A top management leadership team from SoftBank has been coming to India in the last few days to meet the founders of start-ups and other investors, signalling the country's emergence as a pivotal market for the global investment giant. Based on current estimates, India accounts for nearly 10 per cent ($20 billion) of SoftBank's invested assets under management (AUM) globally. That makes the country its third largest market after the US and China.
During April-November this financial year, trade gap stood at $116.8 billion. In 2010-11, it was aggregated at $119 billion.
Wholesale price inflation remained in the negative territory for the fourth month in a row in July at (-)1.36 per cent, even though prices of food items, especially vegetables, skyrocketed. The inflation, however, has inched up from (-)4.12 per cent recorded in June fuelled by 62.12 per cent rise in vegetable prices. In July last year, wholesale price index (WPI) was 14.07 per cent.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The government on Wednesday unveiled the FTP for 2015-20.
Radhakishan S Damani, investor and promoter of the D-Mart supermarket chain, has broken into the elite club of the top 100 global billionaires. Damani, who grew up in a single-room apartment in Mumbai, is now ranked 98th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $19.2 billion as his net worth. The index is a daily ranking of the world's richest people. The other Indians on the top 100 rich list ahead of Damani are Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Lakshmi Mittal.
For the startup ecosystem in India, the scorecard so far has been a mixed bag, observes Akhil Gupta.
Infrastructure, manufacturing and telecom are understood to be among the focus sectors
The government will soon come out with guidelines for social media influencers, making it mandatory for them to declare their association with the product they endorse, sources said.
Google unveiled on Wednesday a slate of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and technologies for Indian developers at its first I/O Connect event for India, being held in Bengaluru. The company made accessible for Indian developers its faster, more accurate large language AI model accessible through PaLM API, Makersuite, as well as features on Google Cloud's Vertex AI. Google Cloud officially launched a new initiative in collaboration with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, to help sellers build and scale commerce platforms across the country.
India and the US have settled the last trade dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over poultry products, according to a joint statement released on Friday. With this, the two countries have mutually resolved all the seven pending trade disputes at the WTO. "The leaders lauded the settlement of the seventh and last outstanding WTO dispute between India and the United States.
Vaibhav Global is one of the world's few profitable accessory retailers.
The US is taking several measures, such as increasing the number of staffers, to further facilitate the issuance of business visas in India, a senior US government official said on Tuesday. "We have also made significant progress by issuing more H1B and L visas in 2022 than we did even in 2019 before the pandemic. "This is a significant improvement. We are in the process of raising our staff," Arun Venkataraman, US Assistant Secretary of Commerce for global markets, said.
Amphibious drones for maritime inspection... devices that extract pure oxygen from water for patients in need... self-balancing electric bikes...
India's exports entered negative territory after a gap of about two years, declining sharply by 16.65 per cent to $29.78 billion in October, mainly due to global demand slowdown, even as trade deficit widened to $26.91 billion, according to data released by the commerce ministry on Tuesday. Key export sectors, including gems and jewellery, engineering, petroleum products, ready-made garments of all textiles, chemicals, pharma, marine products, and leather, recorded negative growth during October. Imports during the month under review rose by about 6 per cent to $56.69 billion on account of increase in the inbound shipments of crude oil and certain raw materials such as cotton, fertiliser and machinery.
'Building a whole product with the railways was challenging; we had to figure out how to load and unload a train when it stops for only about five minutes at a station.' 'We also helped them understand the revenues this would generate for them.'
'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.'
'For the same level of return, you can reduce portfolio volatility significantly with a 10% to 15% exposure to international funds.'
Here's a look at some of the most stunning buildings in the US cities...
'We are engaging in substantial open market sales of both wheat and rice to control food inflation; special measures of market intervention in vegetables, pulses and oil seeds were also taken to cushion the impact.'
eBay and PayPal will be sharper and stronger, and more focused and competitive as leading, standalone companies in their respective markets.
'Our research shows that 60 per cent of the growth and interest in anime will come from India for the next few years.'
Leterme contended that there is a need for the United Nations Security Council to adapt to the realities of the 21st century as it requires representation that goes beyond the structures established in the 20th century.
Reflecting lack of enthusiasm about the SEZs, 20 more promoters have sought additional time from the government for implementing their projects, taking the number of developers seeking extension to over 200.
Geopolitical headwinds leading to lower demand from export markets, coupled with lower domestic buying, have dragged the auction average of Darjeeling tea to its lowest level since 2015. Data from Calcutta Tea Traders Association (CTTA) shows that the average price of Darjeeling tea at Kolkata auctions for January-December 2023 was Rs 319.74 per kg. The last time it dipped below this level was in 2015 at Rs 285.71 per kg.
'We will see a lot of investments from the private sector.' 'As long as we are not impacted by some global events, I think we will be in a strong place.'
For India to reach its ambiguous economic growth targets, it needs to be integrated into global trade pacts.
To tap into the growing demand for offices, several global and Indian co-working entities are creating stock in the top cities.
'India has a lot of potential, not just in commercial aspects, but also in hiring of people and sourcing of products.'
The government is likely to extend fiscal incentives for production of toys, bicycles and leather and footwear in the forthcoming budget as it looks to expand production linked incentive (PLI) scheme to cover more high-employment potential sectors, sources said. The government has already rolled out the scheme with an outlay of about Rs 2 lakh crore for as many as 14 sectors, including automobiles and auto components, white goods, pharma, textiles, food products, high efficiency solar PV modules, advance chemistry cell and speciality steel. The scheme aims to make domestic manufacturing globally competitive and create global champions in manufacturing, and it is yielding solid results, sources said.
Yuri Milner is focussing on on consumer-driven Internet start-ups.
Even virtual world gaming is starting to suffer from real-world problems -- theft of identity and virtual assets, extortion and terrorism.
"We work with other countries to develop their capabilities and support their efforts to make free sovereign choices. More broadly, we aim to advance peace and stability in the region," he asserted.
'If Threads doesn't become a distinct identity, and just a text version in the shadows of Instagram, then it may fizzle out.'
Elaborating this, Swati Piramal, vice president, Assocham and director of drug major Nicholas Piramal said though big multinational pharmaceutical companies have adequate cash reserves to face the global crisis, small and medium scale research-driven pharmaceutical and biotech companies which are heavily dependent on external funds for survival, may find the going tough and this will open up acquisition opportunities for Indian companies.
The US hails the landmark 'India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor' which will usher in a new era of connectivity from Europe to Asia and will stimulate economic growth across the two continents.
The talks for a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and Canada may have taken a pause but will resume once the political row between the two countries is resolved as the pact has economic benefits for both the nations, trade experts and exporters said on Friday. However, they said that India may not hurry for the trade agreement as 60 per cent of New Delhi's exports are already entering Canada at zero duty. Earlier this month, India and Canada paused the negotiations for the agreement due to political reasons.
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) is discussing a three-pronged plan that includes an additional divestment of $250-300 million this year, apart from what it has diluted in favour of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and US-based private equity fund KKR recently.
The government on Thursday imposed import restrictions on laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, ultra small form factor computers, and servers with immediate effect. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a notification said exemption from import licensing is provided up to 20 items per consignment for R&D, testing, benchmarking and evaluation, repair and return and product development purposes.
