Each bottle of pickle that leaves FarmDidi, headed to a consumer, has a little kahani behind it -- it's linked to the tale of a life, the life of a simple, striving village woman who created it, and that's what gives Manjari Sharma satisfaction and happiness.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a Rs 11.11 lakh crore spending on infrastructure and vowed to continue reforms as she resisted resorting to populist measures in Modi government's last Budget before general elections, instead choosing to stay on the path of cutting deficit while bolstering measures for focus groups.
A sector-wise analysis shows that a total of five PE transactions in the energy and natural resources sector led the value chart.
Two full-fledged semiconductor fabrication plants are going to come up in India very soon entailing multi-billion dollar investment besides several chip assembly and packaging units, Minister of Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. In an interview with PTI, the minister confirmed that the two projects include a $8 billion proposal submitted by Israel-based Tower Semiconductors and the other from Tata Group. "I am happy to share this with you and you are probably the first one I'm sharing this with.
'The deal pipeline across products is robust for 2024.'
FirstCry is omni-channel player with presence across desktop, mobile and offline routes offering baby and maternity products in India.
For Lori Beer, chief information officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co, largest banker in the US, India is a big part of the organisation's global technology footprint and is core to its products and services. This is evident from the fact that in less than two months since JPMorgan & Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon visited India, Beer has come here to see the recently opened centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "What is different for me this year are our new centres and to be able to come and see the vibrancy, and connectedness is great.
The idea that technology and startups with newer business models will not disrupt traditional businesses has been thrown out the window.
'We are focused on playing on our strengths, which are technology, and building a large profitable business by working with banks as well as non-banks and NBFCs for loans.'
This is the full text of the address to the nation by President Droupadi Murmu on the eve of India's 78th Independence Day.
The proposal to merge the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) units of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and BSE has reached an advanced stage, and both bourses could file an application before the National Company Law Tribunal as early as this month, according to a top regulatory official. Sources indicate that the merger proposal has received approval from their respective boards. Both the NSE and BSE are arch rivals when it comes to onshore trading.
Indian exporters shipping goods to Israel may face higher insurance premiums and shipping costs due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to experts. Israel witnessed a surprise and unprecedented multifront attack by air, land and sea by the Hamas militant group, which rules the Gaza Strip, in its southern parts on Saturday morning. The International trade experts said the conflict may reduce the profits of domestic exporters but will not impact trade volumes unless war escalates.
Higher advertising spends to grab customer eyeballs take a toll on startups across segments
The Indian economy has witnessed the creation of 28 unicorns, or startups valued over $1 billion, this year on the back of a series of reforms unleashed by the government, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. Addressing a virtual conference organised by the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA), the minister said the Indian economy has witnessed a spur of unprecedented growth in the form of startups in the last two decades. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recognised more than 56,630 startups across districts throughout India, IVCA said in a statement quoting the finance minister.
'Byju's financials only reflect the core business. At a group level, they are experiencing substantial losses.'
India, the world's fifth largest economy in the world, is likely to overtake Japan to become the world's third-largest economy with a GDP of $7.3 trillion by 2030, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in its latest issue of PMI. After two years of rapid economic growth in 2021 and 2022, the Indian economy has continued to show sustained strong growth during the 2023 calendar year. India's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow 6.2-6.3 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March 2024, being the fastest-growing major economy this fiscal year.
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.
Citing India's commitment to deep economic reforms and ease of doing business, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted on Monday that this is the best time to invest in the country as policy-making is focussed on the needs for the next 25 years for a 'clean and green' as well as 'sustainable and reliable' growth period. In his special address to the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda 2022 summit, Modi underlined a host of reform measures undertaken by his government to stress that it has worked to reduce the administration's interference in business by deregulating many sectors and to clear the way for free trade agreements with different countries. India was once associated with "license raaj", he noted and highlighted the measures, including reduction of corporate tax to boost business and doing away with over 25,000 compliance requirements.
