AAPI: June 2023

DELHI, June 2023

Index of this Newsletter

INDIA

INDIA & THE WORLD

21. Indian state of Tamil Nadu attracts $4bn in 3 new investments
22. IITs, IIMs Eye Foreign Student Enrolment, Campuses Abroad
23. Lufthansa Looks to Partner Air India in Expansion Push
24. Industry consolidation good for healthy, growing aviation ecosystem, and returns: Air India CEO Campbell
25. IndiGo to start 174 new international flights by September; Nairobi, Jakarta, Baku, Tashkent among them

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DELHI, JUNE 2023

NEWSLETTER, JUNE 2023

INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

1. Lucknow's Amir-ud-Daula library digitised; readability of 400 years old texts improved with 300 DPI quality

ET Gov. 20 May, 2023

Any student with library membership can access the library's website online at– lucknowdigitallibrary.com – and access all the digitised books.

The project for the digitisation of the books and manuscripts in the library began in 2020 under the Smart City project.

Lucknow's iconic Amir-ud-Daula Public Library is now 100% digitised. The library has over 1.6 lakh books. It is also said to hold as many as eight lakh pages of 24,000 rare and antique books and manuscripts.

The project for the digitisation of the books and manuscripts in the library began in 2020 under the Smart City project.

Shashi Kala, head librarian of Amir-ud-Daula Public Library, said, "A private company, Informatics Publishing, was given the task, which was completed in two phases."

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"Some rare manuscripts, which are as old as 300-400 years old, have also been digitised and even improved for readability with 300 DPI (dots per inch) quality. Several teams undertook the digitisation process with each page of the book being scanned through a Czur scanner, " said Raj Aryan, facility manager of Informatics Publishing.

"Any student with library membership can access the library's website online at -- lucknowdigitallibrary.com -- and access all these books. As many as 1,000 e-newspapers and magazines can also be accessed here," he added.

A self-help kiosk has also been installed at the library to enable readers to access the digital content and apply for books. A member can issue a book by punching a card without the assistance of others. A sensor machine has been installed at the gate's exit, and any book taken out of the premises without being issued would trigger an alarm

2. Chhattisgarh’s SCERT develops digital education content in 36 subjects

ET Gov. 29 May, 2023

The digital education content has been enriched using animation, videos, picture images, and text materials to sustain the interest of students. The subject experts selected for the creation of content belong to government and private schools as well as colleges.

Apart from YouTube, the content is also uploaded on the website of Chhattisgarh's SECRT.

Chhattisgarh’s State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) body has developed digital content in 36 subjects for students between class 9 and 12. This initiative to improve access to education has been taken under the vision of 'Padhai Tuhar Dwar.’

So far SCERT has developed digital content of about 1,77,000 minutes. With support form the Centre, SCERT is taking initiatives for promoting digital education through TV channels. The trails for this mode of learning will begin from June this year.

"Apart from creating the content, we have uploaded videos in a YouTube channel named PTD (Padhai Tuhar Dwar). The channel has 85,000 subscribers,” said Dipankar Bhowmick, Assistant Professor, SCERT. He informs that the uploaded content has been watched 7.30 lakh times.

Around 96 percent of content has been completed and the material uploaded. The remaining 4 percent content is expected to be completed and uploaded soon. “The SCERT team is working to develop 100 percent digital content,” he said.

"Our focus during the creation of content is that a student should be able to understand it easily," Bhowmick said.

Apart from YouTube, the content is also uploaded on the website of Chhattisgarh's SCERT.

"SCERT has its own studio where we shoot, dub, edit and perform other tasks related to the videos with the help of our technical staff. The subject experts also sit with the technical staff during the editing of the videos to support them and to ensure the quality of the final product. Before these are uploaded, the content is checked at multiple levels," Bhowmick said.

Padhai Tunhar Dwar initiative was launched in Chhattisgarh during the period of Covid lockdown, when the schools were closed, to ensure that education of the students was not affected. Through the Padhai Tunhar Dwar portal, children are being taught online. They have access to facilities like e-classroom, study material, video lessons, educational games, online homework.

3. Opportunities@Home

ET, 904 Jun. 2023

During the pandemic, there was a lot of demand for offshoring. Since India remains an attractive offshore location, it will not be unusual to see much demand getting diverted to India, this time too,” Gartner senior director analyst DD Mishra said, adding that whenever there is a financial crisis globally, offshoring is used to optimise costs. And India, being the world’s IT powerhouse, stands to gain.

Outsourcing means hiring an external company or team of developers to work on a software solution, especially when the vendor has a known level of expertise in executing such projects. While Indian IT majors built their entire models around offshoring the outsourced work to cost-effective delivery locations like their home country, the share of offshore revenues and business often fluctuates with global geopolitical concerns.

Top IT CEOs concur that the current global uncertainty spells opportunity. Executives are of the view that demand will increase through the current fiscal year as enterprises will double down on value realisation with their existing providers with a higher margin for offshoring contracts. Numbers too suggest a growing trend toward offshore. For instance, Infosys has increased its share of onshore revenue mix from 72.4% in FY20, which was before the pandemic hit, to 76% in FY22 before it dipped slightly to 75.4% in FY23. Similarly, Wipro’s share increased from 47.1% in FY20 to 59.1% in FY23.

Infosys CFO Nilanjan Roy pointed out that offshoring and utilisation improvements will be the top metrics to improve margins in the ongoing fiscal. “Onsite offshore mix, post-Covid, slightly went askew because, of course, there was some travel which went back. That now strategically can be looked at as we can offshore more work,” he said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on April 13.

Similarly, HCLTech CEO C Vijayakumar said that as customers continue to look for more cost optimisation, they are opening up to more outsourced roles. “Customers are also looking at how they can reduce their operating expenses, which means more efficiency, bringing more automation and trying for more offshoring. So customers are adopting these multiple strategies,” said Vijayakumar.

Sudhir Singh, CEO of IT midcap Coforge, also noted a similar emphasis on offshoring components of deals for eking out margins but also as innovation drivers. “Customers are looking for innovation coming from offshore. They’re looking for value coming from offshore and not just arbitrage,” said Singh. These issues come at a time when the industry expects sustained margin pressures due to high employee costs and a lack of pricing improvement.

GLOBETROTTING

As Indian and global IT service providers seek out more cost-effective geographies for offshoring requirements like Latin America, the Philippines and North Africa, experts said India continues to command a premium due to the nature of talent available.

Everest Group chief executive Peter Bendor-Samuel said that it is hard to compare the Indian IT market to other offshoring destinations such as those cited above due to the diversity available. He expects the Indian market to capture the lion’s share of the cost-savings driven market.

“The Philippines may do well on voice, however we see generative AI as potentially disrupting this market quickly. Eastern Europe looks like it is well positioned to recover the work lost due to the Ukraine war and continue its growth but it is a much smaller market than India and does not look like it will detract meaningfully from the growth prospects of the Indian market,” said Bendor-Samuel.

India is still the low-cost and highskill location for IT and tech services, he added. Former TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan told ET that the demand for offshoring services will draw companies to the country.

“India as a destination for work will continue to remain very attractive. And I think the leverage will keep on going up,” he said.

In fact, during its January-March Index call, ISG observed that providers are laser-focused on optimising their delivery pyramids and the mix of onshore-offshore delivery which lead to more offshore work. Credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings expects overall IT services revenue growth to slow down to about 5% in FY24 from double-digit growth earlier. This broadly represents a slowdown across segments due to discretionary IT spending cuts. In fact, the firm believes that Indian IT majors have more to offer beyond just traditional outsourcing types of deals.

“We believe solid client relationships, high contract renewal rates and healthy recurring revenue streams--including traditional outsourcing services--provide good revenue visibility for IT players and limit downside,” said S&P Global Ratings analyst Spencer Ng. “Besides, leading Indian IT majors have evolved over the past few years from being traditional outsourced service providers towards offering more complex digital services.” However, current trends suggest that the value proposition is shifting to innovation over labour arbitrage for global customers.

As managed services demand soars and companies are more open to offshoring during tougher market conditions, the current trends lean toward “rightshoring” more than just traditional forms of offshoring, said Namratha Dharshan, chief business leader, ISG Research.

Rightshoring is the process of strategically selecting delivery locations that match the client’s time zone with geographical proximity to onsite delivery teams. In addition, rightshoring is not just about location but about the outsourcing decision that provides most cost optimisation and other business benefits.

This trend also ties in with a large number of delivery and innovation centres that Indian IT providers, both largecaps and midcaps alike, have been setting up in regions such as eastern Europe, Canada, Mexico and North Africa among others since the pandemic. Yet, India’s technology talent pool continues to be a differentiator in this space.

