AAPI: February 2019

DELHI, 20th February 2019

Index of this Newsletter

INDIA

INDIA & THE WORLD

21.1. Air passenger traffic to grow sixfold by 2040: Report
21.2. Byju's acquires US-based Osmo for US$ 120 million
22.1. MSME exports cross USD 147390 Million in 2017-18
22.2. Gig economy has jobs, but long hours, no security and little pay
23.1. India's exports up 32 pc to China, 12 pc to US during June-Nov 2018: FIEO
23.2. JLF 2019: A galaxy of literary stars in Jaipur
24.1. Two-wheeler exports from India rise 19.5 pc in Apr-Jan
24.2. India pips Japan to be second largest global steel producer
25.1. New Delhi begins expanding its diplomatic footprint in Africa
25.2. L&T Hydrocarbon bags over Rs 7,000 cr order from Algeria's Sonatrach

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DELHI, 20th February 2019

NEWSLETTER, 20-II-2019

INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

1.1. FM: India now 6th largest economy in the world with high growth

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 4, 2019

Fiscal deficit down to 3.4%; average inflation 4.6% FDI of USD 239 BN in five years Banks recover Rs 3 Lakh Crores in outstanding loans

New Delhi: Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, the country has witnessed its best phase of macro-economic stability, becoming the sixth largest economy in the world from being the 11th in the World in 2013-14. Presenting the Interim Budget for the year 2019-20 in Parliament today, the Union Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs, Railways & Coal, Shri Piyush Goyal said “India is the fastest growing major economy in the world” with an average GDP growth of 7.3% per annum, the highest ever achieved by any Government since economic reforms began in 1991. Shri Goyal said under the leadership of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, a clean, decisive and stable Government reversed the policy paralysis, laid foundation for sustainable growth and restored the image of the country.

New India by 2022

Shri Goyal said that a New India would celebrate its 75th Independence year in 2022 when every family would have a house with access to water, electricity and toilets; farmers income would have doubled; and the country would be free from terrorism, communalism, corruption and nepotism

Fiscal Deficit and Inflation down

Outlining the broad picture of the State of the Economy, Shri Goyal said the fiscal deficit has been brought down to 3.4% in 2018-19 Revised Estimates from the high of 5.8% in 2011-12 and 4.9 % in 2012-13. Average inflation has been brought down to 4.6% from the high of 10.1% during 2000-2014. In December 2018 inflation was 2.19% only. The Finance Minister said, the Current Account Deficit (CAD) is likely to be only 2.5% of GDP this year, against a high of 5.6% six years ago.

Shri Goyal said due to strong fundamentals and stable regulatory regime, the country attracted $239 billion as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) during the last five years. He cited Goods and Services Tax (GST) as a path breaking next generation structural tax reform undertaken by the Government.

Recovery of Bank Loans

Highlighting the Banking Reforms, Shri Goyal said the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code has institutionalised a resolution-friendly mechanism and nearly Rs. 3 lakh crores has been recovered by Banks and creditors. He said high stressed non-performing assets (NPAs) amounted to Rs. 5.4 lakh crore in 2014. Since 2015, numerous Asset Quality Reviews and inspections were carried out, and the 4Rs approach of recognition, resolution, re-capitalisation and reforms has been followed. Highlighting the restoration of the health of the Public Sector Banks, the Finance Minister said that recapitalisation has been done with an investment of Rs. 2.6 lakh crore.

Steps against corruption

Listing out the measures undertaken by the Government to bring about a New Era of transparency in Real Estate Sector, the Finance Minister mentioned about The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) and Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Act. He said the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 is helping to confiscate and dispose off the assets of economic offenders, who escape the jurisdiction of the country. He said the Government conducted transparent auction of natural resources including coal and spectrum.

Cleanliness

Highlighting the achievements of Swachhata Mission launched by the present government led by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Shri Goyal said the country achieved nearly 98% rural sanitation coverage with as many as 5.45 lakh villages being declared open defecation free.

EWS Reservation

To ensure 10% reservation in educational institutions and Government jobs for economically weaker sections, the Government will provide for 25% extra seats i.e. around 2 lacs, while maintaining the existing reservation for SC/ST/Other Backward Classes.

Food grains for poor

To provide food grains at affordable prices to the poor and middle classes, the Finance Minister said about Rs 1,70,000 crore was spent in 2018-19. Rs 60,000 crore has been allocated for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the Budget Estimate of 2019-20.

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

1.2. Opinion | India’s education sector needs a quantum shift

Livemint, 17 Jan. 2019.

