General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - August 2019

Aug 2019

Jul 20, 2021

Google Cloud Adds 2nd Cloud Region in country

Google Cloud has announced the launch of its new Cloud Region in Delhi NCR, for customers and the public sector in India and across the Asia Pacific. With the new region, the customers operating in the country will benefit from lower latency and higher performance of their cloud-based workloads and data.
This new Google Cloud region is the second such in India after Mumbai and the 10th in Asia-Pacific. As the second cloud region, customers are expected to benefit from improved business continuity planning, while maintaining data sovereignty. Totally, 26 Google Cloud regions are present across the world.

Importers of Pulses Exempted from Stock Limits

The Central Government has relaxed stock limits for Millers and wholesalers and exempted importers from the stock limits after considering the softening of the prices and feedback received from State Governments and various stakeholders.
These entities will however continue to declare stocks on the web portal of the Department of Consumer Affairs.
The Stock Limits will be applicable only to Tur, Urad, Gram and Masur.
The Ministry said, for wholesalers, the stock limit will be 500 Metric Tonnes, provided there should not be more than 200 Metric Tonnes of one variety, for retailers, the stock limit will be 5 Metric Tonnes and for Millers, stock limits will be last the 6 months' production or 50 percent of annual installed capacity, whichever is higher.

India's First Monk Fruit Cultivation Exercise Begins in HP's Kullu

The 'monk fruit' from China, which is known for its properties as a non-caloric natural sweetener, was introduced for field trials in Himachal Pradesh by the Palampur-based Council of Scientific Research and Industrial Technology Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology (CSIR-IHBT) in Kullu.
The field trials have begun three years after the CSIR-IHBT imported its seeds from China and grew it in the house.

Microsoft Acquires Cybersecurity Firm RiskIQ for $500M

Microsoft has reached a deal to acquire RiskIQ, a San Francisco-based provider of cybersecurity services, including malware and spyware monitoring and mobile app security.
RiskIQ's services and solutions will join Microsoft's suite of cloud-native security products, including Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Azure Defender, and Microsoft Azure Sentinel.
While Microsoft hasn't valued the deal, Bloomberg reported that the company is said to be paying more than $500 million for RiskIQ.

India Emerges as 5th Largest Forex Reserves Holder in the World

With India's forex reserves at $608.99 billion as on June 25, 2021 stood, India has emerged as the fifth largest foreign exchange reserves holder in the world after China, Japan, Switzerland and Russia.
This was stated by Minister of State for Finance Shri Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
The Minister stated that India's foreign exchange reserves position is comfortable in terms of import cover of more than 18 months and provides cushion against unforeseen external shocks. Government and RBI are closely monitoring the emerging external position calibrating policies or regulations to support robust macroeconomic growth.
Giving more details, the Minister said that RBI takes regular steps for diversification of forex reserves by scaling up operations in forex swap and repo markets, acquisition of gold and exploring new markets/products, while adhering to safety and liquidity standards. Variation in India's forex reserves is primarily the outcome of RBI's intervention in the foreign exchange market to smoothen exchange rate volatility, valuation changes due to movement of US dollar against other international currencies in the reserve basket, movement in gold prices, interest earnings from deployment of foreign currency assets and inflow of aid receipts.

Jul 17, 2021

Zomato IPO Receives 38 Times Oversubscription

Zomato's mega initial public offering (IPO) ended with a bumper 38 times oversubscription as institutional investors poured money to get a pie of the hottest online food delivery platform.
Zomato got bids for 2,751.25 crore shares against 71.92 crore shares on offer, stock exchange data showed.
The IPO is India's biggest since March 2020.
Institutional investors, who shied away in the first two days of the IPO, bid several times over the number of shares reserved for them.
While qualified institutional buyers or QIBs bid almost 52 times the quota reserved for them, non-institutional investors sought 640 crore shares against their quota of 19.43 crore.
Retail investors bid 7.45 times against the 12.96 crore shares reserved for them.

Jul 16, 2021

RBI Cancels Licence of Dr Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar Urban Co-op Bank, Latur

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cancelled the licence of Dr Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd, Nilanga, Latur, as it does not have adequate capital and earning prospects.
Also, the Maharashtra-based bank with its current financial position would be unable to pay its depositors in full, the central bank said while announcing cancellation of its licence.

Adani Group Takes over Mumbai Airport Management

At a time when the aviation sector is going through an all-time low owing to the pandemic, the Adani Group has formally taken over the management of the Mumbai International Airport from the controls of the GVK Group.
With the addition of Mumbai airport, Adani Airport Holdings will now have control over 33% of India's air cargo traffic.
Adani Group will have 74% stake in Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, post the stake purchase transaction, with 50.5% being bought from GVK Group and 23.5% from minority partners including Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), and Bidvest Group.