“From a talent perspective, the way some of the service providers are investing… In fact, not just Indian service providers, even the global service providers are focused on investing in universities, and tier II and III cities in bringing up innovation centres and Centres of Excellence and grooming that talent in India,” said Dharshan. There are few offshore locations that give the IT outsourcing industry the level of institutional support seen in India, she added.

4. Tamil Nadu CM inaugurates 22 Industry 4.0 tech centers developed by Tata Technologies

ET, 10 Jun. 2023

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin inaugurates the Industry 4.0 technology centers developed by Tata Technologies at an event held in Oragadam, Chennai on Thursday.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday inaugurated the Industry 4.0 technology centers at an event held in Oragadam, Chennai.

Tata Technologies had signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the Government of Tamil Nadu in June 2022 to transform 71 government Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) across Tamil Nadu into technology centers with modern infrastructure and training facilities to meet the industry 4.0 standards. Along with the technology transformation of the ITIs, Tata Technologies will also be providing industrial support for trainers’ training and ensuring maintenance of the new set-up. The collaboration with the Tamil Nadu government is an extension of Tata Technologies’ continued efforts to implement projects of high social impact and complement the nation-building efforts of the government, the company said in a press release. Post upgradation, these technology centers will not only cater to the advanced skill requirements of students but also act as technology and industrial hubs for the MSMEs.

Further, these modern Industry 4.0 technology centers will facilitate upskilling through long-term courses such as manufacturing process control and automation, industrial robotics, mechanic electric vehicle, virtual verification, advanced manufacturing, etc.

The centers will offer short-term upskilling courses in areas of electric vehicle maintenance, robotics, automation, CAD/CAM, CNC machining, advanced plumbing, and additive manufacturing. The upgraded technology centers will help upskill and reskill the youth of Tamil Nadu to meet the emerging industrial requirements of the state, thereby attracting more investments, creating more job opportunities, and helping the state government grow its economy, the company said.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, TATA Sons, Warren Harris, CEO & MD, Tata Technologies, TM Anbarasan, Minister for Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises, CV Ganesan, Minister for Labour Welfare and Skill Development, TR Baalu, Member of Parliament, Sriperumbudur, K. Selvaperundhagai, Member of Legislative Assembly, Sriperumbudur, key members of Tata Technologies and local body representatives and dignitaries from various fields.

5. 100 smart cities are real incubators of the New Urban India: Union Minister Hardeep Puri

ET Gov. 24 Mya, 2023

The Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep S. Puri has said the implementation of Smart Cities Mission at city level done by a special purpose vehicle, is playing an instrumental role in monitoring the projects to utilize the full potential of this path-breaking project. The minister stated that India’s urban future will draw heavily from the innovations being nurtured in these 100 smart cities.

Participating in the consultative committee meeting of Smart Cities in Goa on Monday, Puri apprised the members of the committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs about the progress of Smart Cities Mission.

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The minister further stated that Smart Cities Mission launched on 25 June, 2015, is aimed at providing core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’. 100 cities selected through a two-stage competition to be developed as smart cities are showing satisfying progress, he said.

Smart Cities Mission, monitored by an apex committee headed by the Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, regularly reports implementation status of projects through the real-time Geographical Management Information System (GMIS). As per SCM statement and guidelines, a Smart City Advisory Forum (SCAF) is established at the city level to advise and enable collaboration among various stakeholders. It consists of member(s) of parliament, legislative assembly, mayor, District Collector, local youth, technical experts, other stakeholders, etc. All 100 smart cities have established their SCAFs. So far, the smart cities have convened more than 756 meetings of SCAF, the minister informed the committee.

At State level, high powered steering committee (HPSC) chaired by the Chief Secretary has been established. Besides, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs nominee directors on the boards of special purpose vehicle (SPVs) regularly monitor the progress in respective cities. The ministry regularly interacts with the states/ smart cities through video conferences, review meetings, field visits, regional workshops, etc at various levels to assess the performance of cities and to handhold them for improvement, he informed.

Smart Cities Mission strategy

The committee visited various project sites including ‘Mandovi Riverfront Promenade', 'Flood Mitigation Works', and Integrated Command and Control Centre in Goa and deliberated upon the current status and progress as on May 1, 2023 wherein it was highlighted that the mission has around 7,800 projects worth Rs 1.8 lakh crore of which 5,700+ projects (73 by number) worth Rs 1.1 lakh crore (60% by value) have been completed. All remaining projects are expected to be completed by June 30, 2024. Also, it was outlined during the meeting that Rs 38,400 crore have been released under Smart Cities Mission upto May 1 out of which Rs 35,261 crore has been utilized.

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The meeting chaired by Puri and Minister of State Kaushal Kishore, was attended by Members of Parliament from across the states -- MVV Satyanarayana, AKP Chinraj, Ramesh Bidhuri, Sanjay Kaka Patil, Abir Ranjan Biswas, Kalpana Saini, Vandana Chauhan and other senior officials. Shalini Agarwal, Commissioner, Surat, Divyank Singh, CEO, Indore Smart City, M. Prathap, CEO, Coimbatore Smart City, Ankit Khandelwal, CEO Agra Smart City, also made insightful presentations on best practices adopted in their respective cities.

Kaushal Kishore lauded the pioneering effort of the mission in successful deployment of the Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs) in all 100 smart cities. “ICCCs build better situational awareness by the use of cutting-edge technologies and provide consolidated visualization for civic officials across urban functions to handle day-day work/ issues/ exigencies through detailed SOPs,” he said. ICCCs have become the nerve centres of these smart cities and embodies effective use of technology towards strengthening the urban management.

Kalpana Saini stressed on the need of adding more to Smart Cities Mission whereas Vandana Chauhan appreciated ICCCs and their functioning during COVID-19 and other crises for effective management of the pandemic.

- Agriculture, Fishing and Rural Development

6. Bananas are India’s horticulture success story. Time to up the game in international markets

The Print, Siraj Hussain, 06 Jun. 2023

Bananas are India’s horticulture success story. Time to up the game in international markets

Horticulture is a success story of Indian agriculture. The production of horticulture crops has increased from 169.8 million tonnes in 2004-05 to 342.32 mt in 2021-22. This transformation was initiated in 2005-06 when the National Horticulture Mission was launched by the Union government. The Centre’s share in the scheme was 85 per cent and the states were required to provide only 15 per cent. The Centre also provided 100 per cent of funds under Horticulture Mission for North East & Himalayan States.

The objective of NHM was to provide an integrated development by ensuring that forward and backward linkages were provided. Clusters were identified in 384 districts. The emphasis was on the supply of high-quality planting material. For this nurseries and tissue culture units were supported. Within five years, from 2005-06 to 2010-11, an additional area of 18.92 lakh hectares was brought under horticulture crops and 2,239 nurseries were established for the production of planting materials.

In 2014-15, NHM and HMNEH were subsumed in Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) and the Centre’s share in funding for North-eastern and Himalayan states was fixed at 90 per cent. For other states, it was reduced from 90 per cent to 60 per cent.

All year round

Banana is one of the success stories of NHM. Due to the efforts of successive governments, bananas are affordable, and they are available around the year across India. Its price has stayed around Rs 50 to 60 per dozen for several years.

In 2004-05, 5.3 lakh ha area was under banana cultivation. By 2021-22 the area had increased to 9.6 lakh ha. In this period, the production of bananas increased from 16.2 mt to 35 mt. The productivity increased from 30.6 mt per ha to 36.5 mt per ha.

In 2021-22, India’s export of bananas reached 0.38 mt at a value of $159.09 million. But India’s share is minuscule. In 2019, global trade in bananas was valued at $13.5 billion by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

In 2020, then director of ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana said India is targeting 10-15 per cent of international trade with $2-3 billion of exports over the next seven to 10 years.

More than 90 per cent of banana exports are from Central and South America and the Philippines. Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte brands dominate the global markets.

India is the largest producer of bananas in the world. It produced about 35 million metric tonnes in 2021-22 which was about a quarter of global production. The highest banana-producing states are Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu. In the last few years, farmers of non-traditional states have also taken to banana cultivation. Uttar Pradesh had a 10.45 per cent share in India’s production in 2021-22.

Growth story

The success of banana production is also attributed to Jain Irrigation Systems Limited which set up a tissue culture laboratory in 1995.

Under tissue culture, a part of the plant or even a single cell or group of cells is cultured under highly controlled and hygienic conditions. Jain Irrigation propagates genetically pure, high-yielding and disease-free planting material.

Before that, they were prone to several diseases such as Panama wilt, bacterial soft rot and viral diseases. This resulted in decreased yield and lower quality.

Tissue culture plants are true to the type of mother plant and are free of disease and pests. They grow uniformly and give higher yields. Tissue culture plants enable round-the-year planting as the seedlings can be procured by farmers throughout the year. Two successive ratoons are possible in a short duration which minimises the cost of cultivation. Tissue culture enables the introduction of new varieties as multiplication is possible in a short duration.

