(PTI) Digital India initiative should be leveraged to transform rural India and create avenues for those in smaller towns and cities, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Monday. The Minister said Digital India should become a beacon for inclusion, healthcare, education and entrepreneurship. He launched the next version of the government’s mobile payment app Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) called BHIM 2.0 that is packed with new features and capabilities. The minister also launched an Indian software products registry, which will act as a single window portal to collate Indian software product database. Speaking at the ‘Ministry of Electronics and IT…
Author: Aruna Sharma
(ET) Demand for electric power transmission and distribution equipment in India is forecast to rise 8.2% per year to $15.8 billion in 2023, the Freedonia Group, a division of MarketResearch.com, has predicted in a recent report on the transmission and distribution sector. Upgrades and expansion of the nation’s underdeveloped electricity sector – both to reduce the large amount of power currently lost during transmission and to improve access to electricity in rural areas will provide strong opportunities for growth in the country, as consumers switch away from alternative sources of power such as generators.
(ET) Incidents of communal violence, particularly cases of those killed (lynched) over rumours on social media, are likely to be taken up by Union home minister Amit Shah during the meeting of Eastern Zonal Council to be held on October 23 in Patna. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik and Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das are likely to attend the meet. The four states have recorded the highest incidents of lynching with Jharkhand and Bihar accounting for the maximum cases while violent clashes have been reported between Trinamool and BJP workers in West…
(LiveMint) Saudi Aramco, Rosneft, Kuwait Petroleum, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total SA and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. are among companies that have had conversations with the government on asset sales and are likely to bid for the government’s stake in Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd, two people aware of the matter said. “While a formal interest from the potential bidders is expected in due course, all the above names are part of the list that the government will reach out to,” said one of the two people cited above, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. The privatization of BPCL is…
(PTI) The State Bank of India (SBI) will conduct an e-auction of 11 bad loan accounts on November 7 to recover dues of Rs 466.49 crore. In terms of the bank’s revised policy on sale of financial assets, in line with the regulatory guidelines, the bank will place 11 accounts for sale to ARCs/banks/NBFCs and FIs, SBI said in an auction notice. The bank said the financial assets were showcased on October 12 and the e-auction will take place on November 7. The major non-performing asset (NPA) accounts to be auctioned include Bhatia Global Trading (BGTL), which has an outstanding of Rs 177.02 crore on the bank,…
(ET) The Power Grid Corporation is trying to once again revive the transmission line project connecting Chhattisgarh and Pugalur in Tamil Nadu. In a statement sent to TOI, the corporation said it is safe to have the transmission towers in agriculture fields and there is no danger to either human beings or animals and plants. The project plans to bring 800 kilovolt (kV) ultrahigh-voltage direct current (UHVDC) system to Tamil Nadu and the power will be shared with Kerala. The 1850km transmission line project has been stalled in Tamil Nadu as farmers in the western districts are opposing setting up the towers on their land.…
(LiveMint) As polling is underway in Maharashtra and Haryana on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to come out in large numbers to cast vote and enrich the “festival of democracy”. Besides the two states, assembly bypolls are underway in 51 seats and Lok Sabha by-elections in two constituencies across India. “Elections are taking place for Haryana and Maharashtra assemblies. There are also by-polls taking place in various parts of India. I urge voters in these states and seats to turnout in record numbers and enrich the festival of democracy. I hope youngsters vote in large numbers,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter.…
(PTI) Reliance Industries Ltd has said that it is on track to start production from a new gas field in the flagging KG-D6 block in the Bay of Bengal from mid-2020 even as output from its existing fields continued to fall. Reliance and its partner BP Plc of the UK had in June 2017 announced an investment of Rs 40,000 crore in the three sets of discoveries to reverse the flagging production in KG-D6 block. These finds were expected to bring a total 30-35 million cubic metres (1 billion cubic feet) of gas a day onstream, phased over 2020-22.The three sets of discoveries are R-Cluster, Satellite Cluster and…
(PTI) As part of its goal to become a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024, India plans to spend USD 1.4 trillion on its infrastructure in the next five years, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said. Addressing the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) here, Sitharaman said a task force has been constituted in the finance ministry that will draw up a national infrastructure pipeline for the next five years. “As we envisage becoming a five trillion-dollar economy by 2024-25, our focus on creating world-class infrastructure has become even more resolute. If we spent USD 1.1 trillion on infrastructure in the last 10 years (2008-17),…
Shri Anil Kumar Gautam has taken over as Director ( Finance), NTPC w.e.f from today 18th October, 2019. Shri A.K. Gautam (aged 57 years) is CMA & LLB. He has over 34 years of experience in the power sector in the area of project construction accounting, corporate accounts, resource mobilization from domestic and international markets, long-term financial planning, investment appraisals, formulation of capital budgets and regulatory affairs.