General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - December 2015

Dec 2015

Jul 23, 2020

HIL Supplies 20.60MT of DDT 75 % WP to South Africa for Malaria Control

HIL (formerly Hindustan Insecticides Limited), a PSU under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers supplied 20.60 metric tonnes of DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) 75% Wettable powder (WP) to South Africa for their Malaria control programme in three province adjoining Mozambique. The region is highly affected with Malaria and it reported maximum morbidity and mortality due to the disease in recent years.
It is to be noted that HIL is the sole manufacturer of DDT globally.
HIL was incorporated in 1954 to manufacture and supply DDT to the Government of India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for malaria control programme. In the year 2019-20, the product was supplied to 20 States in the country.

Modi Invites US Firms to Invest in Healthcare, Defence and Energy

Making a pitch for attracting investments in India, aspiring to be a major player in the global supply chain, and dovetailing it with the government's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' policy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the US business conglomerates that now is the best time to invest in India.
At a time when the government policy of self-reliance has created a buzz in world capitals of India being protectionist, PM Modi told the gathering in the US the campaign was about India's contribution towards a prosperous and resilient world. It took a global pandemic to remind the world about the importance of domestically strong economic capacity and bring the focus back on to it.
Outlining the sectors offering opportunities for investment with handsome returns, including agriculture, civil aviation, defence, energy, health, insurance, infrastructure and space, Modi said that in each of these sectors the government effected major policy changes making it easy for investors to explore opportunities backed with the country's rise in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business graph.

LIC-UBI Announces Corporate Agency Pact

Union Bank of India (UBI), after its amalgamation with Corporation Bank and Andhra Bank, has announced a corporate agency agreement with Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) to distribute latter's policies.
As per the pact, UBI can act as a financial supermarket by offering LIC products of term insurance, pension, plan, children plan, ULIPs, and endowment schemes to its account holders, whereby they can select products according to their choice.

Rahul Bajaj To Step Down as Bajaj Finance's Chairman, Sanjiv to Take Over

Sanjiv Bajaj will be new non-executive chairman of Bajaj Finance from August 2020. He will succeed Rahul Bajaj, who has been at the helm of the company since its inception in 1987 and the group for over five decades.
As part of a succession plan, Rahul Bajaj has decided to demit the office as chairman of the board with effect from July 31.
Rahul Bajaj will continue to serve as a non-executive non-independent director.

NPCI Launches UPI AutoPay Feature for Recurring Payments

National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) launched UPI AutoPay feature for recurring payments. With this new facility, customers can enable recurring e-mandate using any UPI application for recurring payments such as mobile bills, electricity bills, EMI payments, entertainment and OTT subscriptions, insurance, mutual funds and loan payments, among others of up to Rs. 2000. If the amount exceeds Rs. 2000, customers have to execute every mandate with UPI PIN.
Any UPI-enabled application would also have a 'Mandate' section, through which customers can create, approve, modify, pause as well as revoke auto debit mandate. The mandate section will allow users to view their past mandates for their reference and records. UPI users can create e-mandate through UPI ID, QR scan or Intent. The pattern for auto debit mandate has been created keeping in mind customers' spends on recurring payments. The mandates can be set for one-time, daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, half yearly and yearly.
The customers have to authenticate their account through UPI PIN for one-time and subsequent monthly payments would be debited automatically.
Some of the banks, merchants and aggregators who have already gone live with UPI AutoPay are Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank, HSBC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, Paytm Payments Bank, AutoPe-Delhi Metro, AutoPe-Dish TV, CAMS Pay, Furlenco, Growfitter, Policy Bazaar, Testbook.com, The Hindu, Times Prime, Paytm, PayU, RazorPay, among others. Jio Payments Bank, State Bank of India and YES Bank will soon go live with UPI AutoPay.

Jul 22, 2020

Ebay Agrees to Sell Classified Ads Business to Adevinta

Ebay Inc agreed to sell its classified ads business to Norwegian group Adevinta in a deal worth $9.2 billion, creating the world's largest classifieds group.
Ebay will receive $2.5 billion in cash and 540 million shares of Adevinta, making it the largest shareholder with a 44% stake of the proforma company.
Adevinta becomes the largest online classifieds company globally, with a unique portfolio of leading marketplace brands.
Adevinta was spun out of Nordic media company Schibsted and listed on the Oslo bourse last year.

Iran Denies Dropping India from Chabahar-Zahedan Rail Project

Iran denied that it has dropped India from the Chabahar rail project, and said that vested interests were behind such reports.
The Indian embassy in Iran stated that Ambassador Gaddam Dharmendra was invited by Saeed Rasouli, Deputy Minister Roads and Head of Iran Railways, to review the ongoing cooperation on Chabahar-Zahedan railway.
Last week, a report had surfaced claiming that the Hassan Rouhani-led government in Iran decided to exclude India from the construction project of Zahedan.
India had signed an agreement with Iran to construct a rail line from Chabahar port to Zahedan, along the border with Afghanistan.