Banana is a water-intensive crop and its water requirement is about 1,500-2,000 mm per annum. Therefore, micro-irrigation is strongly recommended in banana cultivation. It is claimed that drip irrigation and mulching can save 56 per cent of water. It also results in an increase in yield by 23-32 per cent. Precision farming can give better yields to farmers.

A 2015 Indian Council of Agricultural Research-CIPHET study on food losses found that losses in bananas were 6 per cent at the farm level and 1.7 per cent in the supply chain (up to retailers). A 2022 study by Nabcons has found that the losses were 5.2 per cent at the farm level and 2.4 per cent in the market supply chain.

Better farm practices, and improved storage, ripening and transportation by reefer vans can reduce losses and enhance the quality of Indian bananas in the international market. Going forward, high-density planting techniques developed by ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana, Tiruchirappalli can improve banana yields.

For an edge in the global market, investment in the post-harvest infrastructure of sorting, grading and packaging is needed. Even if horticulture is not covered by Agricultural Produce & Livestock Market Committee regulations in most states, the investment in such infrastructure can only be made by them. Additionally, phytosanitary standards need to be enforced.

As a healthy and affordable fruit, bananas will continue to remain important for Indian diets.

The author is a former Union Agriculture Secretary. Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)

7. Centre to provide 3.5 lakh ISRO transponders to fishermen for enhancing maritime security

ET Gov. 29 May 2023

The transponders not only will allow the monitoring agencies to know the location of fishing boats all the time when they are at sea but also allow them to contact agencies from the sea.

The Centre is going to provide 3.5 lakh free-of-cost two-way communication transponders to fishermen which will help in tracking them and also promote their business. These communications transponders are being made in India. They are manufactured by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and are supported by new satellites to be launched for this purpose only by the space agency.

In the first phase, one lakh transponders would be fitted on boats which are less than 20-metre size. The project is going to be carried out under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana. Government organizations including the fisheries departments of the states and Centre along with the National Security Council are coordinating for implementation of the project across the coastal areas.

The officials said the transponders not only will allow the monitoring agencies to know the location of fishing boats all the time when they are at sea but also allow them to contact agencies from the sea. The transponders would also allow the agencies to send warnings to the fishermen about cyclones or other weather conditions. The fishermen would also be able to contact in distress situations and can be provided help at sea.

The pilot project of installing these transponders on sub-20 metre boats commenced with a pilot project in Tamil Nadu. The office of National Maritime Security Coordinator Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar has been working with the state and central agencies to increase the ease of doing business for fishermen as the agencies would allow them to cart the photocopies of their identity cards like Aadhaar as it is difficult to carry original documents.

The government of India appointed the first national Maritime Security Coordinator in November 2021 under the national security adviser to focus on maritime security with a special impetus on coastal security. National security advisor Ajit Doval addressed the June 2000-2022 meeting of the multi-agency maritime security group which includes all the stakeholders dealing with the maritime zone.

According to officials, "the fitment of the two-way communication transponders on the fishing vessels will help in regulating the activities at fishing, harbours, fish, landing centres, fish, landing points and development of a national fisheries application for a one-stop solution towards dissemination of information to fishing communities and regulation of benefits associated with various schemes for the fishing community.”

8. Over half of all cultivated land now has irrigation access

Hindustan Times, by Zia Haq, 29 May 2023

For the first time, more than half of India’s cultivated land now has access to assured irrigation led by an expansion in micro projects, which have higher water-use efficiency, official data for 2022-23 show.

In 2022-23, of the 141 million hectares of gross sown area in the country, nearly 73 million hectares, or 52%, had irrigation access, up from 41% in 2016, according to updated data from Niti Aayog, the state-run think-tank.

The increase in irrigation cover, especially in dryland agricultural zones of states, such as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, will help mitigate the increasing impacts of drier summers and patchy monsoons that are partly linked to the climate crisis, analysts say.

Agriculture accounts for nearly 80% of the country’s annual available water use, or 700 billion cubic metres. The June-September monsoon, vital for the world’s fifth largest economy, still waters much of the kharif or summer-sown crops.

When the monsoon is poor, farm incomes take a hit. Its effects ripple into the broader economy because rural demand is key to the country’s economic growth. For instance, rural customers account for nearly half of all two-wheelers sales in a year.

Global warming has made the rain-bearing system more erratic, with too much rain in a short period or too little, according to Roxy Mathew Koll, a scientist with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

A micro-irrigation fund (MIF) with corpus of ₹5000 crore was created with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) during 2018-19 to help states mobilise resources. Under the fund, central assistance worth ₹12,696 crore has been released to states, of which ₹11,845 crore was utilized till the last financial year.

The increase in irrigation cover since 2017-18 was driven by six programmes and projects, according to data seen by HT. These are the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) and the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP), under which ₹11,505 crore was released between 2017-18 and 2021-23; Har Khet Ko Paani-Surface Minor Irrigation ( ₹4,000 crore); PMKSY-groundwater projects ( ₹787 crore); special package for Maharashtra ( ₹1,988 crore); Rajasthan and Srihind feeder ( ₹300 crore) and Shahpur-Kandi project ( ₹298 crore). In Madhya Pradesh, 21 prioritised irrigation projects have been identified under PMKSY-AIBP. Out these, 17 projects have been completed, increasing the state’s irrigation cover by 16%.

Of the total irrigation-infrastructure expansion, micro irrigation facilities through sprinklers and drip systems were installed in 8 million hectares. Out of the total irrigated area in the country, 40% is currently watered through canal networks, while 60% through groundwater, which in several states has plunged to severely depleted levels, the data show.

“There’s much more to do. The total potential for micro-irrigation in the country is estimated to be 60 million hectares. Conventional surface irrigation provides only 60% efficiency but drip irrigation has nearly 90% efficiency,” said SK Jayashankar, an expert with the Watershed India Trust.

The country can create irrigation potential in about 60% of its arable land and 40% of the cultivable area will remain dependent on rains because it is not possible to create irrigation networks in certain regions due to hydrological and geographical reasons, according to a document of the Jal Shakti ministry.

9. Asian Development Bank (ADB) and India have agreed on a loan of US$ 130 million to advance horticulture in Himachal Pradesh

Press Information Bureau, Jun. 13, 2023

To boost farmers’ income in the state of Himachal Pradesh, the Indian government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) agreed to a loan agreement worth US$ 130 million. The financing would be used to improve irrigation access, boost agricultural production, and support horticultural agribusinesses.

Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, for the Government of India, Mr. Rajat Kumar Mishra and Country Director of Asian Development Bank (ADB) India Resident Mission, Mr. Takeo Konishi were the signatories to the Himachal Pradesh Subtropical Horticulture, Irrigation, and Value Addition Project.

Mr. Rajat Kumar Mishra said after he signed the loan agreement that developing subtropical horticulture in the southern parts of Himachal Pradesh, which had previously depended on temperate horticulture in the northern parts, offers opportunities for crop diversification, climate adaptation, and more equitable economic and social development throughout the state's rural areas. Fostering horticulture value chains will help increase the subsector's contribution to the growth and food security of the nation.

The project, according to Mr. Takeo Konishi, "builds on a pilot funded by ADB's project readiness facility that demonstrated subtropical horticulture production over 200 hectares and prepared the Draught Water User Association (WUA) Act and the draught state horticulture development strategy."

At least 15,000 agricultural households in the state's seven districts-Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi, Sirmour, Solan, and Una—will benefit from the project interventions by having their incomes rise and become more resilient to the effects of climate change. Due to a lack of irrigation facilities and crop damage from stray and wild animals, some households have quit farming or reduced their farming fields. With the help of the state's Jal Shakti Vibhag (Water Resources Department) and Department of Horticulture (DOH), the project will strengthen the capacity of WUAs for micro irrigation management and improve on-farm irrigation and water management in about 6,000 hectares of farmland.

The project will also assist in developing an ecosystem to improve farmers' access to subtropical horticultural markets. The growers will be divided into district-wide and cluster-wide Cooperative Horticulture Production and Marketing Associations (CHPMAs). To ensure profitability and access to markets for subtropical horticulture, CHPMA's apex institution, a Farmer Producer Corporation (FPC), would oversee state-wide agribusiness development. The FPC will oversee creating business plans, promoting agriculture, and constructing value-added facilities such as sorting, packaging, and storage facilities as well as collection and storage facilities. Additionally, it will help CHPMAs manage these facilities.

The project will also upgrade public and private subtropical horticulture nurseries for better plant health, increase beneficiary farmers' access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and implement other digital Agri-Technology systems for better CHPMA management and real-time farm advisories.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

10. Partners Inland fish production increased from 28.23 lakh tonnes per year in 2000-01 to 121.21 lakh tonnes per year in 2021-22

Press Information Bureau, Jun. 13, 2023

From 28.23 lakh tonnes per year in 2000-01 to 121.21 lakh tonnes per year in 2021-22, inland fish production grew by 400%.