RBI bars Mastercard from Onboarding New Customers in India

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred global card player Mastercard Asia/Pacific Pte Ltd from onboarding new domestic customers on its network from July 22 over non-compliance with local data storage guidelines. That makes Mastercard the third entity to be barred on these grounds after the RBI had in April told American Express and Diners Club International to not get new domestic customers.
The entity (Mastercard) has been found to be non-compliant with the directions on storage of payment system data, notwithstanding the lapse of considerable time and adequate opportunities given

RBI Extends Implementation Timeline of ATM Cassette Swap

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the timeline for implementation of cassette swap in all ATMs till March 31, 2022.
This comes in the wake of the Indian Banks' Association making a representation on behalf of various banks, expressing difficulties in meeting the March 31, 2021 timeline.

Jul 14, 2021

Vineet Sood to be Alliance Air CEO

The government has appointed former Biman Bnagladesh CFO Vineet Sood as Alliance Air (AA) CEO.
Sood will take over the role from July 31, 2021, for a period of three years. Alliance Air, the regional turboprop arm of Air India, will remain the only government-owned fixed wing airline in India once Al and Al Express are privatised, a process expected to be completed this fiscal.
Sood will take over from Harpreet A De Singh, Al's ED and chief of flight safety before being appointed as CEO of AA last October.
Sood did B Com (Hons) from Delhi's Shri Ram College of Commerce and went on to become a CA.

Google Fined $592 Million by French regulator over News Copyright Row

France's competition regulator announced that it has fined Google 500 million euros ($592 million) over a dispute with French publishers who want the company to pay for the use of their news.
The agency threatened fines of another 900,000 euros (around $1 million) per day if Google doesn't produce proposals within two months on how it will compensate news producers.

NPCI arm to extend BHIM UPI payments system to Bhutan

National Payment Corporation of India's arm, NPCI International Payments Ltd. (NIPL) has partnered Royal Monetary Authority (RMA) of Bhutan for implementing BHIM UPI in Bhutan.
The collaboration between NIPL and RMA will enable acceptance of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) powered BHIM App in Bhutan.
And RMA will ensure that the participating NPCI mobile application through UPI QR transactions is accepted at all RMA acquired merchants in Bhutan.
This facility will benefit more than 200,000 tourists from India who travel to Bhutan each year, NPCI said.

India Sets up Bad Bank to Reduce Debt Burden

India formally set up a bad bank as part of the nation's ongoing efforts to remove one of the world's largest piles of soured debt from the balance sheet of financiers and accelerate lending.
The firm was registered as the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd. on July 7 with Padmakumar Madhavan Nair as the managing director, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies, where firms must register before becoming operational.
NARCL's paid-up capital is Rs 74.6 crore ($10 million), according to the filing. Nair previously worked at the State Bank of India where he handled stressed assets resolution.

Jul 13, 2021

UK Minister Celebrates British Apple Exports to India for 1st time in 50 years

UK Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss welcomed the export of apples from the UK to India for the first time in 50 years as a sign that the strengthened trade partnership between the UK and India is working.
Truss on Twitter over the weekend, apple exports from farms in southeastern England show UK-India trade relations for the first time in 50 years in response to a tweet shared by UK Trade Minister Lanil Jayawardena Pointed out that there is. Details of his visit to AC Gotham and Sun Apple Farm in Kent.
"Our apples are heading to India for the first time in 50 years, thanks to a strengthened trade partnership," said Truss.
The Enhanced Trade Partnership, considered the predecessor of the Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA), was agreed by British Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Narendra Modi at the May Virtual Summit.

Nepal signs $1.3 bn mega deal with India's SJVN

Nepal has signed a $1.3 billion deal with India's hydropower major Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) to develop a 679-megawatt hydropower project in eastern Nepal, the second mega venture undertaken by India in the neighbouring Himalayan nation.
The single largest foreign investment project, based on the 2017 cost estimates, is located between Sankhuwasabha and Bhojpur districts in eastern Nepal.
The 679-megawatt Lower Arun Hydropower project is the second mega project undertaken by India after the $1.04 billion 900-MW Arun-3 hydroelectric project.

RIL Invests Rs1 lakh cash in 10,000 Equity Shares in the New Energy Business

Reliance Industries has invested Rs. 1,00,000 in cash in 10,000 equity shares in the newly formed Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd (RNESL), a wholly-owned subsidiary, the company said in a statement.
"RNESL is incorporated to undertake activities relating to solar energy. RNESL is yet to commence its business operations," the company said, adding that the investment in RNESL does not fall within related party transactions and the promoter/promoter group companies do not have any interest in RNESL.
Reliance Industries Ltd's chairman Mukesh Ambani on 24 June said the company plans to set up Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex on 5,000 acres in Jamnagar, Gujarat,
investing over Rs. 75,000 crore to create and fully integrated, end-to-end renewables energy eco-system.
The investment would be done over the next three years.

Gadkari lays foundation stone for 16 National Highway Projects in Manipur

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for 16 national highway projects in Manipur with an investment of Rs 4,148 crores covering a total length of 298 kms.
According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the projects will provide all-weather connectivity to Manipur with the rest of the country and the neighbouring countries. These highway projects will boost agricultural, industrial and socio-economic progress of the region, besides facilitating health care and emergency service to the remotest of the areas and generating employment and self-employment opportunities.

