'The country is a good test bed for enterprise adoption, but to scale rapidly, companies will need to look outside the country for customers.'
Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said his oil-to-telecom-and-retail conglomerate is not seeking short-term profit but is in the business of creating wealth for the nation. Speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting, he said all businesses of Reliance Industries Ltd continue to be key drivers of the Indian economy and have become a success story. "We are not in the business of pursuing short-term profit and hoarding wealth. "We are in the business of creating wealth for India," he said.
'The scrapping of import duty would help Indian companies compete in international markets, thus paving the way for India becoming a space manufacturing hub for the world.'
UN General Assembly President Philemon Yang will visit India from February 4 to 8, his first official trip as President of the 79th session. Yang highlighted India's "remarkable transformation" over the past decade, particularly in digital and technological innovation, and plans to see how these advancements have reached the grassroots level during his visit. He also praised India's contributions to peacekeeping, humanitarian efforts, and its voice for the Global South.
The Eicher Pro X is assembled on an all-women assembly line.
President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday said cyberattacks have emerged as a major threat to national security and the civil services and armed forces must join hands to create a secure nationwide system capable of thwarting them.
An initiative of Nandan Nilekani's EkStep Foundation, people+ai on Tuesday unveiled its vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, dubbed 'Adbhut India' (Amazing India). It aims to harness AI as a powerful tool to enhance the lives of all Indians. The event marked the rollout of several initiatives by people+ai that are focused on discovering, demonstrating, and disseminating population-scale AI use cases for India.
After Chennai, it is Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tiruchirappalli, that are emerging as manufacturing hubs. Coimbatore is India's top Tier-II city in terms of the number of GCCs, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Despite the demonetisation of 2016 and the rise in digital transactions that followed, the economy's dependence on cash has remained as high as ever. So when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced a pilot project of its version of digital cash - called the central bank digital currency (CBDC) - on December 1, many questions were asked. Can the CBDC replace physical cash, even partially? Can it match cash in terms of convenience? Are CBDC transactions truly anonymous?
India's first digital rupee pilot project will commence on Tuesday with nine banks, including SBI, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, issuing the virtual currency for transactions in government securities. "...the first pilot in the digital rupee - Wholesale segment shall commence on November 1, 2022," the RBI said in a statement on 'Operationalisation of Central Bank Digital Currency-Wholesale (e?-W) Pilot'. It also announced that the first pilot in digital rupee - Retail segment is planned for launch within a month in select locations in closed user groups comprising customers and merchants.
The number of cyberfraud cases has skyrocketed from 2,677 in 1999-2000 to 29,082 in FY24 -- more than a 10-fold increase. The RBI pegs digital payment frauds at Rs 1,457 crore in FY24, up more than five times in a year. It's not just the number of frauds. What's alarming is the growing sophistication of the fraudsters, exposing the vulnerabilities within the financial system, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday said the central bank has developed an innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) based model MuleHunter.ai to address the growing issue of mule bank accounts that are often used for committing financial fraud. Developed by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, the new initiative is piloted with two public sector banks.
The Indian government's announcement of 10,000 additional seats in medical colleges next year, part of a plan to add 75,000 seats over five years, has been welcomed by education experts and stakeholders. The move aims to address the shortage of medical professionals and reduce the outflow of Indian medical students to other countries. The budget also includes infrastructure expansion at five new IITs to accommodate 6,500 more students and an allocation of Rs 500 crore to set up a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for education.
The proposed Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to be issued by the Reserve Bank will play a critical role in improving the speed of transactions and reducing the cost of cash, a Deloitte report said on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India is planning to come out with a central bank-backed digital currency, using blockchain technology in 2022-23. As a financial services innovation, CBDCs are likely to play a pivotal role in shaping the 'future of value transfer', the report said, adding that most central banks worldwide are now in various stages of their evaluation of launching their national digital currencies.
"Emerging fields, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of things, blockchain, and big data can take India to new heights of development, and improve the quality of life of its citizens," he said, adding for India, this is not just an industrial transformation, but a social transformation.