Sagar Parikrama Yatra Phase VII which started on June 8, 2023 from Madakkara, Kerala, and covered places like Pallikkara, Bekal, Kanhangadu, Kasaragode, touched Mahe (Puducherry), Kozhikode district on June 9, 2023, Thrissur district of Kerala on June 10, 2023, reached Cochin on June 11, 2023 and has concluded at Trivandrum by covering entire coastal regions of Kerala.

Sagar Parikrama is a Government of India initiative aimed at resolving the issues of fishers and other stakeholders and facilitating their economic and overall upliftment through various schemes and programmes of fisheries implemented by the Government of India, such as Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) and KCC.

In order to facilitate interaction with fishermen, coastal communities, and stakeholders and to disseminate information about the various fisheries-related schemes and programmes being implemented by the Government; to demonstrate solidarity with all fishermen, fish farmers, and concerned stakeholders in the spirit of Aatmanirbhar Bharat; and to encourage responsible fishing, Sagar Parikrama Yatra Phase VII, which ran for five days from June 8 to June 12, 2023, was a great success.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- Industry and Manufacture

11. According to a report, Maruti Suzuki India plans to invest around US$ 5.5 billion to increase its capacity by the year 2030

IBEF, May 15, 2023

Maruti Suzuki India Limited, the largest automaker in the nation, is expected to spend more than US$ 5.5 billion to increase its production capacity to four million vehicles annually by the end of 2030, according to The Economic Times.

Further, the company believes that its proportion of digital advertising spending, which is currently around a third of the total pie, will stabilise at these levels.

The Executive Director for marketing at Maruti Suzuki India, Mr. Ram Suresh Akella mentioned that the sidelines of a Meta event in Mumbai that the proportion of digital spending had increased to 30-32% of total spending.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

engineering & innovation center in Hyderabad">

12. Medtronic announces Rs 3000 cr new investment in Telangana, to expand engineering & innovation center in Hyderabad

ET Gov. 19 May, 2023

MEIC is Medtronic’s largest research and development (R&D) center outside of the US.

Medtronic EVP & President, Surgical, Mike Marinaro and its top executives meet Telangana IT and Industries minister KT Rama Rao in New York, USA to announce its new investment on Wednesday.

In a significant move towards the growth of the healthcare technology sector in India, Medtronic plc, the global leader in healthcare technology, announced an investment of approximately Rs 3,000 crore (more than $350 mn) to expand the Medtronic Engineering & Innovation Center (MEIC) in Hyderabad. MEIC is Medtronic’s largest research and development (R&D) center outside of the US. The investment is a part of Medtronic’s overall global R&D led innovation and growth strategy, the company said in a press release in Hyderabad on Thursday. Medtronic supports the Telangana government's efforts to position Hyderabad as a global hub for healthcare technology research and innovation, it said.

This investment builds on the initial investment of $160 million in MEIC that was announced back in 2020 and expands the company’s footprint in India. MEIC currently employs 800+ people, primarily engineers, and is expected to grow to 1,500+ over the next 5-year period with the new investment. With this expansion, MEIC aims to leverage the sizeable pool of diverse and skilled talent in India involving engineering, mobile apps, application and desktop software, cloud/ web apps, data engineering, embedded software, product security, and cyber-product security. The investment will support in key healthcare technology areas like robotics, imaging and navigation, surgical technologies, and implantable technologies, the company said.

Telangana minister KT Rama Rao said, “Telangana has been a front-runner in the field of life sciences and was also one of the first states in India to recognize medical devices as a high-potential and high growth sector. The expansion of MEIC in Hyderabad is a testament to the city's robust ecosystem and Hyderabad's growing prominence in the global med-tech sector. We are thrilled to continue our support for Medtronic's growth and look forward to their continued contributions to healthcare innovation in the state and country.”

Mike Marinaro, Executive Vice President & President, Surgical, Medtronic said, “India is known as a global hub for technology innovation, and we believe in India’s potential as a growing market for healthcare innovation. Hyderabad has proven to be a strategic location for Medtronic, and we are proud to be collaborating with the Government of Telangana on this major investment in the country. We are committed to investing in India's healthcare ecosystem and delivering innovative solutions that improve patient outcomes.”

Commenting on the announcement, Divya Prakash Joshi, VP & Site Leader of MEIC said, “Investment in R&D is the foundation for innovation and progress in the healthcare technology sector. It enables us to improve patient outcomes, enhance healthcare quality, and drive economic growth. Over the years, Government of Telangana’s efforts have positioned Hyderabad as an innovation hub and healthcare ecosystem enabler. That is why we are excited for the future as the investment will unlock greater potential for the center by fueling innovation with activities contributing to the technology pipeline and creating more job opportunities.”

During the meeting, Rama Rao provided the Medtronic leadership team with an overview of various new developments and initiatives taken by the Telangana government to promote the healthcare technology sector. The minister reiterated Telangana government's commitment to supporting the growth of the healthcare technology sector in the state and facilitating such expansion projects, which in turn would help save many lives in India.

Medtronic leaders Mike Marinaro, Executive Vice President & President, Surgical, Mani Prakash, Vice President, Enterprise R&D, and Divya Prakash Joshi, Vice President & MEIC Site Leader, met the Minister for IT, Industries, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Telangana, KT Rama Rao in New York, USA to announce its new investment. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce Deptartment, and Shakthi M. Nagappan, CEO, Telangana Lifesciences, were also present on the occasion.

13. India is most advanced country in telecom, has built 2 lakh base stations for 5G in 8 months: Sunil Mittal

ET Gov., 29 May 2023

Mittal said that telecom services had enabled e-commerce, online banking, remittance of payments in rural areas, healthcare and now with the help of 5G there will be roll-out of services such as drone management and other advanced technologies.

India will become a USD 5-trillion economy by 2027, Bharti Enterprises founder and Chairman Sunil Mittal said. While speaking at a conclave on 9 years of the Narendra Modi government, Mittal said businesses in general require a decisive leadership and India after a long time not only has a government with full majority but also a leader who is recognized as a global leader.

"This country has moved to an additional USD 1.4 trillion taking us to USD 3.5 trillion, and I think the audacious target of USD 5 trillion, which a couple of years ago would have looked difficult to accomplish, is now clearly in sight. By 2027 we should be able to achieve it," Mittal said.

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He said that he personally experienced the change in the last five years.

Mittal said that India, according to him, is the most advanced country in the world as far as telecom is concerned.

"My generation grew up in the age of very deep and long shortages of telecom and connectivity to a point today where the deepest and remotest part of the country is using smartphones.

"We moved very quickly from technology shifts. India now has the fastest 5G roll-out in the world. By 2024 March India will have 5G connectivity across the country," Mittal said.

India has set up 2 lakh base stations for 5G services within eight months of the launch of the service.

Mittal said that even in remote areas people see mobile phones, radio connection and a DTH television connection.

"This to my mind is the power of technology which this government has used to its utmost power to usher in reforms and benefits for the masses. I am very proud that we are part of the industry which is a great enabler for economic growth. Today telecom services give 1-1.5 per cent additional GDP growth to this country," Mittal said.

He said that telecom services had enabled e-commerce, online banking, remittance of payments in rural areas, healthcare and now with the help of 5G there will be roll-out of services such as drone management and other advanced technologies.

14. India’s Blue Economy Sets Sail to Unlock a Sea of Opportunities!

ET, 08 Jun. 2023

India’s vast coastline provides an opportunity to produce clean drinking water sustainably. Low-temperature thermal gradients can be harnessed in environmentally friendly desalination plants, which not only produce fresh water but also generate clean electricity.

“For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself,” wrote English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh in 1829.

The blue economy encompasses the sustainable use of ocean resources for growth, job creation, and environmental sustainability. It offers a vast array of resources that have immense potential for various industries, including food, medicine, fresh water, minerals, and renewable energy. India, with its vast coastline and strategic location in the Indian Ocean, is poised to harness the potential of the blue economy and unlock a sea of opportunities. However, to realise the potential of our oceans in a sustainable way, we must embrace technology, enhance our understanding of the ocean and address climate change.

In the Indian Ocean, India has been allocated areas rich in rare metals, such as hydrothermal sulphide vents in the mid-ocean ridge area and poly-metallic nodules in the central Indian Ocean, by the International Seabed Authority. By utilising advanced technology, we can strike a balance between a sustainable future for both our economy and the ocean.

