A series of steps taken by the government to promote ease of doing business and liberalisation of foreign direct investment norms have helped India receive record FDI inflows so far this year, and implementation of measures like PM Gati Shakti, single window clearance and GIS-mapped land bank are expected to further push investments in 2022. Notwithstanding the global slowdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, total foreign direct investments into India rose to a record $81.72 billion in 2020-21. During April-July this fiscal, FDI (foreign direct investment) into the country increased by 62 per cent to $27.37 billion.
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."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said that although there is a huge gap in the prices of spectrum for 2G and 3G services, the whole issue needs to be seen in proper perspective.
The representative body said there is regulatory imbalance.
Telecom operators have cited shutting down of mobile towers and lack of spectrum, as the major reasons for call drops
Ten central trade unions except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are observing one-day general strike on Thursday to protest against various government policies.
The latest ad, done by O&M again, Vodafone's ad agency, shows two engineers tinkering away in a dimly-lit highway tunnel.
No government can 'ignore inclusiveness in a democracy', Montek Singh Ahluwalia tells Anjuli Bhargava.
It is a huge reduction for the telecom players as the existing license fee to enter the National Long Distance segment is Rs 100 crore and for International Long Distance is Rs 25 crore.
Party insiders concede statements of the Raja kind have the potential to hurt the DMK's electoral chances in closely-fought seats in 2024, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Anmol Ambani, the eldest son of industrialist Anil Ambani, has lashed out against a new round of lockdowns being imposed amid the surge in COVID-19 cases, saying such restrictions do not concern health but control and that they destroy the very backbone of the society and economy. The 29-year-old former executive director of Reliance Capital Ltd in a series of tweets lambasted the new semi-lockdown rules hurting small businesses and daily wage earners. "Professional 'actors' can continue shooting their films. Professional 'cricketers' can play their sport late into the night. Professional 'politicians' can continue their rallies with masses of people. But YOUR business or work is not ESSENTIAL. Still don't get it?" he said in a tweet.
The promise of a less suspicious government is surprising. What about the disconnect between the new business stance and earlier push to dictate the narrative in politics and public life, wonders T N Ninan.
During the month, inflation in vegetables shot up to 35.99 per cent, as against 26.10 per cent in October. Likewise, the prices of cereals and eggs grew at a faster pace of 3.71 per cent.
'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.
According to the guidelines, a unified licence will have three levels -- national, service area and district.
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.
The US has been, historically, a sleeping partner in India-China relations. Today, any attempt by the Modi government to make a bilateral move to improve relations with Beijing could upset Biden's apple cart, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Events to keep an eye out for...
'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.'
Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan appealed to people to boycott products from China and also directed officials of his ministry not to procure any Chinese products for day-to-day office use while his ministerial colleague Ramdas Athawale said all restaurants and hotels that sell Chinese food in India should be closed down.
As the nation woke up to images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi splashed across the front page of newspapers by Reliance Industries to announce the launch of its 4G services, Shiv Sena's Member of Parliament from South Mumbai, Arvind Sawant, was not impressed.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja on Monday defended himself against corruption charges in the 2G scam, saying he had not done anything wrong and was merely following the policies pursued by his predecessors and the National Democratic Alliance government.
Shares of Bharti Airtel on Wednesday fell 6 per cent amid reports that the government is learnt to have approved levying of Rs 650-crore penalty on the company for violating roaming norms in 13 service areas between 2003 and 2005.
Jaitley said the verdict held that nobody was guilty in the case and investigation agencies would take an appropriate decision, taking facts and history into account.
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
Voice calling will be free on Jio phones for life and post December 31, 10 data plans will be offered
The one-man panel that went into the procedures for giving 2G licences between 2001 and 2009 on Monday submitted its report and is understood to have held some officials responsible for improper spectrum allotment.
The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has pointed out that these firms pose a threat to domestic manufacturing and retailing as they do not pay relevant taxes such as GST, giving them a huge edge over local players.
It has made everything public in the name of 10 lakh comments it got on draft net neutrality proposals.
'The no-rate cut policy and preference to wait for the Budget and clarity on the fiscal front demonstrate RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das is maturing in his new role,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Power transmission infrastructure in 18 major cities could be potentially hacked.
Maybe Modi could ask a patriarch of the stature of the late G D Birla to flesh out the details of a new company to manage government land privatisation.
The government is currently also revising its MSIPS policy to extend its mandate apart from making it more investor friendly.
Rahul Khullar's guiding credo was that a civil servant must never lose sight of his client: The little guy. The evil men are those who are decision-makers but abdicate their responsibility of taking decisions, leading people to lose confidence in public institutions.
Modi told the probationers to have a 'sensitive' and 'humane' approach to the job.
A 15 per cent corporate tax rate for services companies in SEZs, setting up a fund for deep-tech startups and establishing clusters to demonstrate design-to-manufacturing capabilities of tech firms were some of the key demands made by the IT sector at the pre-Budget consultation on Monday. The participants shared their views and suggestions regarding Big Data, incentives for encouraging setting up of data centres, fiscal incentives for data localisation, incentives for pushing digital penetration in rural areas, and corporate guarantee to startups for competing with other nations.
Not just in the fight against COVID-19, but also in politics, economics and society, observes Ajit Balakrishnan.
A way out of the economic slump is to revisit the template of 15 years ago and follow its constituents, recommends Ajay Shah.
From crisis leaders to future Goliaths, India Inc saw them all in 2017, says Shailesh Dobhal.