India and New Zealand have signed a pact to institutionalize their defence ties and vowed to boost cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concerns about anti-India activities by some illegal elements in New Zealand with his Kiwi counterpart Christopher Luxon. The two sides also signed six agreements to enhance cooperation in areas including education, sports, agriculture, and climate change. They also agreed to prepare a roadmap for cooperation in the defence industry sector and explore early implementation of cooperation in the digital payments sector.
Andhra Pradesh's IT and Electronics Minister Nara Lokesh has pitched port city of Vizag in his state for setting up a data centre to Google Cloud CEO, saying the new government in the state has taken various initiatives for supporting industry that will help it transform into a cloud infrastructure hub. The state is focused on setting up data centres in Visakhapatnam and the minister invited Google Cloud to establish its data centre in the port city.
The coronavirus pandemic has not impacted India's long-term growth trajectory although it has delayed it and in this decade, the country will lead the global growth rates, Tata group chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Tuesday. Speaking at tech giant Microsoft's annual flagship event, Future Ready, he said it should be a national priority to enable access to healthcare and education using digital infrastructure for all in the country, considering how the acceleration of digital adoption during the pandemic has created a divide as many people, who do not have the means and access, have been left behind. "There are many things going for India. I think as the economy fully opens up post the pandemic, I believe that our growth will continue to get stronger.
Armed with swanky showrooms, decked with plush fixtures, and offering indulgences such as high-end perfumes and customisable accessories, BMW, Mercedes, Audi are rolling out the red carpet for the well-heeled.
Aided by robust demand, automobile retail sales in India rose by 11 per cent last year as compared to 2022, dealers' body FADA said on Monday. The overall domestic automobile retail sales stood at 2,38,67,990 units in the 2023 calendar year as compared to 2,14,92,324 units in 2022. Passenger vehicle sales stood at 38,60,268 units last year, up 11 per cent from 34,89,953 units in 2022.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recognised the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) as a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) in the fintech sector, the central bank announced on Wednesday. The banking regulator received three applications for fintech SRO. Of the remaining two applications, one has been returned by the RBI with a provision for resubmission after meeting specific requirements, while the third application is still under examination, said Governor Shaktikanta Das at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai.
'Its nature changes, new types of jobs are created.' 'We need to invest in skilling and re-skilling our people for an AI-driven future,' Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his opening speech at the AI Action Summit in Paris, co-hosted by India.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group on Monday announced its exit from FMCG joint venture Adani Wilmar by selling its entire stake to the Singaporean partner and in the open market for an estimated over $2 billion in a first major deal since the US bribery indictment. In a statement, Adani Enterprises Ltd -- which held 43.94 per cent stake in Fortune brand cooking oil, wheat flour and other food product maker Adani Wilmar Ltd -- said it will sell 31.06 per cent stake to Wilmar International. About 13 per cent will be sold in the open market to meet minimum public shareholding requirements.
With the banking regulator lifting restrictions on HDFC Bank's digital initiatives, the largest private sector lender is now girding up to launch a clutch of customer-facing applications (apps), which will act as stepping stones in its journey to morph into a technology (tech)-led bank from a conventional one. Following repeated outages in its digital offerings, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had barred HDFC Bank from issuing new credit cards in December 2020 and prevented it from going ahead with its digital launches. The embargo on issuing credit cards was lifted in August 2021 and the ban on digital launches was lifted last week.
With nearly 100 launches and unveils, the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025, held in Delhi from January 17 to 22, made one thing clear to automobile enthusiasts: Electric vehicles (EVs) are the way ahead for the Indian auto market for years to come.
The outage raised broader concerns about the dependency on a few large tech companies controlling critical platforms.
Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) on Wednesday forayed into the fast-growing domestic electric mobility market with the introduction of e-scooters, ACTIVA e: and QC1, with swappable and fixed batteries. With this, the Japanese two-wheeler maker will now be competing with other legacy players such as Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, TVS Group as well as pure EV players like Ather and Ola, who already have a good presence in the segment, which is growing at 34 per cent year-on-year.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into India have crossed the $1 trillion milestone in the April 2000-September 2024 period, firmly establishing the country's reputation as a safe and key investment destination globally. According to data from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the cumulative amount of FDI, including equity, reinvested earnings and other capital, stood at $1,033.40 billion during the said period.