The ocean also offers numerous renewable energy sources, including tidal energy, offshore wind energy, wave energy, ocean current energy, ocean thermal energy, and salinity gradient energy. To fully harness these, it is crucial to map their availability spatially and temporally, usability, economic feasibility within the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

One of the most pressing issues related to the ocean is climate change, with its impacts being felt most strongly in polar regions such as the Arctic, Antarctic, and the Himalayas. The Arctic is warming at an alarming rate, four times faster than the global mean. The Indian Ocean is especially vulnerable due to its landlocked nature and high thermal expansion. To effectively manage these challenges, it is crucial to monitor ocean dynamics with floats, buoys, and remote sensing technologies. This allows us to predict future sea-level rise along the Indian coastline, providing insights for coastal mapping.

It is also imperative to build a strong workforce dedicated to the study of ocean biology, particularly in the field of blue biotechnology. This specialized knowledge can help extract valuable drugs, chemicals, and nutraceuticals. It is important to place emphasis on infrastructure and training to nurture young minds and foster exploration in this emerging field. Additionally, the establishment of a dedicated research vessel, made in India, will facilitate various studies encompassing all aspects of the Indian Ocean.

PM Narendra Modi’s government has taken proactive steps to safeguard its oceans and coasts. The government has launched a mission-mode project called the Deep Ocean Mission. Spearheaded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, this initiative brings together various line ministries, research institutions, and academia to tackle the multifaceted opportunities and issues plaguing the oceans.

With the implementation of the Deep Ocean Mission, the government endeavours to harness the boundless potential of the ocean and fortify India's blue economy. This ambitious initiative, aligned with the visionary agenda of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, aims to elevate the contribution of the blue economy from single-digit figures to double-digit growth in our nation’s GDP. Also, United Nation announced the decade (2021 to 2030) as the “UN decade of Ocean Science for sustainable development” seeks knowledge of Ocean, essentially to drive “the Science we need for the ocean we want”. India’s contribute to this endeavour in collaboration with various International agencies.

Ministry of Earth Sciences is dedicated to spearheading the triumph of the Deep Ocean Mission by collaborating with experts, stakeholders, and international partners.

Together, let us embark on this transformative journey to secure the future of our oceans, safeguard the well-being of coastal communities, and secure a prosperous future for our nation. By protecting and harnessing the power of our oceans, we can create a harmonious co-existence between humanity and the deep blue, leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come.

15. JLR Sets Sights on a Record 28-b in Revenues in FY24

ET, 13 Jun. 2023

Jaguar Land Rover is eyeing a record revenue of 28 billion, or about ₹2.88 lakh crore, this fiscal year on the back of improving chip supplies and buoyancy in demand for new models, it said at an investor meeting in Coventry on Monday. The Tata Motors-owned UK luxury carmaker’s forecast revenue target implies a growth of 23% on a year-on-year basis. If the company meets the targeted revenue, this would be the first time in 11 years when JLR’s revenue growth will be more than 20% for the second year in a row.

The highest annual revenue JLR has posted so far is 25.8 billion in FY18 when it sold 545,000 vehicles.

Buoyed by the expectation-free cash flow generation of 2 billion in FY24, JLR expects to become net debt zero company by next fiscal year. The company had a gross debt of 6.8 billion and cash of 3.8 billion at the end of March 2023, equaling to a net debt of 3 billion. The Solihull-based luxury carmaker has stepped up its capital expenditure by 28% to 3 billion for FY24 as it seeks to expand its EV portfolio. It expects BEV (battery electric vehicle) mix to increase to 19% in FY26 with the introduction of modular longitudinal architecture (MLA).

The MLA will underpin the electric Range Rover expected in 2024. The EV share will also accelerate with launch of electrified modular architecture (EMA) and Jaguar modular architecture programmes. JLR will focus on gaining market share in the Range Rover segment, which the company has identified as profitable. It expects its market share to increase to 17% in FY26 from 12% in the second half of FY23.

It is aiming to touch revenue of 30 billion in FY26. JLR’s volume had been impacted by chip shortage in the first half of the last fiscal year and started recovering in the second half, helping the company register a 7% volume growth at 321,362 units (ex-China JV volumes). JLR volumes rose for the first time in FY23 after declining for four straight years.

The JLR’s management indicated to investors that global chip supply constraints are easing and it has been able to mitigate risks by establishing strategic partnerships and developing direct CEO-CEO relationships.

- Services (Education, Healthcare, IT, R&D, Tourism, etc.)

16. Mobile Manufacturing In India: India on its way to dominate the global mobile manufacturing industry

ET Gov. 16 Jun. 2023

Prime Minister Modi said that India has become the second-largest producer of mobile phones in the world.

India is currently on its way to dominating the mobile manufacturing landscape. Prime Minister Modi said that India has become the second-largest producer of mobile phones in the world.

India's infrastructure, favourable government policies and large talented workforce have attracted giant global corporations. The biggest smartphone company, Apple is turning to India to manufacture its products. South Korean company Samsung has opened its largest factory in Noida. Be it manufacturing, assembling or outsourcing, India has emerged as the first destination for mobile phone companies.

A fast-developing India has strengthened its grip on technology and has allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investment in the mobile sector that has not just provided clarity around the definition of the term "manufacturing" but has given a transparent framework to investors.

Apple already assembles its mobile in India through three of its global suppliers FOXCONN and PEGATRON in Tamil Nadu and WISTRON in Karnataka.

Now this electronics behemoth is turning to India and making iPhones here under the banner of 'Make in India'. A big part of India's success in the telecom sector is its ability to innovate and deliver cost-effective products.

Indian tech and electronics company LAVA which is well known as a handset manufacturer has now become the first Indian brand to launch a consumer 5G smartphone for the domestic market.

With great infrastructure, a talented workforce and the foresight to create phones for not only the domestic market but also the overseas market, this Indian mobile manufacturer is all set to double down on its manufacturing operations.

With the launch of their Agni 2 smartphone, LAVA is now rolling out what it calls 'Made in India' phones.

According to India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) to IANS- From manufacturing to assembling to packaging, Indian mobile brands are performing remarkably well. The companies are able to produce efficient battery chargers along with meticulous phone designs. With strong support from the government, India surpassed USD 10 billion worth of Smartphone exports in the fiscal year 2022-2023.

"The mobile industry which has grown from two manufacturers to 200 manufacturers in the mobile ecosystem is a living example of success,'' said Cabinet Minister Piyush Goyal.

According to IBEF, the government has come up with a well-designed scheme that offers incentives of four to six per cent on incremental sales of mobiles manufactured in India to qualified companies for a period of five years.

With Micromax, Lava, Intex and Karbonn scripting success with low-cost phones, the Indian smartphone market is entering a hyper-growth phase. With Indian engineers who are focused on future breakthroughs and on enhancing manufacturing processes through automation and robotics, companies are able to trim down their costs whilst increasing their productivity.

With agile policies and an anti-fragile mindset, India is propelling inclusive growth in the mobile sector and is steadily emerging as an ideal development model for the world.

17. Amazon Web Services: AWS to invest $12.7 bn in building India cloud infrastructure by 2030

ET Gov. 19, May, 2023

This investment is estimated to contribute Rs 1,94,700 crore ($23.3 billion) to India's total gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030.

AWS has two data center infrastructure regions in India -- the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region, launched in 2016, and the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, launched in November 2022.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud arm of e-commerce giant Amazon, on Thursday announced plans to invest Rs 1,05,600 crore ($12.7 billion) into cloud infrastructure in India by 2030 to meet growing customer demand for cloud services in the country.

This investment is estimated to contribute Rs 1,94,700 crore ($23.3 billion) to India's total gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030.

The planned investment in data centre infrastructure in India will support an estimated average of 1,31,700 full-time equivalent jobs in Indian businesses each year, said the company.

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"PM Narendra Modi's Digital India vision is driving expansion of cloud & data centres in India," said Rajeev Chandrashekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT.

"I welcome the Amazon Web Services (AWS) investment of $12.7 billion to expand their data centres in India. It will certainly catalyse India's digital economy. MeitY is also working on a Cloud and Data Center Policy to catalyze innovation, sustainability, and growth of India Cloud," the minister added.

AWS has two data center infrastructure regions in India -- the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region, launched in 2016, and the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, launched in November 2022.

AWS has invested more than Rs 30,900 crore ($3.7 billion) in the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region between 2016 and 2022.

The company estimates that its overall contribution to the GDP of India between 2016 and 2022 was more than Rs 38,200 crore ($4.6 billion), and the investment supported approximately 39,500 jobs annually in Indian businesses.

Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS, said that he is inspired to see how the infrastructure presence since 2016 has driven such tremendous progress.

"Today we're announcing an additional planned investment of $12.7 billion for cloud infrastructure in India. That will bring our total investment to $16.4 billion by 2030 -- boosting the country's GDP, supporting tens of thousands of jobs, and continuing to help customers innovate," Selipsky tweeted.

