Cyclone Fengal expected to make landfall near Puducherry.
Indian IT hiring landscape is at a pivotal juncture as it transitions from a year of decline towards a more hopeful future. The focus on specialised skills, particularly in AI and data science, combined with geographical shifts towards Tier 2 cities, indicates a transformation within the sector.
A year after a Hamas attack against Israel on October 7 and the ensuing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, India's trade with most West Asian countries has largely escaped any major disruption, except with countries like Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. However, repeated flare-ups of geopolitical tensions in the region continue to drive up shipping and logistics costs.
The Indian arm of the Norwegian investment company Orkla ASA, which owns spice brands like MTR and Eastern, is exploring the possibility of launching an initial public offering (IPO) in 2025, said a top company executive. "The ASA board just cleared the proposal. "We had done a pre-IPO study last year to understand what we need to do and based on that the board said, 'okay, let's go ahead and explore capital markets'," Sanjay Sharma, CEO, Orkla India, told Business Standard.
The domestic technology industry's revenue is projected to grow 3.8 per cent to $254 billion this fiscal, industry body Nasscom said on Friday and highlighted creation of 60,000 more jobs during this period. The industry had clocked a revenue of $244.6 billion in the same period last year, according to Nasscom's annual strategic review report. Excluding hardware, the revenue is expected to touch $199 billion, a growth of 3.3 per cent over FY23, as per the report.
The stock of online classified major Info Edge (India) was up over 6 per cent on Friday on expectations of demand improvement for Indian IT companies. Strong revenue growth prospects for each of its online verticals - including recruitment, matrimony, real estate, education, and upside from its holdings in companies such as Zomato - had prompted Goldman Sachs to upgrade the stock. Info Edge's standalone revenue grew 10.6 per cent year on year (Y-o-Y) in Q2FY25, beating consensus. 99acres (+16.9 per cent Y-o-Y) and Jeevansathi (+33 per cent Y-o-Y) were drivers of growth while recruitment grew 8.5 per cent Y-o-Y.
Gulf Cooperation Council member countries will see their gross domestic product grow at 5.2 per cent in 2010 on the back of rising oil revenues, the IMF has said.
If growth reverts to the pre-Covid level, a lot of people may have to temper their rosy optimism, points out Debashis Basu.
India is pushing for greater disclosures by credit card companies, fintech firms, and payment aggregators (PAs) at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), so that the sender and recipient in a cross-border financial transaction can be easily identified and the information shared with law enforcement agencies. Separately, the inter-governmental group, which sets standards to curb money laundering, will release the fourth round of its mutual evaluation report on India on September 19. FATF in June had adopted the mutual evaluation report on India and placed the country in the "regular follow-up" category - the highest rating given by the global watchdog and a distinction shared by only four other G20 countries.
'Now that we are a pure-play India business, many investors are open to investing.'
India is expected to be the top recipient of remittances in 2023 as inflows increase 12.4 per cent to $125 billion, said a World Bank report on Tuesday. Mexico will come next by receiving $67 billion and China will follow it at $50 billion. The key drivers for remittance growth in 2023 are a tight labour market in the United States, high employment growth in Europe reflecting extensive leveraging of worker retention programs, and a dampening of inflation in high-income countries. India's growth in remittances is expected to halve to 12.4 per cent in 2023 from a historic peak of 24.4 per cent in 2022.
Exports of high-quality basmati rice from India grew by 22 per cent to $5.2 billion during April 2023-February 2024, amid robust demand, primarily from West Asia. According to data compiled by the commerce department, exports of basmati rice increased to 4.68 million metric tonnes (MMT) in April-February, from 4.1 MMT during the same period a year ago, registering a growth of 14 per cent.
Another priority in the first 100 days could be the launch of an e-platform -- Trade Connect -- to help exporters connect with stakeholders of international trade.
'It was tough financially for the first few years but my friends and family supported me and once he did well at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, there was no looking back.'
'We are sure FY25 is going to be better...But to call out that all problems are behind us is a bit early.' 'The underlying business sentiment has not changed significantly.'
FMCG major Britannia Industries' results for the January-March quarter (Q4) of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) were received enthusiastically by the market with the share going up by 6.7 per cent on Monday to close at Rs 5,061.60 on the BSE. However, analysts said the results were in line with margins, and disappointing in terms of revenue growth. The consolidated net sales (excluding other operating income) rose 3 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 4,010 crore in Q4.
