Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors. "It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".
'China would want to take a tougher stance against India forming those strategic partnerships and prevent Quad from becoming a military alliance.'
For the first time, the government on Wednesday delegated financial powers for capital procurement projects worth up to Rs 200 crore to armed forces officials below the level of vice chiefs to help them meet emerging security challenges, officials said.
Prime Minister Modi, who is in Japan on a two-day visit to attend a summit of the Quad leaders at the invitation of his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida, penned an op-ed on the vibrant relations between India and Japan in the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Security incidents became more costly and harder to contain due to drastic operational shifts during the pandemic with the cost of data breaches to Indian organisations rising close to 18 per cent to Rs 16.5 crore on an average between May 2020 and March 2021, according to a report by IBM. The study pointed towards similar trends in other parts of the world with data breaches costing surveyed companies $4.24 million per incident on an average - the highest in the report's 17-year history.
The Indian Air Force is monitoring the developments along the western front, he said.
India's first indigenous aircraft carrier will be commissioned next year and its combat capability, reach and versatility will add formidable capabilities in the country's defence, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in Kochi on Friday.
Nobody bothered to articulate the upsides; instead, the four-year tour of duty and denial of life-long pensions got played up.
Job-seekers for government and related opportunities found that their future was at risk, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
While suburban fares remain unchanged, ordinary non-AC, non-suburban fares were increased by 1 paise per km of journey. The Railways also announced a two-paise/km hike in fares of mail/express non-AC trains and four- paise/km hike in the fares of AC classes. The fare hike is also applicable to premium trains such as Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Duronto.
Excluding the pension outgo, the allocation in the Union Budget for the armed forces stands at Rs 3.62 lakh crore.
He said if the Chinese military maintains the deployment through the second winter, it may lead to an LoC-like situation (Line of Control) though not an active LoC as is there on the western front with Pakistan.
"Our strategic investments, backed by strong client relationships and client spends towards enterprise modernisation and digital transformation have enabled us to deliver a very satisfying quarter," Wipro CEO and executive director Abidali Z Neemuchwala said.
If we work together with dedication, concentration and effort, we should be able to achieve our aspirational growth target of double-digits for a very long period of time, suggests K V Kamath.
'An economic slowdown affects a country's ability to modernise its defence capabilities as rapidly as possible.'
Currently women are allowed in a number of select areas including in medical, legal, educational, signals and engineering wings of the army.
Called the US Citizenship Act of 2021, the legislation modernises the immigration system, and also proposes to eliminate the per country cap for employment-based green cards, a move that would benefit thousands of Indian IT professionals whose current wait period for legal permanent residency runs into several decades.
The army also stated that allocation of Rs 21,338 crore for modernisation is insufficient.
Tech giant IBM on Tuesday said it has received 9,130 US patents in 2020 - topping the US Patent List for the 28th consecutive year - with India being the second-highest contributor. "IBM scientists and researchers received 9,130 US patents in 2020, the most of any company, marking 28 consecutive years of IBM patent leadership. "IBM led the industry in the number of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, quantum computing and security-related patents granted," IBM said in a statement. For the fourth year in a row, IBM India was the second highest contributor to IBM's global tally with 930 patents granted to inventors from India in 2020.
There is simmering disquiet in the Communist party and the world is watching as to what can unfold in China in the days to come ahead of next year's party congress, notes Rup Narayan Das.
With his eye on next year's Party Congress, Xi Jinping is using the CCP's centenary celebrations to publicise the benefits for China from its leadership, and boost his image and contribution to China's rise, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
'There is no such thing as ultimate survivability.'
'It's all comparative -- who outperforms, who uses tactics, who optimises technology to the best is what makes the difference.'
The hike in the budget is the lowest increment in recent years apparently due to the heavy disruption caused to its economy by the COVID-19, according to the official media.
Barney Ronay wrote in The Guardian: "A World Cup win is a vindication on many levels.
'The wise men learn lessons in war.' 'The smart men learn lessons from others, it's only the foolish who learn the wrong lesson.'