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Puneet Chandok, president of commercial business, AWS India and South Asia (Amazon Web Services India Pvt Ltd.), said that they have trained more than four million people in India with cloud skills since 2017, and invested in six utility-scale renewable energy projects to meet the global 100 per cent renewable energy goal by 2025.

"Our planned investment will help create more beneficial ripple effects, supporting India on its path to becoming a global digital powerhouse," he added.

18. Odisha govt, Infosys, Nasscom sign MoU for enhancing employability of students in HEIs

ET Gov. 25 May 2023

The collaboration between the Odisha government, Infosys and Nasscom is aimed at imparting the right kind of skills to the students so that they become employable in high-tech industries.

The students will have open access to various levels of aligned courses, they can apply for Government of India incentives.

The Higher Education Department of Odisha Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Infosys Limited and Nasscom for undertaking up-skilling and enhancing the employability of students of Higher Education Institutions in Odisha.

A press statement from the Odisha government said that this collaboration is expected to democratize the learning of the students and prepare them to be future ready.

Infosys is working towards its ESG VIsion 2030 (Environmental, Social and Governance) by trying to inculcate digital skills to 10 million people in India. The initiative in Odisha is part of the company’s CSR program. Infosys Springboard provides a completely free curriculum-rich virtual platform that delivers corporate-grade learning experiences, on any device, with closer educator-learner collaboration for students from Class 6th to lifelong learners.

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A press statement from Infosys said, “The learning program is particularly well suited to growing vocational skills, in addition to soft skills. Masterclasses, programming challenges, and playgrounds for experimentation make the training immersive for all. This will lead to upskilling and developing the employability of approximately 8 lakh students spread across 1100 HEIs (colleges and universities) of the Higher Education Department, Government of Odisha.”

The MoU with Nasscom aims to skill the students and existing faculty in key technologies essential in today's digital ecosystem and making India a digital talent nation. As per the MoU, Nasscom is to skill 8 lakh students through future skills prime.

The students will have open access to various levels of aligned courses, they can apply for Government of India incentives, they would also be able to learn and engage with Industry experts and be part of all kinds of career development opportunities.

19. Another big-ticket investment in India! Largest stem cell 19. manufacturing plant set to open in this state by US-based firm; huge investment, jobs expected

ET Now Digital, 25 May 2023

Hyderabad on Wednesday clutched a big-ticket investment in the life sciences sector. US-based StemCures is set to establish a manufacturing lab focusing on stem cell therapy in Telangana's capital. The firm aims to create the largest stem cell manufacturing plant in India. The facility will be set up with around $54 million in investment potential and employment potential for around 150 people in a couple of phases.

This plant will focus on capitalising on the latest technology and expertise that the US has to offer to manufacture high-quality, affordable stem cell products, IANS reported, citing a statement from the Minister's office in Hyderabad.

Medical leap for Make in India

Atluri, who traces his roots to Hyderabad, said that his company already has an R&D facility in Hyderabad, noting that it was a seamless experience setting it up. The report mentioned that StemCures is culminating R&D of the stem cell line at Aspire Bionest in the University of Hyderabad.

"Now we are looking forward to expanding with the manufacturing plant," Dr Atluri said.

Hyderabad presently serves over 1,000 life sciences companies, including the top 10 pharma companies. Out of the top 10 global innovator companies in the sector, four now have a direct presence in the city through their dedicated centres.

Accessible stem cell therapy

Stem cell therapy is a treatment that uses a patient's own stem cells to treat conditions. Stem cells can become any cell in the body, so injecting them into an injured area can repair tissue, reduce inflammation, and promote healing. This happens through a non-surgical and minimally invasive treatment plan.

The announcement of the investment came at the heel of StemCures founder Dr Sairam Atluri's meeting with Telangana's IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao in Boston.

KTR called stem cell therapy a promising new treatment for a variety of conditions. "I am confident that StemCures will provide high-quality care to patients in India. I look forward to working with the clinic to make stem cell therapy more accessible to patients in India," he added.

plant set to open in this state by US-based firm; huge investment, jobs expected">

20. Proud Moment for India! This Jaipur Palace Tops the List of 10 Best Hotels in the World – Check Stunning Images, Price and Other Details of the Royal Property

ET Now Digital, 25 May 2023

Proud moment for India! This Jaipur palace tops the list of 10 best hotels in the world – check stunning images, price and other details of the royal property© Provided by Times Now

An Indian grand palace hotel – Rambagh Hotel in Rajasthan’s Jaipur – has topped the list of the 10 best hotels in the world.

The list ‘2023 Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best Top Hotels’, has been made by the renowned online travel and leisure site TripAdvisor, based on reviews on the site from throughout 2022 given by travellers for over 1.5 million hotels.

“We award Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best to hotels with a high volume of above-and-beyond reviews and opinions from our community over 12 months. Each winner has passed our rigorous trust and safety standards. Fewer than 1 per cent of TripAdvisor’s 8 million listings are awarded Best of the Best, signifying the highest level of excellence in hospitality,” said the online trip planner on its website.

The site said that amenities like pool, spa, and babysitting were loved the most by the travellers in the royal palace. Nicknamed the ‘Jewel of Jaipur’, Rambagh Palace has five-star ratings by around 5,751 people on TripAdvisor’s website.

About Rambagh Palace - History, price, and other details

Rambagh Hotel, one of the properties of Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces was originally built in 1835. Rambagh Palace has gone through many royal transitions—from the home of the queen’s favourite handmaiden to royal guesthouse and hunting lodge, and later as the residence of the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II and his queen, Maharani Gayatri Devi, according to the website of Taj Hotels.

Currently, the jewel in the Taj’s crown offers 78 stunningly restored grand luxury rooms and suites in Jaipur which were the chambers of the former Maharaja. The palace retains its elaborate splendour, extravagantly decorated with hand-carved marble ‘jalis’ or latticework, sandstone balustrades, cupolas and ‘chattris’ or cenotaphs, and elaborate Mughal Gardens.

Over the years, the Rambagh Palace has played host to several illustrious guests, such as Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Charles, and Jacqueline Kennedy, according to the website of Taj Hotels.

For a night stay in the royal Rambagh Palace, the charges can vary from Rs 29,500 to Rs 312,000 for one person.

India and the World

21. Indian state of Tamil Nadu attracts $4bn in 3 new investments

Investment Monitor, 14, Jun. 2023, Jon Whiteaker

Petronas, XyloNetics and Caterpillar are among the companies to confirm new investments in Tamil Nadu, which total more than $4bn.

Tamil Nadu, a state in south India, has announced a new set of inbound investments by foreign companies that total around $4.2bn.

Among the major investments unveiled by the government of Tamil Nadu are projects by Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas company Petronas, Switzerland-based woodwork manufacturer XyloNetics and US-based manufacturer of construction equipment Caterpillar.

The largest project by far is Petronas’ plan to produce green hydrogen in Thoothkudi, for a total investment of 34,000 crore rupees ($4.13bn). The company plans to build a green hydrogen and ammonia plant, run on solar power, on a site of about 4,000 hectares.

Petronas said in March 2023 that it was targeting the India and Australia markets for major clean energy investments, which as well as hydrogen include renewable energy and electric vehicle charging points. The company’s existing operations in India span crude oil trading, liquid petroleum gas, petrochemicals, lubricants, liquefied natural gas and renewables.

XyloNetics of Switzerland is expanding into the Indian market for the first time. It will invest 700 crore rupees to establish a manufacturing unit at the under-construction International Furniture Park in the Sipcot estate in Thoothkudi.

Caterpillar has operated in India for many decades and has existing manufacturing facilities in Tiruvallur, Hosur, Aurangabad and Banda. Its latest investment of 400 crore rupees will see the expansion of its construction equipment manufacturing facility in Tiruvallur, which is the company’s oldest factory in the country, having opened in 1971.

India was the most popular foreign direct investment destination for job creation in 2022, benefitting from a decline in inbound investment in China.

22. IITs, IIMs Eye Foreign Student Enrolment, Campuses Abroad

ET, 15, Jun. 2023

India’s top colleges are going global. Leading engineering and management colleges, Indian Institutes of Technology, and Indian Institutes of Management are now eyeing enrolment of foreign students.

IIM Nagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Madras weighing campuses outside India.

Some are looking to set up campuses abroad, while most others are looking to increase the number of programme offerings-both online and offline- through local partners in the host country.

Among the ones currently looking at setting up campuses outside India are IIM Nagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Madras, while other leading IITs and IIMs too have plans.

A global campus will help the premier colleges in building a global brand and recognition, attract foreign faculty and bring in diversity in education and research, officials said.

National Education Policy 2020 encourages high performing Indian institutes to set up campuses in other countries.

