The government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is likely to start levying user charges in the current financial year.
About 99,165 electric cars were sold in India in 2024, but electric car penetration -- share of electric car sales in total sales -- was just about 2.5 per cent.
These are the highlights of the Union Budget 2025-26 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Saturday.
'We went from zero to about 10 million users in three months. Paytm came out with the wallet play and we came out with the UPI play.'
President Droupadi Murmu addressed both Houses of Parliament, highlighting the government's achievements in various sectors, including economic growth, social welfare, and infrastructure development. She emphasized the government's efforts to lift the economy out of "policy paralysis" and create a more inclusive society. Murmu also acknowledged the challenges posed by digital fraud and cybercrime and stressed the need for a social infrastructure revolution. The President's speech is considered a policy statement, outlining the government's vision and roadmap for the future.
The US Trade Representative noted that India's average applied tariff rate stood at 17% per cent, the highest of any major world economy.
Its entry will increase competition especially when WhatsApp too has received approvals to launch payment service.
Visiting Varanasi for Dev Deepavali should be on your bucket list.
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.
India on Monday asserted that its friendly ties with the Maldives will continue as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Mohamed Muizzu unveiled a blueprint for comprehensive economic and maritime cooperation, signalling a reset of the relationship that had hit a rough patch last year due to anti-New Delhi rhetoric.
'80% of start ups fail because they don't have a support system to help them in the very early phase.' 'It's not just an idea that takes an entrepreneur through the initial three years of journey.' 'What plays a definitive role in making a start-up successful is idea+team+capital+mentors+access to a larger ecosystem.'
In the first such collaboration for India, the country's flagship payments platform, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and Singapore's PayNow payment system have launched a real-time cross-border payment linkage system. The linkage, which was launched by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Singapore's PM Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, was kicked off by a live cross-border transaction between Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das and Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon, using mobile phones.
The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday decided to keep policy rate unchanged for third time in a row as it maintains heightened vigil on inflation. The rate increase cycle was paused in April after six consecutive rate hikes aggregating to 250 basis points since May 2022.
The Reserve Bank on Wednesday hiked key benchmark policy rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent, citing sticky core inflation. This is the sixth time interest rate has been hiked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) since May last year, taking the total quantum of hike to 250 basis points. Announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) by a majority decided to raise the policy repo rate by 25 basis points and keep a 'strong vigil' on inflation outlook.
'Isn't it obvious? Do you have a doubt? There is so much data that shows that there is quid pro quo.' 'There are many instances of donations being given after the raids, donations being given before the award of a contract and many other permutations and combinations.'
'The market has picked up for commercial vehicles. We are very close to pre-pandemic levels.'
'To the believers of crypto regulations, I have only one question to ask, how will you regulate it?'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed hope that G20 will draw inspiration from the vibrancy of the Indian economy and work towards bringing back stability, confidence and growth on the global landscape.
'I don't think we have ever seen such alignment of everything that we need in the banking sector.'
When she does show up an hour into the movie, Alia's confidence is hard to miss, notes Sukanya Verma.
The digital transformation should not be confined to a small part of the "human race" and its greater benefits will be realised only when digital access becomes "truly inclusive", Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the G-20 summit on Wednesday. Modi also strongly pitched for a pledge by the G-20 leaders to work for bringing digital transformation into the life of every human being in the next 10 years so that no person is deprived of the benefits of the new technologies. In a session on digital transformation, the prime minister also said that principle of "data for development" will be an integral part of the overall theme of India's upcoming G-20 Presidency.
Modi was honoured with the 'Order of Zayed', the UAE's highest civilian award, in 2019 as a mark of appreciation for his efforts to boost bilateral ties between the two nations.
The Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour given by France is another in a series of top international awards and honours bestowed by various countries on Prime Minister Modi.
The Indian startup ecosystem has lauded the inclusion of startups in the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration for the first time ever in the history of G20. Industry stakeholders say that the move will lead to easier access to capital, reduce regulatory hurdles, and may revive funding activity. The Declaration, through the Startup20 initiative, recognised startups as "natural engines of growth" and key to socio-economic transformation by driving innovation and creating employment.
