Now that almost 10 infrastructure ministries have submitted a fresh list of their core infrastructure assets, the government has realised it stands to make much more money from asset monetisation than previously thought. Two persons in the government said it stood to garner over 30 per cent more than the earlier estimates of Rs 2.5 trillion over the next four years under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP). The NMP, which is being prepared by Niti Aayog, is in the advanced stages of finalisation and is expected to be unveiled in August.
'It is in electronics that the gap between where we are and where we need to be is most obvious and most persistent.' 'It is not only a national security issue, but also a commercial issue,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
Reliance is leveraging the technological change of building a virtualised 5G network which would see the current hardware-dependent networks shift to software-centric platforms.
If a feasible business model is worked out for cable operators, they will not only build the last-mile networks, but also market them among the local population telling people the benefits as well as how to utilise them
The ministry of home affairs has received more than 20 proposals for foreign direct investment (FDI), including from China and Hong Kong, requiring security clearance between April and May. 'We are vetting some of these proposals which have come from various sectors. One of the applications is from a well known start-up,' an official said. 'We await inputs from Research and Analysis Wing, intelligence agencies, external affairs ministry, and embassies.'
PowerGrid was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying over 4 per cent, followed by NTPC, UltraTech Cement, Tech Mahindra, Reliance Industries and IndusInd Bank.
While she primed up spending on infrastructure to create jobs and boost economic activity, Sitharaman did not tinker with income tax slabs or tax rates. Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 proposed a massive 35 per cent jump in capital expenditure to Rs 7.5 lakh crore, coupled with rationalisation of customs duty, an extension of time for setting up new manufacturing companies and plans for starting a digital currency and tax crypto assets.
He said that the Communist Party of China has used the COVID-19 pandemic as a smokescreen for ratcheting up their oppression of Hong Kong and advancing their control and influence throughout the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his engagements in the US on Thursday by meeting with leading American CEOs from five different key sectors and highlighted the economic opportunities in India.
In a first, the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) officers reached out to several ministries in the last week of April as part of a confidence-boosting measure. The meeting brought the CAG officials and those from the ministries across the table to discuss the pain points in their relations. CAG of India Girish Chandra Murmu took this novel step because of growing tensions between those audited and the auditor.
With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
The temptation to get into businesses that are hot is perhaps too great for any politician, no matter what his public slogans are. Nehru plunged into hot sectors of his time -- engineering and iron and steel. Modi has plunged into digital payments -- the hot sector of his time, notes Debashis Basu.
So far, most of those horrified by the dramatic evidence that surfaced last week of Telecom Minister A Raja's largesse on 2G spectrum costing the nation $10bn (that on 3G will probably cost another $5bn) have comforted themselves with one thought: maybe the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, which is hearing the case, will conclude the policy changes were illegal and smacked of favouritism.
'The huge amount of investments being made by telcos in India for telecom gear, there is no way this demand could be met only by Europeans.' 'The Chinese are quick in installation and offer great value for money.'
The minister said that as committed earlier, the 3G spectrum would be distributed to all successful bidders on September 1 for launching services on commercial basis.
Chinese telecom network solutions major, Huawei has welcomed India's decision to streamline visa procedures for Chinese nationals, saying the move is "favourable" for Sino-Indian trade and economic cooperation.
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 Department of Commerce alleged that Huawei was engaged in activities that are contrary to US national security or foreign policy interest.
The representative body said there is regulatory imbalance.
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."
Telecom operators have cited shutting down of mobile towers and lack of spectrum, as the major reasons for call drops
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.
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.
The latest ad, done by O&M again, Vodafone's ad agency, shows two engineers tinkering away in a dimly-lit highway tunnel.
Ten central trade unions except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are observing one-day general strike on Thursday to protest against various government policies.
No government can 'ignore inclusiveness in a democracy', Montek Singh Ahluwalia tells Anjuli Bhargava.
According to the guidelines, a unified licence will have three levels -- national, service area and district.
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.
Events to keep an eye out for...
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