Indian children have a huge learning deficit, and governments and civil society need to focus on higher spending on education, political willingness and education of teachers

The quality of education has a direct bearing on any economy. With some 240 million students or nearly 20% of the Indian population in school, their quality of learning or lack of it assumes significance for the competitiveness of the country. Quality of education has been a prickly issue in India for several years as it has an impact on the quality of life, efficiency at the workplace, and labour productivity issues. The latest Annual Status Of Education Report 2018 (Rural) or ASER 2018 holds a mirror to a country that is aspiring to be a knowledge power. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said on 26 September 2014 that there is no dearth of talent in India and “Mars success should be made an opportunity to make the world aware of Indian talent”, the ASER report shows Indian children have a huge learning deficit. The highly respected annual report, which collected data from 596 districts in India, shows that one in two students (50.3%) in Indian schools lack basic reading ability not just of their own grade but also of those of three levels below. This is a 2.2 percentage point increase compared with the situation in 2014 and a dip of 3.1 percentage points compared with 2010. The situation with regard to arithmetic is equally abysmal—just 44.1% of class VIII students can do simple division. This strike rate is almost same as in 2014 and 4 percentage points less when compared with 2012.

This poor learning outcome in India is despite the Right to Education (RTE) Act having been in force since April 2010 making eight years of education compulsory for children and the Centre floating schemes such as “Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat”, apart from states’ efforts. Access to elementary (classes I-VIII) schooling is almost universal and the number of children out of schools is below 4%, but a quality deficit, that too for more than a decade, raises questions about the priorities of governments at the central and state levels. The situation is bad at the secondary level too. In the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) report of 2011, India is placed only ahead of Kyrgyzstan in learning standards in a survey of students from 74 countries. Last year, the World Bank said Indians born today are likely to be just 44% productive as workers, way below their Asian peers.

Some may argue that the ASER data or the other surveys are only reiterating a problem without offering solutions, but experts and academicians feel that highlighting the problem over the last 14 years has only brought in awareness among all stakeholders, including the political class both at the centre and in states. As Yamini Aiyar, president of the Centre for Policy Research, points out, it is a long time to have only awareness, and a quantum jump in the education sector is the need of the hour. As the problem has now been diagnosed and public advocacy has got the momentum, the governments and civil society need to focus on three aspects—a bigger spending on education, maybe 6% of gross domestic product instead of the present 2.7%, political willingness to improve education, and a drastic change in the quality of teacher education. Nine years after RTE, more than 600,000 teachers are untrained and the quality of training schools is worse. Teachers’ efficiency will improve only with administrative incentives, better pay and a systematic change in the professional development of this cohort.

2.1. India Can Hide Unemployment Data, but Not the Truth

The New York Times, Feb. 1, 2019, Kaushik Basu

India has a job crisis, and the government would rather you didn’t notice. Last month, it hastily amended the Constitution to set aside 10 percent of all government posts for the “economically weak.” But it defined the “economically weak” as anybody from a household earning less than 800,000 rupees, roughly $11,200, a year or owning a very tiny bit of land. And as the sociologist Sonalde Desai has argued, that covers about 95 percent of India’s population.

A quota that includes virtually everybody means little. But the new 10 percent quota is even worse than that: It contains a caveat that explicitly leaves out individuals belonging to India’s disadvantaged castes, who benefit from other affirmative action measures. That’s a little bit as if the United States government announced that it was reserving 10 percent of government jobs for all but the richest 5 percent of Americans, and African Americans need not apply.

How did India get to this point, especially on the watch of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came to power in 2014 partly on the back of promises to create more jobs? Back then, the manifesto of his Bharatiya Janata Party had called India’s labor force “the pillar of our growth.”

According to data released by the Labour Bureau, a wing of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, unemployment in 2013-14 was 4.9 percent. But an undisclosed study by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), a government agency that conducts large-scale research, has reportedly placed the figure for 2017-18 at 6.1 percent — a 45-year high.

Measuring employment is inherently difficult in India. One reason is that the standard definition of what constitutes work — being in regular employment for a certain number of hours and a regular salary — comes from industrialized nations. Yet according to various reports, more than 80 percent of Indians who are working or seeking work are in the informal sector, many of them doing odd jobs for multiple employers. Their activity is far more complicated for economists to measure accurately.

Making matters worse — and fueling speculation that the unemployment situation in India is even more dire than suspected — the government has withheld official data about jobs. The two members of the NSSO who were not government officials resigned this week, in protest over the decision to not release their office’s results even though those had been cleared for publication.

The other official source economists have traditionally turned to are the employment statistics of the Labour Bureau. The office had been releasing this data regularly for nearly a decade — until 2016, when the Labour Ministry suddenly decided to discontinue the series.

This information blackout is uncharacteristic for India, which has been praised, including by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton, for playing a pioneering role, globally, in statistical data collection.

Now, analysts have to rely on other sources, indirect evidence and private studies.

The findings from those are alarming.

The Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy, a well-respected business information company that collects primary data on various aspects of the Indian economy, estimates that the country’s unemployment rate in December 2018 reached 7.38 percent.

According to the “State of Working India 2018,” a large study conducted by the Center for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University, India’s youth unemployment now stands at 16 percent. Women hold just 16 percent of jobs in the service sector. In 2011, only 13 percent of senior officers, legislators and managers were women; by 2015, the figure had dropped to 7 percent.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that people are hurting. Early last year, Indian Railways advertised about 89,400 new jobs. Government posts always are coveted in India — they mean job security and a decent salary — but more than 23 million adults applied for these positions, defying all expectations. Earlier this year, the secretariat of the government of Maharashtra, a state in west-central India, advertised 13 waiting jobs in its canteen. There were 7,000 applicants, many of them university graduates.

India’s growth rate remains robust, but the benefits of the country’s growth have been concentrated almost entirely at the top, with grim implications for the working classes and the lower-middle classes, women and the young.

These effects aren’t just the accidental results of the government’s decision, say, to ban certain currency bills in late 2016 (which proved to be terribly misguided) or to transform the indirect tax system into the new Goods and Services Tax (a move in the right direction but that was poorly executed and hurt small businesses). Inequality has grown, in numerous ways, a recent report indicates.

The Modi government’s economic policy has been disproportionately focused on a few big corporations, neglecting small firms and traders, the agricultural sector and most workers. The results are now showing.

Kaushik Basu, the C. Marks Professor of International Studies and professor of economics at Cornell University, was chief economic adviser to the Indian government in 2009-12 and chief economist of the World Bank in 2012-16.

3.1. Opinion | India now a key player in neglected disease treatment

Livemint, 4 Feb 2019, Soumya Swaminathan

The Indian govt is helping to build a thriving community of scientists working to solve health issues

Some of the hardest moments of my career were from my years as a paediatrician, when children came to my clinic and I lacked treatment to cure them—or, existing treatment was painful, unreliable or expensive. As a researcher at the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, and through my work leading the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), I witnessed firsthand the huge potential of science to develop new tools and strategies that not only curb disease, but also the dejection and frustration that children, families and doctors too often experience when the medical field fails to offer good solutions to life-threatening problems.

As deputy director-general of programmes for the World Health Organization (WHO), my work looks quite different but my goal remains unchanged: to ensure more people have access to quality, affordable healthcare that meets their needs.

Developing new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics will be critical to achieving this goal. We have seen the power of science and innovation throughout history to dramatically improve health and lift generations out of poverty, from penicillin to the meningitis vaccine. But it is important to remember that breakthroughs require time, patience, partners and significant investment.

That’s why it’s been encouraging to see the Indian government increasingly invest in health innovation. The annual G-Finder report, the world’s most comprehensive analysis of neglected disease research investments, released by Policy Cures Research on 30 January highlights India’s leadership. According to the report, the Indian government scaled its contribution by 38% to $76 million in 2017, upholding its position as the fourth-largest public funder globally.

Moreover, the report calls out India as a key driver of 2017’s overall increase in global public funding. A large part of this increase came from ICMR, which substantially increased its investments in malaria, TB and other neglected tropical diseases. For the first time ever, ICMR has been placed in the top four largest funders of TB research and development (R&D). It is also the only organization from low- and middle-income countries to feature in the top 12 funders.

As important, the Indian government is helping to build a thriving community of scientists working to solve health challenges and connecting startups to create a sustainable ecosystem. Apart from providing funding, the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council has developed an ecosystem of programmes and schemes that provide holistic support to startups and small and medium enterprises.

The year 2018 was testament to that value of India’s investments, with the country at the forefront of many exciting scientific advancements. For example, the new triple drug therapy for eliminating lymphatic filariasis (LF) was launched in December 2018. Unlike traditional LF treatments, a single dose of the new triple-drug therapy is enough to kill the adult worm, making it significantly faster, easier and cheaper to cure people. India, which bears 40% of the global disease burden, is the first country in South-East Asia to introduce the new treatment regimen.

Another area of progress is vaccines. In just the past year, two Indian manufactured vaccines (for typhoid and rotavirus) received WHO prequalification. India has also made strides developing affordable and accurate diagnostic tools, including a point-of-care molecular detection platform that can detect a variety of infectious agents. Such innovations will enable better diagnosis and treatment at the primary health centre level.

While these are reasons to celebrate, millions continue to suffer and die each year from diseases that we don’t have the tools to adequately address. Take tuberculosis, a disease with nearly 3 million new cases each year in India, the highest burden in the world. Current treatments are complex and expensive, requiring six months to two years of daily treatment. Moreover, a growing portion of new cases are resistant to existing drugs. An effective TB vaccine for adults could save millions from being newly infected, and therapies to shorten treatment and combat drug-resistant strains could save many more.