Some of these nations are India's biggest export market. India is also dependent on these countries to meet its energy needs.
Nikhil Anand, senior vice president, operations, at NLB Services explains why professionals who are adept at data, cloud computing and cybersecurity will earn well in 2024.
The attempted attack on the ICMR website was prevented by the firewall/security measures of NIC, they said, adding further steps are being taken to enhance cyber security.
Deutsche India, which houses the largest technology centre of German investment bank Deutsche Bank, is expanding its operations in India and hiring thousands. "Since January 2023, we have hired more than 2,500 people for Deutsche India and expect a positive trend to continue for the rest of 2023," Dilipkumar Khandelwal, chief executive officer of Deutsche India and Global Head of Technology Centers told 'Business Standard'. "We will continue to hire in the similar range even for the next year." Deutsche India has about 16,000 employees in the country and most of them are engineers.
Properties located between Santa Cruz and Andheri in north west Mumbai are currently available at Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 per square feet, while in Dubai luxurious, fully furnished, properties are available at Rs 34,000 to Rs 60,000 per square feet of carpet area in the best locations.
With developments like the Russia-China alliance and the rise of China in the Middle East, India's role has diminished though the India-Israel-US-UAE grouping may assume some importance in the future, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The proposed India-Israel trade pact should be beneficial to both nations and until New Delhi gets a good deal, it would not do an agreement, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said. India and Israel are negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) since May 2010. "With Israel, until we get a good deal, we will not do an FTA. It has to be reciprocally beneficial," the minister said in San Francisco on Tuesday while interacting with the Indian community.
Of $90 billion remittances that India is expected to receive in 2022, only $27.4 billion has come in the first half of the year.
The money sent home by Indians from West Asian countries took a beating in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. On the other hand, overseas Indians in advanced nations - the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore - emerged as important sources of remittance, according to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) survey. Indians working in informal sectors in West Asia seem to have been impacted the most due to the lockdowns and subdued crude oil prices as well as slower pace of migration in recent years.
'We have not seen too many large deals compared to last quarter.'
Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting on Thursday announced the acquisition of Brahmins - a Kerala-based traditional vegetarian, spice mix and ready-to-cook brand - and it has also drawn up plans to launch its snacks brand targeting the southern market. The company will focus on the southern market and is in the process of launching its own brand in the fast-growing ready-to-eat and snacks segment, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting and managing director Vineet Agrawal told PTI. He further said Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting would take the acquisition route for expanding in the spices segment.
As the storage level touched 3,000 million cubic feet in the Chembarambakkam reservoir as against its full capacity of 3,645 Mcft, authorities on Wednesday began releasing about 1,000 cusecs into the Adyar river as a precautionary measure.
The action against Kumaran Silks in the heart of the city came after a video purportedly showing a huge crowd in the shop went viral, with many on social media platforms expressing concern over it.
According to the officials of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, one of their sanitary workers was badly injured due to the storm and calamitic conditions in the state.
Cash-rich Gulf countries are expected to pump US$ 102 billion investments into the Indian real estate sector in the next ten years, a growth of about 630 per cent from the present US$ 14 billion, a report by Kuwait Investment Company (KIC) said.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its condemnation and denunciation of the statements made by the BJP spokesperson, saying it insulted Prophet Muhammad.
IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings extended support to the people of Tamil Nadu in the fight against the surging COVID-19 second wave by arranging for the delivery of 450 oxygen concentrators.
Cleartrip acquired Saudi travel firm Flyin last July and it provides bilingual ground support service and itineraries for inbound tourists.
With rapid adoption of emerging technologies, the Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry is expected to generate about 3 lakh jobs this fiscal year, according to a report. The IT-BPM workforce is on the trajectory to grow 7 per cent in FY23, with the overall headcount increasing from 5.1 million to 5.45 million (close to 3 lakh jobs being created), the report by TeamLease Digital, the specialised staffing division of TeamLease Services said. The 'Digital Employment Outlook Report for H1-2023' highlighted that the demand for digital skills will grow 8.4 per cent by the end of this fiscal year.
Why should India buy olives from Europe when it could do so from the world's largest producers?
An interesting multi-cornered contest is on the cards for the urban local body elections in Tamil Nadu scheduled for February 19 with opposition parties, which were with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam till a few days ago, set to take on the ruling DMK banking on their respective party's own strength.