Given nod to set up small finance bank to take over PMC Bank: RBI to HC

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) told the Delhi High Court that it has given in-principle approval for setting up a small finance bank which will take over the scam-hit PMC Bank soon.
A bench of Justices D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh granted time to the RBI to file an affidavit on the development in the matter and listed the case for further hearing on August 20.
Senior advocate Jayant Bhushan, representing the RBI, submitted that it has given in-principle approval to Centrum Finance Services Ltd to set up a small finance bank which will take over Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank very soon as the process in near completion.

Retail Investors can open 'Gilt Account' via Online Portal

The Reserve Bank of India said retail investors can open a 'Retail Direct Gilt Account' (RDG Account) through an 'online portal', which will be provided under its RBI Retail Direct' scheme.
Under the scheme, the 'online portal' will also give registered users facilities such as access to primary issuance of government securities (G-Secs) and NDS-OM {Negotiated Dealing System — Order Matching}. The scheme will be a one-stop solution to facilitate investment in G-Secs by individual investors.
The RBI, in a statement, said the date of commencement of the scheme will be announced at a later date.
In February, the central bank had announced that as part of continuing efforts to increase retail participation in G-Secs and to improve ease of access, retail investors will be provided online access to the G-Sec market along with the facility to open their gilt securities account ('Retail Direct') with the RBI.

World Gold Council, GJEPC ink pact to Promote Gold Jewellery in India

The World Gold Council and Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) have signed an agreement to promote gold jewellery in India this year, according to a statement.
Under the terms of the agreement, both the partners will jointly fund a multi-media marketing campaign that would aim to increase awareness, relevance and adoption of gold jewellery among Indian consumers, especially millennials and the new generation, GJEPC said in the statement.
Citing a report, it said although young women are active gold jewellery consumers, their future purchase intent could be higher.
This is especially true in the urban areas and could be achieved if the gold jewellery trade could tap into consumers' desire for self-expression and prestige, the council said.

The Growing Gulf Rivalry that's Pushing up Oil Prices

A bitter public rift between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia over oil production quotas this week caused talks between the world's biggest oil-producing nations to be abandoned and left energy markets in limbo, pushing oil prices to a six-year high.
The 23 nations in Opec+, which comprises the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel and allied producers like Russia, had to postpone their negotiations indefinitely, raising fears about its stability of a group that has deftly handled supplies over the past 18 months to cope with the coronavirus-related global economic crisis.
The problem began last week, when the UAE rejected a proposal by Opec+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend output curbs for another eight months.

CCI Approves Deal involving SoftBank Group Entity Buying Stake in Swiggy

Competition Commission of India (CCI) gave its nod for a proposed deal involving SoftBank Group entity purchasing a stake in food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy.
SVF II Songbird (DE) LLC would acquire certain shareholding percentage in Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd, according to a notice filed with the regulator.
SVF belongs to the SoftBank Group and is a newly incorporated entity set up to make mid to long-term financial investments in companies.
Bundl is a private limited company incorporated in India and is engaged in operating Swiggy, as per the notice.
The deal is likely to peg the valuation of Swiggy at $5 billion.

APEDA inks MoU with NAFED

For harnessing exports potential of agricultural and processed food products of cooperatives as well Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED).
According to the MoU, the key areas of cooperation include facilitating APEDA registered exporters getting assistance under all the Govt. of India schemes implemented through NAFED. The MoU also envisages ensuring sustainability and growth of exports by Cooperatives by addressing issues such as technology, skill, quality products and market access.
The collaborations between APEDA, which functions under Ministry of Commerce & NAFED, registered under the Multi State Co-operative Societies Act, also support engaging Cooperatives involved in agricultural production for improving the quality of agri-produce and its consolidation for better price realization to the farmers.
APEDA would facilitate exports by the Cooperatives, FPO's, partners and associates identified and promoted by NAFED.

Tech Mahindra to Launch Blockchain-based System to Track Vaccine Supply

IT firm Tech Mahindra has said it will roll out a blockchain-based open source system to track vaccine supply chains worldwide.
The Pune-based company has partnered with startup StaTwig to implement 'VaccineLedger' globally.
"The partnership aims to roll out a blockchain-based traceability solution for global vaccine supply chain transparency, predict and prevent failures in supply chains, including problems related to expired vaccines, stock out and counterfeiting," the company said in a statement.
The blockchain-based application will build peer-to-peer bridges on current systems that support real-time data sharing, authentication and validation. Vaccine manufacturers can use the system to track inventory, vendor payments through Internet-of-Things (IoT) integration and smart contracts, according to the company.
The companies will work with vaccine researchers, governments, pharmaceutical companies, distributors and healthcare workers to understand various steps of the supply chain.

Ship that Blocked Suez Canal Sets Sail After Deal Signed

A huge container ship that blocked the Suez Canal in March - disrupting global trade - is finally leaving the waterway after Egypt signed a compensation deal with its owners and insurers.
The Ever Given weighed anchor shortly after 11:30 local time (09:30 GMT) and headed north towards the Mediterranean escorted by tugs.
The ship has been impounded for three months near the canal city of Ismailia.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Egypt had demanded $550m (£397m).

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