Yet, research projects for TB and other diseases are still too often grossly underfunded. WHO recommends that countries donate .01% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to research the health needs of developing countries. In 2017, despite increases, not a single country met this target. Only the US and the UK came somewhat close, underscoring that there is still a long way to go.

Scientific breakthroughs are possible, but far from inevitable. India’s leadership in this space is encouraging, as is its vision for the future: by 2030, the government aims to place India among the top three countries globally in science and technology. To realize this ambition, India will need to sustain science funding and find new ways to incentivize urgently needed innovation. The cutting-edge expertise and technology of the private sector and strong international partnerships will be key. And India will need to ensure that new and existing innovations reach the people who need them the most through parallel investments in its health system. With global funding in 2017 touching the highest level in more than a decade, there has never been more momentum behind research to speed up the fight against neglected diseases. From LF to TB, India is, and must continue to be, a leader in that fight.

3.2. 478,670 Houses Sanctioned Under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(Urban) in the 42nd CSMC

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 01, 2019

Cumulative no of Houses Sanctioned Under PMAY(U) Now More Than 72.66 Lakh

Andhra Pradesh Gets 1,05,956 Houses, West Bengal– 1,02,895, Uttar Pradesh-91,689, Tamil Nadu – 68,110, Madhya Pradesh – 35,377, Kerala – 25,059, Maharashtra – 17,817, Odisha – 12,290, Bihar – 10,269 And Uttarkhand – 9,208

New Delhi: The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has approved the construction of another 478,670 more affordable houses for the benefit of urban poor under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban). The approval was given in the 42nd meeting of the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee held here yesterday. The cumulative number of houses sanctioned under PMAY(U) now is 7,265,763.

Andhra Pradesh has been sanctioned 105,956 houses while the sanction for West Bengal is 102,895 houses. The number of houses sanctioned for Uttar Pradesh is 91,689, while Tamil Nadu has been sanctioned 68,110. Madhya Pradesh has been sanctioned 35,377 houses and the sanction for Kerala is 25,059 houses. The number of houses sanctioned for Maharashtra is 17,817 while Odisha has been sanctioned 12,290. Bihar has been sanctioned 10,269 houses while the sanction for Uttarkhandis 9,208 houses.

A total of 940 projects with a project cost of Rs22,492 crore with central assistance of Rs7,180 crore has been approved in the meeting held under the Chairmanship of ShriDurga Shankar Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

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

4.1. Government proposes to launch mega pension yojana 'Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan' for unorganised sector workers with monthly income upto rs. 15,000; 100 million Labourers and workers in the sector to be benefitted

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 4, 2019

New Delhi: The Government proposes to launch a mega pension yojana namely 'Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan' for the unorganised sector workers with monthly income upto Rs. 15,000. While presenting the Interim Budget 2019-20 in Parliament today, the Union Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs, Railways and Coal, Shri Piyush Goyal said that half of India’s GDP comes from the sweat and toil of 42 crore workers in the unorganised sector working as street vendors, rickshaw pullers, construction workers, rag pickers, agricultural workers, beedi workers, handloom, leather and in numerous other similar occupations. The Government must provide them comprehensive social security coverage for their old age. Therefore, in addition to the health coverage provided under ‘Ayushman Bharat’ and life & disability coverage provided under ‘Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana’ and ‘Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana’, our Government proposes to launch a mega pension yojana namely 'Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan' for the unorganised sector workers with monthly income upto Rs. 15,000.

Shri Goyal said that this pension yojana shall provide them an assured monthly pension of Rs. 3,000 from the age of 60 years on a monthly contribution of a small affordable amount during their working age. An unorganised sector worker joining pension yojana at the age of 29 years will have to contribute only Rs. 100 per month till the age of 60 years. A worker joining the pension yojana at 18 years, will have to contribute as little as Rs. 55 per month only. The Government will deposit equal matching share in the pension account of the worker every month. It is expected that at least 10 crore labourers and workers in the unorganised sector will avail the benefit of 'Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan' within next five years making it one of the largest pension schemes of the world. A sum of Rs. 500 crore has been allocated for the Scheme. Additional funds will be provided as needed. The scheme will also be implemented from the current year.

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

4.2. Assam tops in budgetary practices followed by states: Transparency International

PTI, Feb 01, 2019

New Delhi: Assam occupied the top slot in the ranking of best practices followed by states in Budget formulation, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, says a survey by Transparency International.

The survey is based on 4 parameters which include public disclosure, budgetary process, post budget fiscal management and efforts to make budget more transparent and citizen friendly.

The states which figured lower in the ranking were Meghalaya, Manipur and Punjab.