The seizure, as per officials, is estimated to be worth over Rs 10 crore in the international market (about Rs 5K-7K per blot) and all the six who have been taken into custody, beginning late last month, are students and youngsters who wanted to make 'easy money' by remaining anonymous within the deep layers of secret internet-based apps and messenger service like WICKR.
'Just the amount of work which is there just to become more and more successful in banking. For this to happen you need to have leaders who understand technology.'
'The Indian economy and the Indian financial sector today remain resilient and much better placed.'
India will grow at around 7.4 per cent in 2022-23 and continue at the same pace in the next year as well, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday. Sitharaman said there are risks on the external front and this is not the right time to throw caution to the wind, and also assured exporters of all the necessary support from the government as they face the headwinds. Speaking at the FE Best Bank Awards event here, Sitharaman said global agencies like IMF and the World Bank have taken cognisance of the strengths of the Indian economy by saying that it will be among the fastest growing ones in the next two years.
Sharks, mating frogs, seals playing with photographers... these are the amazing photos which offer an enchanting breadth of what's beyond the shoreline. Underwater Photographer of the Year has just announced the winners of its 2019 photo contest and photographer Richard Barnden, from the UK, was named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2019. Prizes and commendations were handed out in categories including Wide Angle, Macro, Wrecks, Behaviour, Portrait, Black and White, Compact, Up and Coming, and in British waters, Wide Angle, Living Together, Compact, and Macro Shots.
There is no dearth of political will today to act against corruption and officers should take action against the corrupt, however powerful, without any hesitation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday.
If bank and service provider are not compliant, pay manually, or give standing instruction linked to bank a/c, suggests Bindisha Sarang.
These are some of Rediff.com's favourites from all 80 award-winning photos.
The Centre is unlikely to announce an agreement over payment mechanism with Russia until a ceasefire is declared in the Ukraine war, said people in the know. An inter-ministerial group headed by the finance ministry has been meeting regularly for over a month to analyse and discuss payment mechanisms that can work under the current circumstances and ensure the trade between India and Russia is not disrupted. The US had recently said that there would be consequences for countries actively attempting to "circumvent or backfill" American sanctions against Russia.
Microsoft has become the first global Big Tech company to join the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an Indian government initiative for developing a first-of-its-kind open network for digital commerce. The world's second-largest technology firm intends to introduce social e-commerce via its app in the Indian market later this year. ONDC is expected to open to the public in Bengaluru over the next fortnight as it enters into the next phase of the pilot for further fine-tuning before rollouts in other cities, according to a source in the know.
'India has a lot of potential, not just in commercial aspects, but also in hiring of people and sourcing of products.'
Education technology, grocery, fashion, food delivery and UPI payments surpassed volumes or revenues of February, in the September-October period.
India recorded 50,035 cases of cyber crime in 2020, an 11.8 per cent surge in such offences over the previous year, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week once again cautioned bank customers of fraud, including those in Know-Your-Customer (KYC) cases. In fact, certain frauds have become more prevalent than others, and being aware of them is the first step towards protect yourself. Mayur Joshi, chief executive officer, Indiaforensic.com, a company engaged in the prevention, detection, and investigation of frauds says, "It is necessary to learn, to read about these scams."
'Hacking of an ID or an account will have the same impact on a user in a city and one in a small town.' 'Security is like a railroad, you create it to last for every customer.'
'Demand is wonderful. We have crossed 10 million on many days.' 'The Swedish trade commissioner recently said, "You guys are vaccinating the entire Sweden in one day".'
After facing multiple outages that irked the regulator, the country's largest private sector lender, HDFC Bank, is revamping its technology infrastructure by making large scale investments, wherein it is bringing new talent, getting into cloud-native stacks, a shift from the traditional monolithic IT infrastructures, and working with strategic partners for better products and services. The bank management is clear that it will do whatever it takes in line with its growth path to ramp up its technology infrastructure.