The government will formulate a strategy to make India self-reliant in edible oils by boosting domestic output of oilseeds and launch a comprehensive programme to support dairy farmers, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Thursday. India imports a large quantity of edible oils to meet the domestic demand. During the 2022-23 marketing year (November-October), the country imported nearly 165 lakh tonnes of cooking oils, valuing a whopping Rs 1.38 lakh crore.
I hope those who underestimate Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be proved wrong in this fight for Thiruvananthapuram's future, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Given that the market is now demanding disciplined growth, well-run companies should be able to demonstrate profitability with the cash on hand.'
India has 50 startups with the potential to achieve the coveted 'unicorn' status in 2022 and by the end of the year, the list of the new-age companies valued at over $1 billion will be at least 100, a report by a consultancy firm said on Monday. In 2021, which witnessed a huge spike in company valuations in the listed and unlisted space driven by ample liquidity, according to some watchers, India added 43 startups to the list and the number of unicorns shot up to 68 by the end of the year. Over $10 billion was invested in the Indian startup ecosystem in the October-December quarter alone, according to the report by PwC India.
Ola did not disclose financial details of the investment.
Following are comments from economists at leading financial institutions, banks and rating agencies on the interim Budget:
'To tell you the truth, we did not expect Iris to make such waves, to get so much attention.'
Allowing 12-hour shifts for all and night-time work for women was meant to benefit software firms, but is said to have clinched Foxconn's Rs 80 billion investment.
'As the world goes digital, we cannot afford to be left behind.'
'Even for operational buildings, we are looking to smarten them in various ways.'
The initiative deepens N/Core's multi-year partnership with tech giant Cisco, which has participated in the fund along with Ford Foundation and IRB Infrastructure.
Ahead of Friday's extraordinary general meeting (EGM), Byju Raveendran, chief executive officer (CEO) of Byju's, told shareholders that he is committed to restructuring the board of the embattled educational technology (edtech) firm. He also committed to appointing two non-executive directors to the board by the mutual consent of the founder and shareholders. The development comes at a time when a consortium of key shareholders, holding over 30 per cent stake in Byju's, issued a notice to the embattled edtech firm this month, calling for an EGM to address "persistent issues", including a proposed change of management at the firm.
Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus, Tata Sons, launched Goodfellows, India's companionship startup for senior citizens, in a bid to encourage inter-generational friendships.
Creating an LLM trained on Indian languages is not easy. Experts say each language in India has a nuance of its own, so creating a ChatGPT-like product is an ambitious challenge.
Quick commerce startups hope to race towards better days. Can they crack the execution code?
If you are interested in working with OpenAI, feel free to email Sam Altman. In a free-wheeling fireside chat with university students on Thursday in Delhi, the CEO of OpenAI and his team seemed eager to welcome bright young IT practitioners of India into the OpenAI work space. Asked about the steep degree requirements for applying to tech giants such as Microsoft and Google, Altman said that his company was open to hiring undergraduates and even college drop-outs.
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.
To come up with first EV by 2025, expects market to grow two to three-fold in the next ten years.
Online gaming companies will not be allowed to engage in betting on the outcome of games under the principle laid in draft rules, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Monday. The minister said that as of now, all permissible online gaming will need to be registered with a self-regulatory organisation that will be accountable to the online gaming rules.
'A key reason for the strong interest in IPOs has been an increased focus on profitability and reasonable pricing of deals.'
With investors asking for a change in the board structure at Byju's, the edtech giant's founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Byju Raveendran, is now asking them to put $300 million into the company for more control. The company has rung up $5.8 billion from investors such as General Atlantic, Sofina, the Qatar Investment Authority, Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, BlackRock, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia, Silver Lake, Bond Capital, Tencent, and Tiger Global.
Educational technology company Byju's chief financial officer Ajay Goel has quit after completing the audit process for the financial year 2022 and will return to Vedanta, the company said in a statement. The edtech major has roped in industry veteran Pradip Kanakia as senior advisor, and president (finance) Nitin Golani has been given additional responsibility as India chief finance officer (CFO) to handle the finance function of the company.