"Assam is the only state out of the 29 states and 2 UTs, which has published a Citizens Budget in the public domain. The Assam government is the only government that has conducted budget awareness campaigns across 17 districts," Transparency International said in its report.

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

5.1. India to account for 40 per cent of global rail travel by 2050: Report

PTI, Jan. 31, 2019

New Delhi: Indian railways will have a share of 40 per cent of the total global rail activity and save around USD 64 billion on fuel bills by 2050, a report by a Paris-based inter-governmental organization has said.

The report -- The Future of Rail Opportunities for energy -- released Wednesday by the International Energy Agency said the annual investment in rail infrastructure will increase to USD 330 billion in 2050 globally, on the basis of projects currently in various stages of construction and planning.

"Rail activity in India is set to grow more than any other country, with passenger movements in India reaching 40 per cent of global activity... The biggest part of the increased investment goes to infrastructure for urban rail (nearly USD 190 billion) and high-speed rail (USD 70 billion); the additional costs of the trains are small in comparison.

"As a result of these investments, in 2050 fuel expenditures are reduced by around USD 450 billion, relative to the base scenario. India could save as much as USD 64 billion on fuel expenditures by mid-century," the report stated.

The report also stated that the pace of infrastructure build is fastest in urban rail. The length of metro lines under construction or slated for construction over the coming five years is twice the length of those built over any five-year period between 1970 and 2015. The result, it said is unprecedented growth in passenger movements on urban rail.

Global activity in 2050 is 2.7 times higher than current levels, it said.

"Growth is strongest in India and Southeast Asia, which see more than a sevenfold growth in passenger movements on urban rail, albeit from a low baseline. In the three countries with the highest urban rail activity today, activity increases by more than threefold in China, 25% in Japan and 45% in the European Union," it said.

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

5.2. French Development Agency, DEA sign credit facility framework for Pune Metro

PTI, Jan. 29, 2019

New Delhi: The Department of Economic Affairs and the French Development Agency on Monday signed a credit facility framework agreement for extending bilateral funding to the tune of Euro 245 million towards the Pune Metro Project.

Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MAHA-METRO), a 50:50 joint venture between the Indian Government and the Maharashtra government, is currently executing the Pune Metro Project.

The estimated project cost is Rs 11,420 crore, of which the loan component is Rs 5,831.5 crore.

The loan component is to be funded by the European Investment Bank and the AFD. The current credit facility signing between DEA and AFD France would be to extend bilateral funding to the tune of Euro 245 million to fund the Pune Metro Project, a statement issued from the French side said.

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

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

6.1. Wheat production may cross record 100 MT in 2018-19

PTI, Jan. 25, 2019

New Delhi: The country's wheat production might cross 100 million tonne, an all-time high level, in the current rabi season, helped by good weather conditions during winter, a senior government official Thursday said.

Wheat production stood at record 99.70 million tonne in the 2017-18 crop year (July-June).

"Wheat production is estimated to cross 100 million tonne based on the feedback we are getting from state governments," Agriculture Commissioner S K Malhotra told reporters here.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the National Conference on Agriculture Zaid/Summer Campaign 2019.

Malhotra said weather condition has been conducive this winter for wheat, a major rabi crop.

The Centre will soon announce production estimates for rabi crops of 2018-19.

Wheat output is expected to rise despite fall of around 8 lakh hectare in wheat area to 296 lakh hectare so far this rabi season.

The government had increased the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat to Rs 1,840 per quintal from Rs 1,735 per quintal, as part of its decision to fix the support price at least 1.5 times of the production cost.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency for procurement and distribution of food grains, and state agencies buy wheat from farmers at MSP and the grain is distributed at Rs 2 per kg to over 80 crore people under the National Food Security Act.

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

6.2. India's soybean output to rise 38% this year on sharp rise in average yield

Business Standard, Feb. 11, 2019

Mumbai: India’s soybean output is likely to rise by a staggering 38 per cent this year on a sharp increase in average yield across the country, following favourable climatic condition in major cultivating states including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

Data captured through the latest assessment of farmers, traders and other stakeholders by the apex industry body the Soybean Processors’ Association (SOPA) showed India’s total soybean output standing at 11.48 million tonnes during the ongoing harvesting season as compared to 8.36 million tonnes in the previous season.

During the current season, soybean acreage was up 6.7 per cent to 10.84 million hectare (ha) from 10.16 million ha in the previous season. Average yield rose 29 per cent to 1,059 kg per ha for the current harvesting season from 823 kg in the previous season.

“Based on exhaustive survey, we estimate India’s soybean output at 11.48 million tonnes this year compared to 8.3 million tonnes in the previous year on favourable climatic conditions,” said D N Pathak, Spokesperson, SOPA.