IIT Madras is in active discussions to set up an offshore campus in Zanzibar, Tanzania, according to Preeti Aghalayam, its advisor (Office of Global Engagement). This campus is expected to be operational by the second half of 2023.

“The plan is meant as a partnership/collaboration between the two governments and IIT Madras. IITM will bring the expertise in institution building, teaching and research excellence,” said Aghalayam.

IIT Madras is looking to offer full time undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in data science and artificial intelligence.

“NEP 2020 encourages Indian colleges to take brand India abroad and most leading institutes are working towards the same,” said Dr Bhimaraya Metri, director IIM Nagpur. “The entrance to foreign campuses is likely to be based on the law of the land of that country,” said Metri. IIM Nagpur is planning to set up a campus in Singapore by 2025, Metri said.

Most IITs and IIMs are offering courses to foreign students either along with collaboration with local partners in the host country or through online mode. For instance, IIM Ahmedabad has been offering general management programme (GMP) in Dubai since 2010 to over 20 batches.

“We are currently looking at increasing the number of executive education programmes in Dubai this year,” Bharat Bhaskar, director, IIM Ahmedabad told ET.

IIM Indore is open to setting up a campus outside India seeing the huge global response but has not chalked out any immediate plans, according to its director, Himanshu Rai.

“There are no immediate plans but the growing demand for executive courses in the UAE and GCC nations, coupled with our expanding alumni base of over 600 professionals, provides a strong foundation for potential future endeavours,” Rai said.

However, the timeline for such a venture is yet to be determined, he added.

With an established presence in terms of course offerings in foreign lands, the next step for most is to set up campuses, said another director of an IIM who did not wish to be named.

23. Lufthansa Looks to Partner Air India in Expansion Push

ET, 05 Jun. 2023

German airline Lufthansa is looking to form a strong partnership with Tata Group-owned Air India for growing its business in India.

While Lufthansa will expand its own flights to India, a partnership with Air India will be a strong point of its India expansion policy, chief executive Carsten Spohr told Economic Times on Sunday.

“Our India expansion strategy is twofold. The first is to expand as a Lufthansa group through our own aircraft. The second pillar is to work closely with Air India,” Spohr said on the sidelines of the 79th IATA AGM and World Air Transport Summit here.

People in the know said the two airlines were working towards a metal neutral joint venture on the India-Frankfurt route where revenues earned by both airlines will be shared irrespective of whose aircraft it is.

Spohr said while Lufthansa wanted to always partner with Air India, the Indian carrier wasn't utilizing its full potential when it was under government ownership. “With Tata and Singapore airlines, it's a changed Air India and we are looking for a strong partnership,” Spohr said, while declining to comment on the specifics of the commercial partnership. The cooperation of the airlines is likely to expand to other services Lufthansa Group offers — cargo, MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul), training and IT. “I am confident there are many areas for deepening the partnership between Air India and Lufthansa,” he said.

The German airline had earlier told ET that it was interested in bidding for Air India Engineering Services, the MRO firm that the government will put up for sale.

While Lufthansa has always had a strong presence in India, Gulf carriers like Emirates and Qatar have been successful to wean away transit traffic to Europe and North America via Middle East hubs like Dubai and Doha. A partnership with Air India will help Lufthansa in its fight with the Middle East carriers.

Spohr said as compared to other parts of the world, India has recognized aviation as a pillar of economy. “India is an opportunity and it is our job to expand there,” he said.

Japan, India and China are three markets where the German airline has a strong presence.

“This summer, we will be the largest airline group between India and Europe with 56 weekly flights,” Spohr said. “We are the number one European airline group serving all three markets and we will expand rapidly there,” he added.

24. Industry consolidation good for healthy, growing aviation ecosystem, and returns: Air India CEO Campbell

ET, 05 Jun. 2023

A year into the job, CEO of Tata-owned Air India, Wilson Campbell feels India’s airline market is amid a phase that emerging markets, US and Europe have already gone through and now sees only IndiGo as its principal competitor. Speaking to ET Prime, Campbell spoke about Go First’s impact, sky high airfares, restructuring plans and the way forward for Air India.

New Zealand-born Air India’s first expat CEO Wilson Campbell, 52, completes a year this month in India.

For Campbell, a former Singapore Airlines executive who now lives out of Gurugram’s The Leela Ambience — where many of Singapore Airlines’ deputed staff have stayed before to run Vistara — the past year has been full of crises ranging from ‘peegate’ to DGCA slapping fines for inaction on the airline to industrial action threats etc.

In the months gone by, while the airline’s food and on-time performance have certainly improved, many passengers still find little change in flying Tata-Singapore Airlines’ backed Air India.

In Gurugram’s new Air India office, a poor cousin of Vistara’s swanky setup a few kilometres away, where even car parking is hard to find for Air India staffers, Campbell took questions on the road ahead for the former “national carrier”.

Here are some edited excerpts:

From your Singapore Airlines experience, what learnings have you been able to implant here and what has not been implantable?

I think I've been through a startup (as CEO of Singapore Airlines owned Scoot). And there are a lot of aspects of a startup in Air India today, such as, the transformation of a legacy airline, induction of new aircraft, modernisation of systems, alignment of culture, running of an airline, understanding how different parts of an airline work together, need to work together. It's a difficult question to answer simply because if you haven't done it, you don't know.

While the airline’s in-flight food and on-time performance has improved, what would you say have been the big misses so far?

I think the challenge with this turnaround was always the scale. And then as a consequence, the time that it would take, and then the scale and the time against the expectation, the expectation, driven by, obviously, people's desire for Air India to represent the nation and their own image. So I think that's probably… I wouldn't at all call it a miss… because it was just an inevitable scenario. But managing all of the things that we've been doing to improve product service, fleet, reliability, whatever else.

But it is the beginning of a journey that is not yet finished. And we've been very explicit that it's a multi-year journey and it will only rollover over time. But of course, everyone wants it to happen fast, faster, fastest. Since September, we're really just talking about what it is that we're doing (in the form of Friday notes by CEO to employees etc.). I believe that people are going to be wanting a lot of things fixed. And a lot of things can't be fixed overnight.

So what we thought we should at least do is let people know what we're fixing so that it gives people confidence that we're eventually going to get to the issue that you care about. And again its part of managing expectations knowing that expectations are high. But probably they're not informed by how long it takes to change something.

[There are] supply-chain constraints, regulatory constraints, production constraints, hangar constraints. Now, if we could change all the seats tomorrow, of course we will. It's not a matter of money. We've already decided the seats we want in the future, they need to be built. They need to be certified. They need to be transported. They need to be fitted. It takes time.

I believe the new Air India branding is almost done and would be unveiled soon?

I won't speak on it, but certainly there's been a lot of work happening over the past few months on brand and all of the associated things. And so yes, I think that's something that people should be excited about I hope.

I understand the brand colour will remain red, which is the dominant color of Air India, but the Swan logo on the tail be replaced?

I will not be passing any comment whatsoever.

When will the first aircraft come with the new livery?

It's still to be decided. But hopefully not too far.

Like with the first Airbus A350?

Perhaps, perhaps.

The first one comes in October?

First one is on track to be delivered around October.

And that flies to New Zealand?

Ha ha, no. Probably, initially the aircraft will fly domestically. We need to get the crew and everyone familiarised with training. It'll be a while before it flies long haul because you need to have certain operating experience of aircraft type, crew, in order to do, for example, ultra long-haul operations. So it's going to be a progressive ramp up, rollout and deployment.

The erstwhile engineering arm of Air India, AIESL, is still government-owned and that has been a problem for you - most airlines have their own in-house engineers. Are you gearing up to have your own engineering setup?

It was the biggest challenge that we didn't have an in-house maintenance organisation — you're used to having a closer association with your key engineering provider. And so that association, sort of disassociation, has led us to have to do a few things. One, we have to build a whole airline competency of engineering again. So that's been a lot of the work that's happened so far, then there was clearly a strong value to have line maintenance performed in-house by the airline.

Air India didn't have the licence to do it, because that went with AIESL, but Air Asia and subject to regulatory approval with the Vistara coming in, they will also have engineering ability so we can build a line maintenance capability with them to serve our aircraft.

But beyond that, it's more about base maintenance. And so we're doing some studies on what base maintenance infrastructure we would need? Where would we need it? What specific functionalities should they be able to perform? How do we build those functionalities? Can we buy some of those functionalities? What role does AIESL play in that whole future? So all of that is something that we'll be working on?

Will you look at having the entire engineering set up on your own for the next foreseeable future, or will you wait for AIESL to get privatised?

So we've been studying what we want, how we get what we want, whether it's build, buy, borrow — that's probably a combination of all three. But what we got board approval for was to get the licence to apply for the DGCA licence to do in-house line maintenance. So that's what we got at the beginning of the year.

You would obviously bid for AIESL when it comes for privatisation?