In the Union Budget presented in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, a total of Rs 1,52,369 crore has been set aside for capital expenditure that includes purchasing new weapons, aircraft, warships and other military hardware.
At least 13 attempts were made earlier at modernising.
The Centre is likely to privatise profit-making enterprises, reversing its previous position of first closing or merging loss-making state-run units. The NITI Aayog, which is in the process of selecting public sector units for privatisation, is likely to put out its first list, focusing on companies in non-strategic sectors, along with those that have got Cabinet approval for stake sale, or are in final stage of due diligence. "The shortlisted firms will be put out in three-four tranches, with the first list comprising non-strategic ones, followed by strategic sectors with a focus on privatisation and not divestment," said a senior government official privy to the plan. He said the first report was expected in early April. The think tank approach is in sync with the government's new strategies on privatisation and asset monetisation.
Indian Railways is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to allow the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom major's use of its towers. The aim is seamless mobile and internet connectivity for passengers along the 67,368-km of tracks. The Railway Board has entrusted its RailTel Corporation arm to work on the modalities with Jio. The Jio tie-up is expected to bring down its telecom bill by at least 35 per cent from this financial year.
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The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked Venkata Krishna Reddy Gunupati, chairman of the GVK group of companies, and his son G V Sanjay Reddy, managing director of Mumbai International Airport Ltd, among others for alleged irregularities to the tune of Rs 705 crore in running of the airport, officials said.
Rs 111,294 crore has been allocated for army salaries. The Rs 113,278 crore allocated for army pensions surpasses that. Army planners are worried about this drain on funds that could otherwise go towards equipment modernisation.
'There is little doubt that China today stands in the dock, charged with misdemeanour with regard to the health and well-being of its own citizens and of the people of the world,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
Celebrating its 89th anniversary, the Indian Air Force on Friday put up a dazzling show with 75 aircraft, drawn from its vintage and modern fleet, performing skilful manoeuvres also marking the platinum jubilee year of India's Independence.
Kataria, 49, an IIT-XLRI alumnus, was quick to implement a number of initiatives during the Covid-19 crisis including launching D2C initiatives such as mobile stores, WhatsApp messaging, video calling and home deliveries. Kataria was also swift to recognise that stay-at-home consumers were keen to buy informal rather than formal footwear, launching new collections quickly to take advantage of this trend, says Viveat Susan Pinto.
Addressing a gathering of priests and devotees, he said the redevelopment of centres of faith in India shows the country's growing pride in its ancient saints and philosophers like Adi Guru Shankaracharya and Swami Vivekananda.
The capital outlay to cover the modernisation programmes have got a hike of 10.05 per cent.
Postman, a leading application programming interface platform, has secured $225 million in a Series D round, placing its valuation at $5.6 billion. With this, Postman has emerged as the most-valued software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm started by Indian founders, overtaking web and mobile testing firm BrowserStack, which was valued at $4 billion in June. The valuation of the San Francisco-headquartered firm with offices in Bengaluru, where it was founded, has almost trebled in just about one year and risen multi-fold since 2019. Postman, with team members spread across four continents, had secured $150 million in a Series C investment round led by Insight Partners at a $2-billion valuation last summer.
India has the ability in all respects to be a great power and address our security challenges in the best national interests, says Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
According to plans, the new structure will be more energy efficient, fitted with all modern amenities like multilevel parking facility, centralised air conditioning systems and solar panels, reports Arnab Dutta/Business Standard.
Infosys on Tuesday said it has formed a long-term partnership with Daimler AG for a technology-driven IT infrastructure transformation. After the receipt of all regulatory approvals, Daimler AG will transform its IT operating model and infrastructure landscape across workplace services, service desk, data centre, networks and SAP Basis together with Infosys, a statement said. "As a part of this partnership, automotive IT infrastructure experts based out of Germany, wider Europe, the US and the APAC region will transition from Daimler AG to Infosys," it added. The companies, however, did not disclose the number of people who will transition as part of the deal.
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.