The key components of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission include a health ID for every citizen that will also work as their health account, to which personal health records can be linked and viewed with the help of a mobile application, a Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) and Healthcare Facilities Registries (HFR) that will act as a repository of all healthcare providers across both modern and traditional systems of medicine.
Growth in corporate profits needs to be commensurate with wages to boost the economy, Economic Survey 2024-25 said, noting that sharp disparities between the two pose risk to the economy by curbing demand. The document tabled in Parliament on Friday noted that while the labour share of GVA (gross value added) shows a slight uptick, the disproportionate rise in corporate profitsredominantly among large firmsaises concerns about income inequality.
Simplifying investment policies at the micro level and introducing a time-bound framework will be critical for India's growth targets, notes Krishna Ella.
Infrastructure funds, which bet on stocks closely linked with infrastructure development in the country, have emerged as one of the best-performing categories over the past year. They have generated an average return of 90.63 per cent - the third-best, after technology funds and small-cap funds. Of the 21 schemes in the category, seven have given a return of more than 100 per cent in a year.
The Reserve Bank will launch the first pilot for retail digital rupee in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar on December 1, and later expand it to nine more cities in the initial phase. This follows a month after the RBI had started a pilot in the digital rupee - wholesale segment on November 1. The Reserve Bank announces the launch of the first pilot for retail digital rupee (e?-R) on December 1, 2022, the central bank said in a statement on Tuesday.
'We also realised that locking customers to our Cloud was not fair to them.'
Bharti Global, the international investment arm of Bharti Enterprises, has decided to buy 24.5 per cent equity in BT Group - a move that will make the Indian conglomerate the biggest shareholder in the UK's second-largest telecom company both in terms of market value and subscriber count. The shares are being purchased from billionaire Patrick Drahi's Altice UK through a combination of cash and debt .
Research and development (R&D) spending by BSE 100 companies has grown steadily, rising from 0.89 per cent of revenue in FY20 to 1.32 per cent in FY24, averaging around 1 per cent over the period in-between, according to data compiled from Bloomberg and company annual reports. Also, these companies more than doubled their R&D spending in absolute terms over these five years: From Rs 25,041 crore to Rs 63,072 crore. While this reflects a prioritisation of innovation, corporate R&D investment remains relatively conservative.
Private consumption is back driven by festive spending, and the medium-term economic outlook remains bullish as the innate strength of the macro-fundamentals reasserts itself, the Reserve Bank Bulletin said on Wednesday. Global economic activity remained resilient during Q4:2024 amidst fragile confidence and rising protectionism, said an article on 'State of the Economy' published in the November Bulletin.
Private equity (PE) activity in India between January and November 2024 recorded a total value of $30.89 billion across 1,022 deals, a 22.7 per cent increase in value and an 18.4 per cent rise in deal count compared to $25.17 billion across 863 deals during the same period in 2023. Notable large deals during the period include Walton Street India Investment Advisors at $1.5 billion, and KiranaKart Technologies at $1.35 billion.
'Today, let us reaffirm our commitment to strive to realise Gandhiji's dreams. His watchwords, truth and nonviolence, will continue to remain relevant for the whole world. He also taught us that rights and duties are but the two sides of the coin - indeed, the true source of rights is duty. Today we recall his lessons in compassion too - compassion not only for our human neighbours but also for our other neighbours, namely, flora and fauna, rivers and mountains.'
Terming infrastructure as the "backbone" of any nation's development, Goyal while presenting the interim Budget for 2019-20 in the Lok Sabha said India aspires to be a USD 10 trillion economy in the next eight years, and on the anvil is next generation infrastructure of roads, railways, seaports, airports, urban transport, gas and electric transmission and inland waterways.
