Industries | Business Upturn

Centre is on the verge to build an e-commerce platform to empower SHGs: PM Modi

Sneha Sengupta — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 07:12:41 +0000

Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government is thinking constructively and aiming to build an e-commerce platform to facilitate the eight crore self-help groups in villages and distribute and sell their self-manufactured products within and outside the national boundaries.

Addressing from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the auspicious occasion of the 75th Independence Day of India, Modi averred that India has to attract its energy together to revamp village economies. “Today, we can see our villages transforming rapidly. In the last few years, the focus was on providing roads and electricity to villages. Now villages are being connected with optical fibre networks and the internet. Digital entrepreneurs are also coming out of villages. The eight crore self-help groups in villages make fine products. The government will build an e-commerce platform to give market access to these products within and outside the country. When the country is moving forward with the mantra of ‘Vocal for Local’, this digital platform will connect women self-help groups to distant parts of the country and the world,” Modi added.

The commerce ministry is dedicatedly working to build an Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform to liberalize digital commerce, migrating it from a platform-centric model to an open network for extensive reach. ONDC aims to engage buyers and sellers to be digitally adept and transact via., an open network. ONDC is expected to strengthen merchants and consumers by breaking chambers and create a single network to scale up innovation and profit, transfiguring all businesses from retail goods, food to mobility.

Modi averred that in order to empower the cooperatives at the state level, the government has made a new ministry of cooperation to regulate a similar goal. “India is focusing on ‘sahkarwad’ (co-operative). It is in tune with our tradition and culture. Cooperative, in which the collective energy of people becomes the driving force of the economy, is an important area for the grass-roots sector of the country. Co-operative is not a system of laws and rules, it is a spirit. Co-operative is a frame of mind to march ahead in unison,” Modi added.

Abolition of retrospective tax will strengthen investors’ confidence: PM Modi at CII Meet

Sneha Sengupta — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 14:13:43 +0000

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) annual session 2021 through video conferencing. The 2 days CII Annual Meet 2021 will be conducted on 11-12 August. The main theme for the CII Annual Meeting is ‘India@75: Government and Business working together for Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.

The Prime Minister addressed the group of corporates and economists after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ascertained the GDP growth forecast for the upcoming year 2022 which remained unaltered at 9.5%.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, I” will address the CII Annual Session 2021 on the theme ‘India@75: Government and Business Working Together for Aatmanirbhar Bharat,’ on 11 August 2021.”

“The Modi government intends to privatise national carrier Air India and state-owned refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd this year” averred CII Annual Session, Tuhin Kant Pandey, secretary, department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM),

“Our disinvestment is back on track. We intend to privatize Air India privatization this year and are also aiming for BPCL privatization this year itself,” averred the DIPAM secretary.

A glimpse of the PM’s speech at today’s CII meet:

“There’s a government in place that can take the boldest decisions keeping the nation in mind and not political benefits. GST wasn’t implemented by the previous governments because of its political risk. We did not just implement it, we’re also witnessing record collections,” PM Modi asserted.
“On axing of the retrospective tax, PM Modi said that his government undid mistake of the past. The abolition of the retrospective tax will strengthen investors’ confidence”, averred PM Modi.
Start-Ups are showing self-confidence. Several unicorns are becoming the image of the nation. 7-8 years ago, India might have had just 3-4 unicorns. Today, there are nearly 60 unicorns in India! Out of these 60, 21 of them have been developed in the last few months!- said PM Modi
The several steps taken by the government has led to record FDI in India. We’re also creating new records in FPI and the forex reserve is at an all-time high, the PM added.
“The situation is changing rapidly. Today, the sentiments of citizens lie with products that are made in India. It doesn’t need to be an Indian company, but every Indian now wants to use products that are made in India. The nation has made up its mind, the Prime Minister asserted.
“Govt stands by industry”, asserted PM Narendra Modi at the CII meeting.
All friends and organisations in the industry are a major part of India’s growth story. With the efforts of all of you, India’s economy is picking up pace once again. There is rarely a day when a CEO doesn’t issue a statement or there’s not a report on new opportunities: said PM.
PM Modi said that new India is now ready to move ahead with the new world. “India, which was once apprehensive of foreign investment, is today welcoming all types of investments. India is taking major leaps in ease of doing business ranking today,” PM Modi averred.
We have seen a report of record hiring in the IT sector, the PM asserted today at the CII meet.

