7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday unveiled the prototype of the world's first Bharat Stage (BS)-VI-compliant electrified flex-fuel car, developed by Toyota Kirloskar Motor. The car, which runs on 100 per cent ethanol (E100), is based on the Toyota Innova HyCross. It can cover 40 per cent of its distance on ethanol and the remaining 60 per cent on electric, with the petrol engine shut off.
The flood situation in Assam deteriorated drastically on Thursday with one person losing his life and nearly five lakh people reeling under the deluge across 12 districts, an official bulletin said.
The country's largest software company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday said its net profit increased 8.7 per cent year-on-year to Rs 11,342 crore in the September 2023 quarter. The Tata Group flagship had reported a net profit of Rs 10,431 crore in the year-ago period.
The water level at the Old Railway Bridge crossed the 208-metre mark Wednesday night and rose to 208.48 metres by 8 am on Thursday. It is expected to rise further, according to the Central Water Commission, which has termed it an "extreme situation".
India's unemployment rose to a three-month high in March to 7.8 per cent as the country's labour markets deteriorated, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Unemployment rate in the country surged in December 2022 to 8.30 per cent but declined in January to 7.14 per cent. It edged up again in February to 7.45 per cent, the CMIE data released on Saturday showed. During March, the unemployment rate in urban areas was at 8.4 per cent while in the rural areas it was at 7.5 per cent.
The company also has identified eight focus areas such as engineering services, enterprise application, infrastructure management and enterprise transformation services. HCL Technologies' acquisition strategy is three fold; smaller tuck-in buyouts are targeted towards purchasing firms that bring intellectual property to the company.
The Indian Council of Medical Research is conducting three different studies to ascertain the facts regarding rising cases of cardiac arrest after the pandemic, Mandaviya said in response to a question in the Lok Sabha.
Intelligroup had, in 2007, acquired IGS Novasoft, a UK-based company, which had a good SAP implementation methodology, for $3 million (Rs 14.7 crore).
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India are expected to stay buoyant, seen over the last three-four years, despite a slowdown in the first seven months of the calendar year. "M&A is a lumpy business activity, and we may suddenly see large deals taking place during the next two quarters of the calendar year. "This would help maintain the streak of strong M&A activity.
Company's revenue growth is likely to be volatile going ahead
5G ambulances will not just allow remote consultation, but would also be able to transit data and video to hospitals in real time, saving precious time for critical patients. 5G technology would also support the development of new educational applications, improve agriculture productivity, and aid search and rescue missions with high resolution cameras in disaster recovery zones.
Pant, a 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently secretary in the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways.
Women account for 35 per cent of the 860,000 people employed in startups in 2022, compared to 19 per cent in the corporate sector.
As part of this three-year managed services agreement, Infosys would streamline implementation processes, simplify support and service, while at the same time lowering the enterprise costs through the use of the latest Microsoft solutions such as Windows 7, the Bangalore-headquartered company said in a statement.
The international community counts a lot on India's leadership of the G-20 at a time when the world is faced with the continued economic slowdown and social distress, the chief of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva has said. "India, which is the president of G-20 countries, remains among the countries that perform better than the global average and by a good percentage," IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters during a media roundtable on Thursday. India formally assumed the G20 (Group of 20) Presidency on December 1.
iGATE Global Solutions said on Monday that it has appointed Mohan Sekar as chief delivery officer-IT services.
"The provisions of the said bill are nothing short of draconian and promote gross incompetence and mockery of professionals currently working day and night and sacrificing their youth for this broken system," said the protesting doctors.
Ashok Soota, founder chairman of MindTree, who recently left the company he co-founded in 1999, is preparing the grounds for his new venture.
Google is investing heavily in creating business tools and products, driven by open source technology and machine learning
A smart city strives to minimise waste of resources.
Coming Wednesday, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman will present the 2023 Union Budget - the last full Budget ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While India exited 2022 as a relatively bright spot in the global economy, the FM will endeavour to present a Budget that insulates India's economy against global headwinds and recession in advanced economies, while sticking to the path of fiscal consolidation. In this, she is being helped by her core team of trusted advisors.