The survey finds a staggering 41 per cent increase in soybean output in Madhya Pradesh to 5.92 million tonnes for the current season from 4.2 million tonnes last year. Total yield in the state is estimated to rise by 30.5 per cent to 1,094 kg per ha for the current season from 838 kg from the previous season. Total acreage under soybean jumped by eight per cent in Madhya Pradesh to 5.41 million ha this year from five million ha last year.

The survey presented a surprising picture in Maharashtra despite droughts in many agricultural pockets in the state. Soybean output in Maharashtra is estimated to rise by 32 per cent to 3.84 million tonnes for this year from 2.91 million ha last year. Known for its drought resistant nature, the crop's yield in the state jumped by 25 per cent to 1,054 kg per ha this year from 843 ha last year.

Farmers brought in 5.5 per cent of additional area, which lifted overall sowing under soybean to 3.64 million ha this year from 3.45 million ha last year.

The Union Ministry of Agriculture in its First Advanced Estimate forecast India’s overall soybean output at 13.46 million tonnes for the current year as compared to 10.98 million tonnes for 2017-18.

Despite increase in overall output, soybean prices has been moving up for quite sometime now. Overall soybean prices have jumped by around 20 per cent in the last two months following increase in the minimum support price (MSP) of this kharif sown crop.

The government has fixed soybean MSP at Rs 3399 a quintal for 2018-19 as compared to Rs 3050 a quintal for the previous year.

“Higher output would result into availability of more quantity of soybean for crushing and therefore an increase in India’s refined soya oil output. This will translate into a proportionate decline in the India’s edible oil import,” said an analyst.

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

7.1. India's largest startup ecosystem inaugurated in Kerala

PTI, Jan. 14, 2019

Kochi: India got its largest startup ecosystem Sunday when Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated here a 1.8-lakh-square-feet facility housing incubation set-ups across a string of segments in modern technology.

The Integrated Startup Complex under the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) includes the ultra modern facilities of Maker Village that promotes hardware startups, the BioNest that promotes medical technologies, BRINC which is the country's first international accelerator for hardware startups; BRIC which aids developing solutions for cancer diagnosis and care, and a Centre of Excellence set up by industry majors such as UNITY.

Overall the Kerala Government is working for the state to have a total area of 2.3 crore sq ft of IT space (up from 1.3 crore sq ft last year). The opening of the new complex at the Technology Innovation Zone (TIZ) is a major step towards achieving the objective, Vijayan said in his speech at KINFRA Hi Tech Park, Kalamassery.

"We are also planning to give direct jobs to 2.5 lakh in IT," he said, adding that the government was working to ensure that information technology fosters social development.

After the completion of three more projects, Kerala will have startup and incubation space of 5 lakh sq ft, which will be the largest of this type in the world.

No less than 30 applications for patent has gone from startups with the 13.5-acre TIZ, the CM noted, lauding it as a sign of the high-quality work in the zone. Simultaneously, Kerala was sensing increasing optimism in boosting software export from the state.

M. Sivasankar, secretary, IT (Kerala), pointed out that the entire space at the TIZ facility has been sold out.

"This has never happened in our country, where it usually takes a couple of years for an incubator to get the whole area occupied," he said. "The first three floors of the new complex have been furnished, while the rest of the floors have already got allotted to various startups."

"The campus has another incubator complex coming up and it will be opened early next year," Sivasankar said.

Besides the Maker Villager with its 30-odd startups, the facility has nascent firms working in fields such as biotechnology, computer-aided design, augmented/virtual reality and advanced communication.

Kalamassery MLA Ebrahim Kunju, in his presidential address, said Kerala has been proving to be a superpower in south India in the field of IT and incubation. "We expect more help from the government in its related endeavours," he added.

Ernakulam MP Prof K V Thomas launched BioNest, which is a startup the KSUM has established in association with Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology with financial aid from BIRAC, under the union government's Department of Bio Tech.

It has 20 companies involved in deep research in biotechnology and allied fields.

The BRIC, which was inaugurated by Kerala Health Minister, K K Shailaja, will chiefly work in fighting cancer. The state has 50,000 additions to its cancer patients every year, the minister noted, adding that the BRIC will work in accordance with a Cancer Strategic Action Plan and funds totalling Rs 350 crore.

Officials pointed out that TIZ was set to become the country's largest Work-Live-Play space exclusively dedicated to startups. The Maker Village, set up by the IIITM-K in association with KSUM and supported by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, houses 65 startups working in electronics hardware technologies.

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

7.2. CCEA approves creation of Agri-Market infrastructure fund for development and upgradation of Gramin Agriculture Markets

Press Information Bureau: February 07, 2019

Corpus of Rs. 2000 crore to be created with NABARD for development and upgradation of Gramin Agricultural Markets and Regulated Wholesale Markets

New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today gave its approval for the creation of a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore for Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund (AMIF) to be created with NABARD for development and up-gradation of agricultural marketing infrastructure in Gramin Agricultural Markets and Regulated Wholesale Markets.