Addressing the #CIIAnnualSession2021. Watch. https://t.co/HU8zczBL6g

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 11, 2021

US records greenhouse emission drop in 2020, lowest since 1945

Sarthak Yadav — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 13:52:58 +0000

COVID-19 disturbed the global economy and forced industries to shut down but the only positive factor which was noticed is the reduced greenhouse emission. According to a report released by the Rhodium Group, US recorded a fall of 10.3% in 2020 making it lowest since World War II.

Large industrial sectors like transportation, power and industry reported in a sharper emissions drop than the 2009 recession, when emissions slid 6.3%. The drop means that the United States would outperform its pledge made under the Copenhagen climate accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Emissions will actually drop by 21.5% compared with 2005.

United States can easily meet its more ambitious pledge under the Paris climate agreement to cut emissions 28% below 2005 levels by 2025 but the reports author claim it should not be considered under that light.

President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris accord, but President-elect Joe Biden has said he intends to rejoin as soon as he is inaugurated on Jan. 20. He plans to set the country on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 but will first need to announce a target for reducing emissions by 2030, as reported by Reuters.

The report by the research group said, “With COVID-19 vaccines now in distribution, we expect economic activity to pick up again in 2021, but without meaningful structural changes in the carbon intensity of the U.S. economy, emissions will likely rise again as well.”

The transportation sector saw the highest decline in emissions with a drop of 14.7% from 2019 levels, followed by Power plant emissions dropping 10.3% below 2019 levels.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to hold press conference at 12:30 pm today

Shalmali Bhagwat — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 05:20:54 +0000

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will convene a press conference in New Delhi at 12.30 pm on Thursday. The government is likely to declare Rs 3 lakh crore stimulus for the stressed sectors in an earnest attempt to kick the slowed economy in motion, revive demand and create employment opportunities. In addition to that, the package would be inclusive of the production-linked incentives of more than Rs 1.45 lakh crore for manufacturers in sectors which have suffered a huge blow due to the COVID-19 crisis, such as tourism, hospitality and aviation.

The government has already started developing further plans to heave the economy from the fall caused by the pandemic, as the lockdown measures were eased, and they opine that a targeted stimulus will help speed up the process. The Cabinet gave a nod to Production-Linked Incentives (PLIs) summing up to Rs 1.45 lakh crore for 10 sectors on Wednesday, including automobiles, pharmaceuticals, white goods and textiles with a motive of attracting big-ticket investment. Of this, the biggest share was for automakers and auto components at Rs 57,042 crore, followed by battery manufacturing at Rs 18,100 crore.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi appreciated the Cabinet’s approval to the PLI scheme, saying it is an important move towards stepping up India’s position in the global market and steers the country further closer to the dream of an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India). He tweeted, “Cabinet decision of PLI scheme for 10 sectors will boost manufacturing, give opportunities to youth while making India a preferred investment destination.”

The previous stimulus package of the Indian government released in May proved insufficient in uplifting the economy from the decline caused by the Coronavirus lockdown. The focus of this package was to increase liquidity and provide easy credit to small businesses but no concrete steps were proposed to boost spending. In this package, the worst affected sectors like tourism, hospitality and aviation were not addressed. Modi government is going to announce another big economic package on Diwali with a primary focus on generating job opportunities.

Japan’s ORIX Corp invests $980 Million in Greenko Energy Holdings

Apurva Khairnar — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 05:46:12 +0000

Japan’s financial services firm ORIX Corp will be investing $980 million in Greenko Energy Holdings. This comes as a single largest foreign investment in India’s clean energy space.

ORIX is a major company working company in Japan which includes wind, solar, biomass, power trading and retailing and is the largest corporate in Japanese solar power generation market.

This deal comes at a time when India’s clean energy space is going through a power procurement curtailment and tariff shopping by dicoms. Hyderabad based Greenko is now building power storage projects with total capacity of 7.2 GW across six states in India as part of a plan to provide on-demand power from wind and solar projects.

The deal will now add 873 mega watt of Orix operating wind assets to Greenko and will add approximately $100 million to Greenko’s EBITDA in the first year. The deal will also bring Greenko’s enterprise value at $10.2 billion

Greenko group also wants to be present in the electricity distribution scapeand has submitted a non-binding offer to buy Reliance Infrastructure Ltd’s Delhi electricity distribution businesses.