E-commerce companies have said they are well prepared and working closely with delivery partners to ensure smooth and safe delivery of packages in Maharashtra where the government has announced a slew of restrictions, including night curfews and weekend lockdown to control the spike in COVID-19 cases. However, there are concerns around the mandate for delivery staff to be either vaccinated or carry a negative RT-PCR report. According to the health ministry data, till 8 am on Tuesday Maharashtra's COVID-19 caseload was 452,777 with an addition of 20,881 from the previous day. In an order on Sunday, the Maharashtra government said all personnel belonging to home delivery services will have to be vaccinated and in case they are not vaccinated, they will have to carry a negative RT-PCR report.
The experience in developing markets suggests that foreign direct investment in retail need not be a bane.
While the investment amount could not be immediately ascertained, a report pegged it at about $2 billion.
'They treat us like garbage. We are not humans for them'
It is a myth that FDI in retail will kill at local kirana stores.
Companies whose products have not been picked up for distribution in Gujarat under a "non-cooperation movement" include Marico, Dabur, Emami, Britannia, Reckitt Benckiser, and Godrej Consumer Products.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has started a limited test use of WhatsApp to connect customers to grocery stores, days after Facebook decided to invest USD 5.7 billion in digital assets controlled by the company. JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, "has already started interacting with customers on WhatsApp for grocery orders" in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Credit Suisse said in a report.
Wrapped in blue and orange wax paper, it's a familiar sight on the shelves of kirana stores across the country. Given how well travelled and mobile it is - starting its journey in Chennai, then turning to Singapore and now landing in Mexico - you could say it lives up to its name: Modern. Modern Food Enterprises, the company that manufactures and sells the bread in question as well as other bakery products under the "Modern" brand name, has recently been sold to the world's largest baking company, Grupo Bimbo, for an undisclosed amount. This latest transaction is the second change of guard at Modern within five years and third since the government divested the company at the turn of the century. At a time, when the National Democratic Alliance government has decided to privatise, or shut down, public sector enterprises except for those deemed strategic, Modern makes for a promising case study of how divestment led to the brand's growth, both in revenue and reach.
At the height of the agitation against Tata Motors and after, the decibel level at Singur has always been high. The coronavirus scare, however, appears to have tempered it. The lockdown has hit Singur's inhabitants hard in more ways than one, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
Starting today, we are launching a series of articles that would look into the lives of some low and middle income group citizens of India to know how each one of them strives to make both ends meet.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm on Thursday raised Rs 9,555 crore from Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, taking total fundraise in the last two months to Rs 47,265 crore. PIF will take a 2.04 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the Indian firm said in a statement. The investment values RRVL, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.587 lakh crore.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said steps taken by the social media giant have helped protect the integrity of more than 200 different elections around the world, including in India, and have also played an important role in stopping abuse ahead of US elections.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'
WalMart International President and CEO Doug McMillon said in Davios that the Indian government's concerns over allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail were misplaced.
Ajit Balakrishnan offers a recipe for creating 100,000 plus angel investors in India.
The last of the titans of Hindustani classical music, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was a rare genius who could transcend the mundane and transport his audience to the sublime with his gifted voice that captured both anguish and ecstasy
One reason for the surge in cases is the spread of infection at large weddings. Weddings turned out to be super spreaders.
'The reality is no one, including some of the names that have shown up in the last few weeks, have any unilateral decision-making power in this,' Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan tells Peerzada Abrar.
The decision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow banks to engage companies with large retail outlets as business correspondents has the potential to change the future of financial inclusion and branch banking in India.
Given that people have been reluctant to order cooked food - which worsened due to a couple of cases of delivery personnel testing positive for COVID-19 - food delivery platforms have included grocery delivery as part of their services.
Data from market research agency Nielsen shows that 152 new players entered the hygiene market in March as the lockdown was implemented to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease. The trend is expected to continue, the agency says, as hygiene and health emerge as key themes.
Telecom operators, including Reliance Jio, have been demanding "same service same rules" regime which means that mobile applications providing calls and messaging services should also be made to comply with set of rules that are mandatory for mobile service providers.
What is aggravating the situation is that e-commerce firms are facing huge shortage of delivery personnel. They have not been able to bring back their staff to work, despite offering higher pay and Covid-related insurance packages.
The government on Tuesday indicated that it was open to changing FDI norms for multi-brand retail sector, saying policies 'are not cast in stone'.
The film comes through sans the ill-timed songs.
The film comes through sans the ill-timed songs.
With the Reserve Bank of India allowing retired teachers, kirana shop owners and public call office (PCO) operators to be hired as business correspondents, banks are set to hire over 200,000 people over the next few years to push financial inclusion initiatives.
With even kiranas now entitled to perform a few banking functions, telcos can be allowed to transfer funds - customers trust them enough to pay crores of rupees in pre-paid revenues.
'If you allow Walmart to operate in India, our manufacturing will finish completely.' 'What will happen to Narendra D Modi's dream then? There will be no Make in India.'
'Anyone can string together a few alliterative words, but are they a substitute for serious thought?' 'And do they make for a strategy or plan for coherent action?' asks T N Ninan.
The life of 97-year-old Gangubai, born in a family of boatmen, was an incredible saga of struggle to reach the pinnacle of a musical career, dotted with poignant incidents of battling financial woes, ridicule by casteist neighbours and a constant battle between staving off hunger and delivering sublime music.
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.
The death of Gangubai Hangal, who had become a legend in her own time, marks the end of an era in the realm of Hindustani classical music. She has been one of few exponents of the Kirana Gharana style of music who stuck to the purity and averse to going in for experimentations, as has been wont with many of the musical celebrities.
They have graduated from just home delivery to SMS marketing, bulk buying alliances and credit extensions.
Check out some basic truths about your hard earned money.
Coffee shops support a huge and growing workforce that cannot or will not be tethered to that piece of real estate that we all recognise as a formal office.
Ramping up e-commerce operations and going beyond its current strongholds are key challenges for the grocery chain in its battle with Mukesh Ambani's retail behemoth.
Taking advantage of the absence of Nestl's Maggi noodles, Patanjali launched its own atta noodles last month.
