5G to push for electronic chips, laying of optical fibre cable (OFC) network across villages and enablement of digital entrepreneurship in villages through Common Services Centres, making the present decade as "techade" for India. Homegrown mobile devices maker Lava International's Chairman and Managing Director Hari Om Rai said electronics and technology sectors create about $4 trillion of revenue.
The Interop Mumbai 2009 conference was off to an innovative start, with Wim Elfrink, Chief Globalisation Officer and EVP, Cisco Services, showing an amazed enterprise IT audience on how the Internet will transform the way we work.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani's ports-to-power-to-cement conglomerate is "deeply overleveraged" with the group predominantly using debt to invest aggressively across existing as well as new businesses, CreditSights, a Fitch Group unit, said on Tuesday. In a report titled 'Adani Group: Deeply Overleveraged', CreditSights said, "In the worst-case scenario, overly ambitious debt-funded growth plans could eventually spiral into a massive debt trap, and possibly culminate into a distressed situation or default of one or more group companies." Starting out as a commodities trader in the late 1980s, the Adani group has diversified from mines, ports and power plants into airports, data centers and defence.
There are loans to salaried people where the borrower is employed, but has failed to make repayment. Such loans would be identified and sold in a pool to ARCs.
The government has signed Bippas with 72 nations.
Jio's Estonia arm and Finland-based University of Oulu have signed an agreement to collaborate for development of 6G technology as well as to foster entrepreneurship. The collaboration with the university is expected to extend Jio's 5G capabilities and will help explore use cases in the 6G era. Jio Platforms is the parent of telecom player Reliance Jio.
I suggest we build a Vigyan Mandir (Temple of Science) with the ambience of a place of worship, so that it becomes a destination for pilgrims. We should embed on its walls bronze plaques describing each scientist mentioned here along with about a dozen of our ancient mathematicians, recommends Professor Kalyan Singhal, historian of science and technology.
'If you want it to grow well and serve the true needs of the economy, it needs a lot of freedom and flexibility, which comes in terms of the reform objective set by the regulator.'
'When a Project Director is appointed, the whole organization -- including the Chairman ISRO -- works for his success. It is a lesson that has been of abiding value all through the other projects I have worked on,' recalls the late President, one of the earliest pioneers at ISRO.
As more organisations across sectors awaken to the far-reaching benefits of having skilled data professionals on board, the demand is projected to grow by 28% by 2026, notes Subramanyam Reddy, founder and CEO, KnowledgeHut, a global edtech firm.
The programme being outlined under the aegis of the ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises is part of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020.
Indian telecom operators have surpassed the three- year 5G network rollout target given to them within six months and now the government is making efforts to enhance adoption of 5G applications across various key segments, a senior government official said in Barcelona. Department of Telecom Additional Secretary VL Kantha Rao told PTI at "India Evening" event on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2023 that the government has hosted over 50 companies at the India pavilion and the delegation is here to showcase indigenously-developed 4G and 5G technology stack. "When the spectrum was allocated to telecom service providers for 5G rollout, we gave a minimum rollout obligation saying that within one year they have to cover a few cities within three years, a few towns and so on and so forth.
He's betting big on small stores to help him reach 10 million households by FY21, report Abhineet Kumar and Raghavendra Kamath.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors. "It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".
'Even during the pandemic we did it.' 'We think it's our responsibility to make sure that we manage the uncertainty.'
Strange souls see a research report on an Indian conglomerate as part of a vast conspiracy to Keep India Down. There is only one possible response to this: Grow up. Nobody in the West cares enough about India or Adani to put all the effort into creating a giant conspiracy that links together BBC documentaries and short-sellers, points out Mihir S Sharma.
No longer a discretion of the tax administrator, the audit of returns filed by taxpayers is now based on a selection by algorithms, notes Tarun Bajaj.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said banks need to focus more on being customer-friendly so that the process of availing credit becomes more hassle-free for borrowers. However, the minister made it clear that banks do not have to be lenient on credit underwriting standards by taking any adverse risks on a proposal. At a meeting between industry representatives and the finance minister, a startup founder in the baking business suggested for credit to be available hassle-free, to which largest lender SBI's chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said a startup's worries are more on the equity side and assured full support in lending if sufficient equity is on the table.
Unanimously confirmed by the Senate last week, Panchanathan, 58, from the Arizona State University, replaces White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Dr Kelvin Droegemeier who served as Acting Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Media major Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) has cancelled its board meeting, scheduled to be held on Wednesday for considering the results for the July-September quarter, due to lack of quorum. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, ZEEL said, "A meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company, which was scheduled to be held on Wednesday, October 27, 2021, inter alia, to consider and approve the unaudited financial results of the Company both on a standalone and consolidated basis for the 2nd quarter and half year ended September 30, 2021, has been cancelled due to lack of quorum." The development comes at a time when the company is battling it out the single-largest shareholders Invesco Developing Markets Fund (formerly Invesco Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund) and OFI Global China Fund LLC that together hold 17.88 per cent and have been pressing for an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders for removing managing director Punit Goenka, besides opposing ZEEL's proposed merger deal with Pictures Network India (SPNI).
With Raghuram Rajan not 'really there', the FinMin has decided to keep a watch on market developments this week with all key officials on the job.
'A lot of the emphasis when we hire graduates is the learning for these new technologies -- whether it's cloud and digital data analytics, cybersecurity, or IoT, but also some of the new ones, such as Metaverse or other newer areas.'
Young, raw energy from India's engineering colleges on display!
Piramal Enterprises (PEL) on Wednesday said it has completed the acquisition of Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) by paying Rs 34,250 crore to creditors of the housing finance company. The company said the creditors of DHFL, including fixed deposit (FD) holders, would recover an aggregate amount of Rs 38,000 crore from the resolution process of DHFL. The amount comprises approximately Rs 34,250 crore to be paid by Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Ltd (PCHFL) as a combination of cash and NCDs, and an amount of approximately Rs 3,800 crore which is the entitlement of creditors as per the resolution plan from the cash balance available with DHFL, the company said.
'Alas, in this scheme there is nothing to stop the black money flows of the future.' 'On the contrary Modi has sown the seeds of more, through the issue of Rs 2,000 notes.' 'But have you heard one politician decrying this aspect of the scheme?' 'They must be secretly rejoicing that while Modi is taking away their past, he has not shut the door on their future,' says banker S Muralidharan.
Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran on Thursday said even though a "hybrid" model will be the new normal in future, India's largest software exporter TCS will ask employees to come to work once the pandemic is over as social interactions are a social necessity. "I do want to make the point that people need to meet people. It is a social necessity. "So, there will be a shift towards moving people to work when the pandemic gets over," Chandrasekaran, who also chairs TCS, said at the company's annual general meeting. At present, 97 per cent of the company's staff have been working from their homes because of the pandemic, he said, admitting that a "hybrid" model where people work from homes and also from offices will be the new normal.
The Centre is looking to continue maintaining an arms length in financial sector appointments.
He said despite efforts by the UN, the threat of terrorism is only growing and expanding, particularly in Asia and Africa.
This year saw no improvement in bilateral ties as India accused Pakistan of cross-border infiltration and re-activation of terror-launching pads near the LoC.
India added three 'unicorns' per month in 2021 to nearly double the overall number of startups valued at over USD 1 billion to 51 as of end-August, a report said on Thursday. Even as, cumbersome regulations are forcing startups to leave India and settle in other countries where they enjoy better treatment, as per the Hurun India, which prepared the list. It can be noted that over the last few years, dedicated efforts have been undertaken to hone the startups ecosystem by the government through flagship initiatives like 'Startup India'.
