As the United States prepares to withdraw its troops from the conflict-torn country under President Joe Biden's order to end America's 'forever war', the full withdrawal of US troops from the country is expected very soon.
So far, there seems to be limited debate about their activities in India, where virtually all FAANG companies have teamed up in different ways with India's most powerful businessman, observes T N Ninan.
India has said that it was deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation in Ukraine and reiterated its call for immediate cessation of violence and end to hostilities.
A convoy with military equipment of the Russian southern military district units crossed the Crimean bridge on the way to the places of permanent deployment following the planned drills in Crimea, the Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Nasper-backed fintech firm PayU has started talks to acquire domestic payment gateway major BillDesk, and the deal size could be in the range of $3-4 billion, sources in the know said. "BillDesk has been open to being acquired for some time now, but in the past the valuations that the company was seeking proved to be a hurdle," said a source. "Three years ago too, PayU had approached BillDesk for an acquisition, but things didn't go ahead due to high valuations. "BillDesk had asked for $2-billion value then," said the source.
As the ice-covered parts of the Arctic Ocean melt due to climate change, China has flagged its interest to take part in building 'Polar Silk Road', raising prospects for the emergence of a new sea route.
Edtech major Byju's on Thursday introduced a new 'two-teacher' feature for its after-school online tutoring programme - Byju's Classes, a move aimed at delivering better learning experiences and outcomes. The two-teacher advantage offering - which will be available as a separate offering at about Rs 2,500 per month - will see students being taught by one expert teacher who uses strong visuals and storytelling to explain topics in-depth to ensure conceptual clarity. The second teacher will solve instant doubts, paying individual attention and making the sessions interactive and engaging.
The remarks are reported in Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump, by Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at the Atlantic magazine, which will be published next week.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi spoke over phone on Monday during which they took stock of India-UK trade and defence talks, opening up of international travel between the two countries and climate action targets in the lead up to the COP26 summit, Downing Street said.
Three deaths have been reported and there are fears of more fatalities.
Special envoys of China, Russia and Pakistan have met the top officials of the Taliban's interim government as well as Afghan leaders Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul and discussed the formation of an inclusive government, combating terrorism and humanitarian situation, a top Chinese official said on Wednesday.
Venture Intelligence data shows that during January to July 2020, investors infused $998 million in 31 deals. The total number of deals reported in 2019 was 42 worth $404 million.
Reliance Retail has bought a 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo, India's leading quick commerce player, for $200 million (around Rs 1,488 crore) as it looks to expand its presence in online grocery delivery business. Dunzo has raised $240 million (about Rs 1,787 crore) in its latest funding round that was led by Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - the retail arm of Reliance Industries, the two firms said in a statement. Existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital also participated in the funding round.
What did Narendra Modi tell former Utah governor Jon M Huntsman when he met him? Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday announced to raise Rs 7,350 crore from two investors -- Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Global alternative asset firm TPG -- by selling a stake in group's retail arm.
'No other military in the world could accomplish what we and our allies and partners did in such a short span of time. That is a testament not only to our forces' capabilities and courage but also to our relationships and the capabilities of our allies and partners,' Austin said in a statement at the conclusion of the American mission in Afghanistan.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was "out of control" and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
The World Meteorological Organisation/Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Panel on Tropical Cyclones, at its twenty-seventh session held in 2000 in Muscat, Oman, agreed to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.
Lucy Marion Edwards, crowned Miss Vermont 2014 recently, will represent the state in the Miss America contest in Atlantic City, New Jersey, September 14.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during his telephonic conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday, discussed the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan amidst chaotic airlifts of Afghan civilians and diplomats by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries before the August 31 deadline.
India-born US district judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, has been assigned the justice department's crucial lawsuit against internet search giant Google.
The Indian Navy has a big role to play in support of our strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean. The increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean is a matter of concern and need to be factored. Hence, the requirement of an Aircraft Carrier is a foregone conclusion, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Sorabjee had been honoured with Padma Vibhushan in 2002 for his defence of the freedom of expression and the protection of human rights.
Reliance Jio, together with partners, has tested its 5G solutions in India, successfully demonstrating speeds of over 1 GBPS, and its 'Made in India' solution is "globally competitive", RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Thursday. Ambani also exuded confidence that the company will be the first to launch full-fledged 5G services in the country. Jio is not just working to make India '2G-mukt' (free from 2G) but also '5G-yukt' (5G empowered), he added. Jio's engineers have developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution that is fully cloud native, software defined, and digitally managed.
Though India's airlines are certainly bleeding, they haven't yet faced the ignominy of shutting down.
Jio has partnered with AeroMobile to launch mobile services on 22 flights on international routes, with plans starting at Rs 499 per day.
Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co will invest Rs 6,247.5 crore to buy a 1.4 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm -- the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led firm's third such deal in less than two days.
Prosus-backed fintech firm PayU is set to acquire India's earliest payment gateway BillDesk in an all-cash transaction of $4.7 billion. This will be the largest acquisition in India's digital payments space. The deal will also give exit to investors General Atlantic, TA Associates, Temasek, Clearstone Ventures, and Visa. The proposed acquisition will help PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus which operates in more than 20 markets, become one of the leading online payment providers globally by total payment volume (TPV).
Diverse marquee investors are becoming long-term shareholders of Jio Platforms because of a unique set of technologies and platforms under one entity.
The diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and Afghanistan deepened on Sunday after Kabul announced that it will withdraw its ambassador and other senior staff from Islamabad after the abduction and torture of the daughter of its envoy to Pakistan.
'This is in its own interest.' 'Only the State must have the monopoly of power in the country.'
'Militias have no place in democracies,' says Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Washington, DC-based think-tank.
Investment firm General Atlantic is expected to buy a 0.1 per cent stake in Facebook, an investment which will value the social networking site at $65 billion.
US private equity firm Silver Lake Partners will invest an additional Rs 1,875 crore in the retail arm of Reliance Industries, the Indian firm said in a statement on Wednesday.
The United States has put on hold all its military-to-military engagements with Russia, attributing the move to Russia's intrusion into Ukraine.
The stock-and-cash deal is the biggest in the education space.
During their trip, the Trumps will be booked into the 14th floor of the ITC Maurya hotel in the Grand Presidential Suite in New Delhi. Trump will be the fourth US president to stay at the ITC Maurya in the recent past. US president Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W Bush also chose the same facility.
'What would we feel if we found the world behaving the way it has?' 'Forced to fight our own prolonged battle; nobody from outside really demanding that the war end or actively working to make it end, and above all, a completely toothless United Nations reduced to pleading for a halt to the violence,' notes Shyam G Menon, exactly a month after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Ronaldo just bought the most exquisite Bugatti La Voiture Noire.
Taking a dig at China, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said 'some irresponsible nations' with their narrow partisan interests and hegemonic tendencies are coming up with wrong definitions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar left London at the end of a four-day visit to the United Kingdom on Friday with a message of convergence as the two countries agreed on an ambitious '2030 Roadmap' towards a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