Focussing its attention on technology and, research and development based outsourcing, HCL BPO will open an offshoring centre in Pondicherry in 2006
Mining magnate Anil Agarwal's conglomerate on Friday announced a major business shake-up, with flagship Vedanta Ltd approving a spin-off of its metals, power, aluminium and oil and gas businesses into separate listed entities and an overhaul of lucrative zinc unit planned as part of value creation and reducing debt load. Vedanta will issue one share of the five demerged businesses for every share held in the company, the firm said in a statement. The entire exercise, which would require shareholder and lender approval as well as a nod from the stock exchanges and courts, is expected to be completed in 12-15 months, its president for finance Ajay Agarwal said.
'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.'
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud on Tuesday said the greatest challenge before the Indian judiciary is to eliminate barriers to accessing justice and make sure that the judiciary is inclusive and accessible to the last person in the line.
Major General S C N Jatar, who passed into the ages on Monday night, thwarted anti-national forces at the peak of the Assam agitation. Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) salutes this officer and gentleman.
Officials of Reliance Jio Infocomm claimed to have achieved broadband speeds on their networks that are 10-12 times faster than 3G services.
The new facility of Cognizant Technology Solutions, a leading global IT offshore services provider, at Coimbatore is set to go operational soon, a senior company official said.
Global IT solutions provider HCL Technologies Ltd has signed a five-year multi-million dollar agreement with US-based Autodesk Inc to provide offshore application and data centre services.
Shinde, who was accompanied by civic chief Abhijit Bangar and district collector Ashok Shingare, said the patient deaths at the CSM Hospital, located in his political turf Thane, were painful and asked all parties to desist from indulging in politics on the issue.
Within days of announcing mega investments for building in Hyderabad its second data centre cluster in India, Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday said it is excited about the India market, where cloud adoption offers massive headroom for growth. Pledging its long-term commitment to the India market, AWS, Amazon's cloud computing unit, said it expects global uncertainties to accelerate the decisions by companies to opt for flexible, on-demand cloud infrastructure to pare costs, gain efficiencies and drive business innovation. "Cloud reacts well to uncertainty," Puneet Chandok, president - commercial business, AWS India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) told PTI.
In an advisory, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) also appealed to people to take COVID-19 vaccines, including the precaution dose, and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour such as using masks in public places and maintaining social-distancing norms to 'overcome the impending Covid outbreak'.
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
Notwithstanding expectations of a pick-up in construction activity during a seasonally strong January-March quarter (fourth quarter) of 2022-23 (FY23), analysts are cautiously optimistic about the building material sector - encompassing paints, pipes, wood panels, tiles, metals, and cement - as volatile input costs, coupled with fears of a global slowdown, are making demand projections uncertain. Against this backdrop, analysts suggest investors stay selective and pick stocks of companies with stronger brand recall, expanding distribution network, diversified product profile, healthier balance sheet, and sustainable cash flow. "The government's various proposals under Budget 2023-24 (FY24) may lead to the building material segment growing between 8 per cent and 12 per cent for the next five years.
The new CEO's next challenge is to grow margins.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday stressed the need to ensure adequate health infrastructure at the district level and asked officials to maintain coordination regarding this with the states, in view of the prevailing COVID-19 situation.
In March this year, Worldline India launched Vabox (Voice Alert Box): merchants will now get instant audio alerts on the settlement of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments via QR codes in languages of their choice when customers check out. "They needn't worry whether the amount has been credited to their account," says Gulshan Pruthi, the firm's executive vice-president. The French payments giant will roll out 500,000 Vaboxes in the initial phase.
Bankrupt Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) has sold the entire stake in the waste management arm IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure & Services (IEISL) and its subsidiaries to EverEnviro Resource Management (EverEnviro), an arm of the PE major Everstone Group, the companies said in separate statements. Though the value of the deal was not specifically disclosed, the crippled IL&FS -- which is under bankruptcy proceedings in NCLT -- said the sale will reduce its overall debt by Rs 1,200 crore, which is the combined debt of entities under the group's environment businesses. IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure & Services (IEISL) is one of the leading integrated waste management companies that is into municipal solid waste management apart from presence across various segments including construction and demolition, collection and transportation and waste to energy and currently manages over 8,400 tonnes per day solid municipal waste.
Outsourcing company iGate Corporation on Wednesday said it has bagged a major five-year contract worth over $100 million (about Rs 598 crore) for providing global infrastructure services for insurance major MetLife, Inc.