No, I think it's premature to say that. We would never say no to anything if at the right price. But then what's cheap is good. What's good is cheap. Is the functionality with what a modern day life requires? Who knows, we don't know what's for sale, we'd have to do due diligence, there needs to be a price, there needs to be a strategic fit, there needs to be a physical fit, there needs to be a competency.

Will Air India Express and Air India have two different kinds of domestic networks? How will those networks be developed?

The two will be operated complementarily, there'll be the ability for people to travel on one and connect to the other. And that's just an augmentation of the combined network. So there's the opportunity to make sure that the customer experience is somewhat moderated. That when you're flying on a low-cost carrier, for example, if you choose a particular fare product, you might get cheap baggage and you might get a meal, which essentially becomes a similar product to a FSC.

But Air India gives complimentary meals, for example, but LCCs like Air India Express sell onboard?

Clearly, the LCC will offer things for sale on-board. And so if you're buying a ticket that is sold by the FSC, that allows you to have a connection on the LCC sector. The meal and the baggage might be part of the pre-booked (product). So you're not buying on board, you're just served on board.

How will this be with Vistara?

Vistara disappears at some point. And so there's no alignment. It's simply just this one. Okay, so the alignment presently is happening, really between the FSC and the low-cost carrier. At the moment, we're deploying more full service capacity on metro to metro routes. And the secondary and tertiary markets are typically moving towards a little bit more low-cost operation.

Where there are significant connections from international service that we feel it's important to have a continuation of the full-service product. So, if you look back at some of the realignment we've done between Air India and Air India Express to a lesser extent, but particularly Air Asia, you will have seen this manifest.

And how will Southeast Asia and the Middle East be handled where both airlines fly?

Very much depends on what is the market structure and profile, what's the thickness of the route, what market segments are operating on the route. So there are plenty of markets where we can operate both FSC and LCC. And so they will operate in parallel, complementarily. In other markets, we might skew more towards one than the other, they very much depend on what's the market structure.

What's been the progress on the merger with Vistara?

The application for CCI approval has gone, that's going to be considered by the authorities. Only once we hit clearance, then we can execute anything. Although we're planning on what would happen presuming we get approval now. If it is approved, then it's probably six months or seven months, between that point and when we could do a legal merger, essentially complete the transaction. And then probably a year or so from that point before we could merge the AOCs (airline licences).

When will Singapore Airlines officially become part of Air India then?

That will happen only after this entire process is complete. So, legal merger.

When do you expect this approval of CCI to come in?

Well, we don't control that process. I think there's a statutory limit on consideration. I think it is 200 days.

When did the application go to CCI?

Three weeks back.

While there have been some supply-side constraints, the airfares have been soaring. When do you see airfares going down and supply constraints getting sorted?

It is a function of supply and demand. I think around the world, we've seen demand recover much faster than anyone expected. And not only demand recovered that propensity to pay recovered, because people had pent up savings. And which is why you see such high demand for first and business class, even leisure first class, relative to what we saw before Covid-19. So that took everyone by surprise, I think the supply took a while to come back into the market. The world supply-chain constraints, many of them had some contribution from China, which remained close for a lot longer than the rest of the world.

Some airlines have only just started coming back into the market again, Chinese carriers in particular. And then you had very, very high fuel prices as a consequence of the (Ukraine-Russia) war and other things. And so we're only now starting to see that moderate in the last few weeks.

So these things will just run their course as a cyclical industry, it's a cyclical economy, fuel prices are also volatile. All I can say is it will change, what direction it will change, how much it will change? I don't know.

Since April there was an expectation in Air India and Vistara after the whole BCG “Hobson Test” exercise that you will announce one common group leadership structure and do away with duplication in leadership roles that you have landed with now. What happened to that?

You seem to live on rumour and speculation. Then you treat it as fact.

(Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan had told some staff members and confirmed to ET Prime in a March interview that a new group structure is going to be announced in April.)

Are you waiting for CCI clearance to announce it?

No.

So there is no timeline as such for that?

We'll just have to run through quite a few processes, make sure that everything is aligned and ready to go before we are ready to communicate.

The engineering head position though is quite clear now as Arun Kashyap has gone back to SpiceJet and Sisira Dash from Vistara has taken over his role?

Yes.

You recently said that Emirates should not sell much beyond their hub and focus their traffic on carrying people to their hub. You also said India should not open its market further to them. This can be turned around too — Singapore Airlines which is an investor in Air India has been feeding its hub from Indian traffic and taking them beyond to US etc. How will you balance Singapore Airlines’ interest that they may have and also compete and collaborate going forward?

In the event that the Vistara merger goes through and they become a financial investor, to the extent that we do say that we consider their interest, it is just the same as any other shareholder, which is we exist to provide them a financial return. And that financial return comes from our success. And if our success comes through whatever actions that we take — flying, products, service, partnerships with anyone — that's the business that we're in. We have a fiduciary responsibility to provide a return to my shareholder.

How do you see the Indian market itself changing now with Go First’s current grounding?

It is obviously a shame to see any, any company fail. Unfortunately, it's just the latest of many airline failures in India, which I guess leads you to think that perhaps the market structure wasn't a healthy one. It wasn't a sustainable one for many, many airlines. And so I think what we've seen in India, over the past decade or so with this repeated cycle of failures is probably not dissimilar to what we saw in other emerging aviation markets over history as well.

We've seen progressive consolidation in North America, in Europe and other markets. And that does seem to be a requirement to have a healthy, stable, growing aviation ecosystem. So maybe what we're seeing here is just a repeat of what has happened elsewhere. We've committed significant money to expand capacity, as has our principal competitor (IndiGo). I think we would like a financial return from that investment. But I think the fact that we're prepared to make a financial investment indicates that we, we want to see and we will certainly contribute to a market structure that is ultimately sustainable and successful.

As you put it, your principal competitor is IndiGo which has said they will have 600 planes in their fleet by the end of the decade up from 300 plus now. What’s going to be that number for you?

Well, I think 470 is a lot of aircraft on top of the ones that we have, many of which will continue to operate for quite some time. But the order that we've made certainly won't be the last order we made. We still see that there's a lot of opportunity that we will be able to tap beyond the aircraft. But I think we need to not get ahead of ourselves and build what we have first. We're talking about 300 by the end of 2024 and 350ish by 2025. But that's assuming we don't accelerate anything.

What do you want your international domestic market share to be and what is the mix right now?

I think we've been quite clear that we want about a 30% market share, to begin with domestically. About a 30% market share internationally. At the moment, if you include Vistara, we're about 25% domestically. So we've got more growth to do, and recognising that it's probably a growing market. Internationally we're about 12%-13%.

Any provisional numbers on the loss incurred for the fiscal gone by for Air India? Also do you see the airline listing at stock exchanges at some point of time?

No. I think we've also said that we've doubled daily revenues, and that was quite some months ago, it's certainly gone up a lot since, average load factors are extremely high. Rask (revenue per available seat kilometre) is extremely high. Punctuality obviously has gone up significantly. So, on every metric, I think there's a significant improvement. But no, we don't talk about financial numbers. That’s (listing) for the shareholders to decide.

Finally, when do you think Air India will become profitable?

Even answering that question gives you fodder. So I'm not even going to answer that.

25. IndiGo to start 174 new international flights by September; Nairobi, Jakarta, Baku, Tashkent among them

ToI, 5 June 2023 The Times of India

IndiGo to start 174 new international flights by September; Nairobi, Jakarta, Baku, Tashkent among them© Provided by The Times of India

AHMEDABAD: By August, Mumbai will get a direct IndiGo flight to Nairobi in Kenya and Jakarta in Indonesia. And, Delhi will get connected to Tbilisi in Georgia and Baku in Azerbaijan in August, besides Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Almaty in Kazakhstan, in September. The airline is adding 174 new weekly international flights between June and September 2023.

IndiGo will also resume daily flights between Delhi and Hong Kong in August. This flight was suspended three years ago during Covid.

IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers said the addition of "these exciting new destinations, new direct flight routes, enhanced flight frequencies and strategic codeshare partnerships will help us expand our footprint across four continents with Africa and Central Asia being penetrated for the first time". "With this expansion in our network, we will now be directly touching 32 international destinations (up from 26), next to our 78 domestic destinations.”

IndiGo said its Middle East expansion plans include launching more direct flights from Dammam to Lucknow, Chennai and Kochi; Abu Dhabi to Goa, Lucknow and Ahmedabad; Ras Al Khaimah to Hyderabad; Bahrain to Kochi; and Jeddah to Ahmedabad over the next few months. There will be an array of increased frequencies between Mumbai-Dhaka in August 2023.

The airline is also planning international flights from North Goa Airport. The airline will commence exclusive flights from Bhubaneshwar to Singapore and Bangkok from June 2023.

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AAPI

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