Vikram to Invest $726 million to Make Solar Equipment

India's Vikram Solar Ltd. is planning to invest 54.32 billion rupees ($726 million) to make solar energy equipment in the South Asian country, which is encouraging domestic manufacturing to reduce imports.
The company will build a factory in Tamil Nadu. The 3-gigawatt plant, expected to be completed in five years, will make wafers, cells and modules, Kolkata-based Vikram Solar said in a separate statement.
Vikram's pact with Tamil Nadu follows last week's announcement by ReNew Power Pvt., which said that the company plans to invest as much as 20 billion rupees for setting up a 2-gigawatt cells and modules making facility. The renewable power producer is in talks with various Indian states for the venture.

ED Acts on Brazil's Request, Freezes over 60 Bank Accounts in India

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has initiated action on the request of Brazilian government in a case relating to money laundering in that country and has written to bank authorities to freeze a little over 60 bank accounts in India.
As per reports, the agency initiated the action under the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in pursuance of a mutual agreement between the two nations to combat financial crimes.
The over 60 bank accounts are held by some individuals and businessmen based in the country, who are under scanner of the Brazilian authority. The probe is related to some high profile people of Brazil.
It is also learnt that the Brazilian government has shared evidence which prime facie substantiates charges of money laundering involving the Brazilian governor and Indian individuals, who allegedly transacted with the governor.

Jeff Bezos Adds Record $13bn to Wealth in One Day

Jeff Bezos added $13 billion to his net worth on Monday, the largest single-day jump for an individual since the Bloomberg Billionaires Index was created in 2012.
Bezos, Amazon's founder and the world's richest person, saw his fortune swell $74 billion in 2020 to $189.3 billion, despite the US entering its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. He's now personally worth more than the market valuation of giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp, Nike Inc and McDonald's Corp.
Mackenzie Bezos, his ex-wife, gained $4.6 billion and is now the 13th-richest person in the world.
Other tech titans, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, are also enjoying a surge driven partly by people forced to stay at home and helped by the boost given to markets by stimulus efforts by governments.

Jul 21, 2020

RITES Likely to Pick up 24% Stake in IRSDC

Railway consultancy firm RITES is likely to pick up 24 per cent stake in the Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC).
IRSDC was incorporated as a Joint Venture of Ircon International Limited (IRCON) and Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), with the aim to develop the Railway Stations across India with primary objective of augmenting and maintaining passenger amenities at stations in a holistic manner.
The Equity stake of IRCON and RLDA in IRSDC is in the ratio of 50:50. However after the stake acquisition of RITES in IRSDC, the share of IRCON will be reduced to 26 per cent.

Indian Direct Selling Industry Records USD 2.47 bn Sales in 2019

As per a report by World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA), the Indian direct selling industry recorded sales of USD 2.47 billion in 2019, reporting a growth of 12.1 per cent.
This has helped the direct selling industry improve its ranking to the 15th from the earlier 19th a year before.
Moreover, in terms of the number of direct sellers, India has been ranked at sixth position, proving employment to 57.50 lakh people.
However, the global direct selling industry has reported an overall decline of 4.3 per cent in sales to USD 180.47 billion in 2019.
According to the report, the US is leading in the list contributing 20 per cent of the global direct selling industry with sales of USD 35.21 billion, though it has registered a marginal de-growth of 0.4 per cent.
It is followed by China with 13 per cent contribution, Korea and Germany with 10 per cent each and 9 per cent by Japan.

Exports from India-based Sellers Cross $2 billion: Says Amazon

As per reports, Amazon.com Inc's total exports from small and medium sellers in India, part of a company programme to export products to global markets, have crossed the $2 billion mark. Amazon's "Global Selling" programme was launched in India, a key growth market for the company, in 2015. The programme, also operational in other markets, has helped more than 60,000 Indian sellers export products to 15 Amazon websites.
According to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, the US e-commerce company would invest $1 billion in digitising small- and medium-businesses in India and expected to export Indian-made goods worth $10 billion by 2025.

India Plans to Reduce Number of State-owned Banks to Just Five

As per government and banking sources, India is looking to privatise more than half of its state-owned banks to reduce the number of government-owned lenders to just five as part of an overhaul of the banking industry.
The first part of the plan would be to sell majority stakes in Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Punjab & Sind Bank, leading to an effective privatisation of these state-owned lenders.
At present, India has 12 state-owned banks.