AMIF will provide the State/UT Governments subsidized loan for their proposal for developing marketing infrastructure in 585 Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and 10,000 Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). States may also access AMIF for innovative integrated market infrastructure projects including Hub and Spoke mode and in Public Private Partnership mode. In these GrAMs, physical and basic infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGA and other Government Schemes.

After approval of AMIF Scheme, the interest subsidy will be provided by DAC&FW to NABARD in alignment with annual budget releases during 2018-19 and 2019-20 as well as upto 2024-25. The Scheme being demand driven, its progress is subject to the demands from the States and proposals received from them.

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

8.1. Mukesh Ambani vs Jeff Bezos set to begin from Gujarat

Livemint, 20 jan. 2019, Maulik Pathak, Amrit Raj

Gandhinagar/Mumbai: India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani on Friday said his company Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) will roll out its e-commerce platform to as many as 1.2 million retailers and store owners in Gujarat, as part of a massive nationwide plan that analysts said could pose a challenge to Walmart Inc.-controlled Flipkart, Amazon.com Inc., and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd-funded Paytm Mall.

“Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail will launch a unique new commerce platform to empower and enrich our 12 lakh small retailers and shopkeepers in Gujarat, which are part of the over 30 million community in India," Ambani said at the inaugural function of the Vibrant Gujarat Global summit in Gandhinagar.

Gujarat will kick off the pan-India Reliance e-commerce plans, Ambani said.

Ambani’s statement comes days after the government updated its regulations on foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce, two of which have the potential to change the e-commerce play in India. First, FDI-funded online marketplaces can only act as technology platforms that connect independent sellers and buyers. They cannot sell, own or control inventory. Second, and more importantly, the guidelines that come into effect on 1 February prohibit such e-commerce platforms from entering into exclusive merchandise deals.

These merchants, in turn, will cater to the demand from untapped markets. This will help the company save on costs by avoiding the discounting game and penetrate areas currently outside the traditional purview of e-commerce companies.

Reliance Industries, India’s largest company by market capitalization, wants to adopt an innovative online-to-offline (O2O) model, where a consumer is drawn into making online searches for purchases that are made in a physical store. RIL’s plan is to consolidate merchants under an e-commerce platform. These merchants, in turn, will cater to the demand from untapped markets. This will help the company save on costs by avoiding the discounting game and penetrate areas currently outside the traditional purview of e-commerce companies.

RIL has a formidable physical presence in the country with 4,000 Reliance Retail stores, about 50 warehouses and 4,000 Reliance Jio outlets, which will be scaled up to 10,000 over a period of time.

“In this new world, data is the new oil. Data is the new wealth. India’s data must be controlled and owned by Indian people and not by corporates, especially global corporations," Ambani said. “For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India, in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian," he said.

The matter has led to intense lobbying. While Indian companies want data stored locally, foreign firms such as Google and Facebook are against this.

“E-commerce is not about products. If you look at Amazon’s success, it is more about B2B than B2C. Using Reliance Jio, RIL has already created a super highway. Now they have to ride on this to create online e-commerce," said Piyush Kumar Sinha, a retail expert and director of CRI Advisory and Research.

8.2. Flipkart invests $201 million in Indian wholesale unit

Livemint, 17 Jan. 2019, Anirban Sen

The fresh outlay by Flipkart comes it seeks to fight off the challenge from Amazon to keep its leadership of India’s growing $18 billion online retail market, and a regulatory tussle with the government

Bengaluru: Flipkart’s Singapore-incorporated parent has infused ₹1,431 crore ($201 million) into its wholesale entity in India amid an intensifying and costly battle for market share with Amazon.com Inc.

The latest fund infusion from parent Flipkart Pvt. Ltd was approved in December. In the same month, the Singapore-listed entity infused roughly ₹2,190 crore ($304 million) into the local unit, show regulatory filings sourced from business intelligence platform Paper.vc.

The fresh outlay by Flipkart comes as the Walmart-owned company seeks to fight off the challenge from Amazon to keep its leadership of India’s growing $18 billion online retail market, and a regulatory tussle with the government, which has issued new foreign direct investment rules for e-commerce firms that threaten to upend the online retail industry.

Mint reported on 1 October that Flipkart had begun talks with strategic investors to raise fresh capital after discussions with Google collapsed last year.

Flipkart is expected to spend billions of dollars over the next few years as it looks to keep its supremacy in the e-commerce market against a resurgent Amazon. On 22 May, Mint reported that Flipkart was likely to burn as much as $2 billion in cash over the next 18 months—an affirmation that sales growth, rather than cutting losses, remains the top priority for the online retailer after being acquired by Walmart.