Ayala's Energy Unit Eyes 140 MW Peak Solar Farm in India

AC Energy Inc. is making its first major investment in India by developing the $68 million Sitara solar plant through a joint venture with UPC Renewables China Holdings Ltd.
The 140-megawatt peak solar farm is expected to start generating by the first quarter of 2021 and will supply the Solar Energy Corp. of India via a 25-year agreement. It won the agreement via a competitive bid at Rs. 2.48 per kilowatt-hour. The facility will be located in Rajasthan, which gets some of the most intense sunlight in the country.
The energy unit of Ayala Corp., one of the Philippines' oldest conglomerates, also announced on Thursday it would build a 210-megawatt wind farm that would be the biggest in Vietnam. The investments will take AC Energy's total renewables capacity to more than 1,200 megawatts, in line with its target to reach 5,000 megawatts by 2025 and fully divest from coal by 2030.

Jul 20, 2020

India Revives Initiative to Conclude Preferential Trade Agreement with S. African Customs Union

Discussions between Southern African Customs Union (SACU) (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini) and India to achieve a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) were revived with the two sides holding a virtual meeting last week to discuss various aspects of the PTA.
The Indian side was led by Srikar Reddy, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce while SACU was led by Amb. Steve Katjiuanjo, Executive Director, Ministry of Industrialisation,Trade and SME Development of Namibia.
Reddy underlined India's historically close ties with Southern Africa and its steadfast commitment to deepen economic engagement with this region. He informed that in 2019-20, trade between India and Africa as a whole stood at $ 66.7 billion, of which the India-SACU trade was $ 10.9 billion with an immense potential to expand further.
Amb Katjiuanjo called India as a strategic partner for SACU. Trade is currently in SACU's favour, thus showing that the region is benefiting from access to the vast Indian market.

Jul 19, 2020

Railways Terminates Chinese Firm's Contract for Signaling, Telecommunication Work

The Railways terminated the contract of a Chinese firm for signaling and telecommunication work on the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor due to poor progress. The work was to be executed on a 417-km section of the corridor between Kanpur and Mughalsarai.
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL) DFCCIL is the implementing agency for the project. The termination letter was issued after a 14-day notice to the Beijing National Railway Research and Design Institute of Signal and Communication Group, which had bagged the Rs. 471-crore contract in 2016.
The process to oust the Chinese firm from the project had started as early as in January 2019 as it had failed to complete its work within the given timeframe.
The DFCCIL approached the World Bank, which is funding the project, in April this year informing them of their decision to terminate the contract.

India to Stockpile Oil in Washington Vaults

In a signal of trust in Washington, India has decided to store emergency stockpiles of crude petroleum in American salt caverns. As per reports, India is the first country to be offered petroleum storage facilities in the US.
Maintaining crude stockpiles is not a new concept, but storing another country's emergency energy supplies denotes a great degree of confidence that the country maintaining the reserve will actually return it during an emergency.
India has offered its storage facilities to the UAE and Saudi Arabia while Japan, New Zealand and South Korea have an agreement to draw upon each other's reserves in case of need.

Dharmendra Pradhan's and Dan Brouillette's 2nd Meeting of India-US Strategic Energy Partnership

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Steel Dharmendra Pradhan and United States (US) Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette co-chaired the 2nd ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Strategic Energy Partnership (SEP) virtually to review progress, highlight major accomplishments, and prioritise new areas for cooperation.
Several Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) were signed at US-India SEP ministerial meeting. Think tanks, policy researchers, NGOs and Government agencies from India have collaborated with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Labs and respective U.S. Government and private agencies to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas signed MOU to begin cooperation on Strategic Petroleum Reserves operation and maintenance, including exchange of information and best practices. This MoU was based on a proposal from the US after the recent historic drop in oil prices during the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. DOE signed a MOU to collaborate with India U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) in order to support India in the establishment of Solar Decathlon India in 2021. The aim of this competition is to prepare the next generation of building professionals to design and build high efficiency buildings powered by renewables.

Single-window Clearance Mechanism to Expedite Aviation Sector Proposals

The civil aviation ministry has set up a single-window clearance mechanism to expedite various investment proposals in the domestic aviation industry.
MoCA (Ministry of Civil Aviation) has an Investment Clearance Cell (ICC) for prompt assistance and clearance.
The setting up of the ICC was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2020-2021 Union Budget in February this year.
According to the MoCA, the 10-member ICC will be headed by Amber Dubey, joint secretary in the aviation ministry.
The ICC has been mandated to serve as a single-window system for attracting investment and its terms of reference include accelerating investments, bringing projects to the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) which require special incentive, policy interventions, expeditious clearances and systematic references, among others.
The ICC will also identify projects and report to EGoS and maintain active contacts with investors and work with the states, duly adopting ways of on-boarding the states to make them a part of the institutional set-up.

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