In a December interview, Flipkart’s chief executive, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, said the company had witnessed transaction growth of more than 80% in some months as e-commerce was booming again and the company planned to push newer categories such as furniture and groceries over the next three years. Krishnamurthy also indicated that Flipkart might start a video content business, either through a partnership or by developing a new business internally.

Flipkart’s payments arm, PhonePe, may also raise funds separately as it seeks to catch up with bigger rival Paytm. Walmart has indicated it is willing to continue funding PhonePe in the near future, but the US retail giant is open to the idea of bringing in more strategic partners.

If PhonePe adds strategic investors outside Walmart, it may look to raise up to $1 billion sometime this year, Mint reported in October.

PhonePe’s position inside the group has gained even more prominence over the past few months, following Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s exit and Walmart’s decision to absorb online fashion retailer Myntra into Flipkart.

While Myntra executives now report to Flipkart CEO Krishnamurthy, PhonePe has remained independent within the group and its founders, Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari, now report directly to the Flipkart board—a clear sign that PhonePe may be spun off to bring in external strategic investors, even as Walmart retains a majority stake in the payments entity.

Amazon has also been burning hundreds of millions of dollars as it looks to upend Flipkart’s leadership position.

Mint research shows that the Seattle-based Amazon has nearly exhausted its original $5 billion commitment towards India and may soon have to invest more into its business in the country.

9.1. Swiggy takes on BigBasket, Grofers, to deliver groceries

Livemint, 13 Feb. 2019, Varsha Bansal

Swiggy Stores will be part of the same app and will cater to on-demand deliveries across categories

The move pits Swiggy against Dunzo, BigBasket, Grofers, Amazon’s Prime Now and Flipkart’s Supermart

Bengaluru: Online food delivery service Swiggy has expanded into delivering items such as groceries, medicines and vegetables, as India’s fifth most valuable startup seeks to better utilize its army of delivery riders.

The new service, Swiggy Stores, will be part of the same app and will cater to on-demand deliveries across categories, the company said on Tuesday.

The Naspers-backed food ordering platform is currently testing the service in Gurugram. It is expected to offer the service in other top cities over the next few months.

This move will pit Swiggy against Dunzo, BigBasket, Grofers, Amazon’s Prime Now and Flipkart’s Supermart.

“Just like how we democratized seamless delivery across over half a lakh restaurants in the country, we can democratize convenience across millions of other merchants and businesses in our cities," Swiggy chief executive Sriharsha Majety wrote in a blog.

Swiggy’s new offering is expected to boost the company’s order volume as users start ordering other products, leading to higher repeat purchases.

The company’s strategy mirrors its investor Meituan-Dianping’s China business model, which offers deliveries and services across several categories, including groceries, beauty salon, ride-hailing, among others.

Experts tracking the consumer internet space believe that the launch of Swiggy Stores may give tough competition to Dunzo, but it may not make a huge dent on the market share of BigBasket and Grofers.

“Swiggy Stores may be used for impulse purchases, but for planned groceries the user would still turn to a Big Basket or a Grofers," said an entrepreneur in the hyperlocal delivery space, requesting anonymity. “However, considering the large user base Swiggy has, it may give some trouble to Dunzo, as it’s not present in as many cities currently."

According to two industry executives, Swiggy’s daily food delivery orders stood at 600,000-700,000 as of end December across more than 80 cities. In contrast, Dunzo, which is present in six cities, serves more than 15,000 daily orders, according to their estimates.

Swiggy is also heavily-funded. The company raised $1 billion a few months ago in a financing round that valued the startup at about $3.3 billion. Google-backed Dunzo, on the other hand, recently raised $3.1 million in a series C round, according to regulatory filings.

9.2. Uber Eats, Zomato, Swiggy plan ₹300 crore ad blitz this year

Livemint, 4 Feb 2019, Saumya Tewari

Uber Eats’s new television campaign featuring Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt underlines a consumption trend, showing young Indians to be ditching home-cooked food for online food. Bhatt is the only celebrity face to endorse an online food delivery platform in India, which gives Uber Eats an edge over rivals Zomato and Swiggy.

Together, these platforms are expected to spend ₹300 crore on advertising in 2019, according to media buyers estimate.

“We are likely to see 50% to 60% jump in the overall media spends of online food delivery platforms. The category is poised for huge growth in one to two years," said Navin Khemka, chief executive, Mediacom South Asia. “The advertising and marketing promotions are driving quick adoption of these platforms among consumers as they are fulfilling a latent need of convenience."

With increasing numbers of restaurants partnering online food delivery platforms, consumers are getting to explore different kinds of cuisines, literally at the click of a button.

Launched in 2017, Uber Eats targets millennial users across 37 cities in India. Its recent ‘Everyday Moments’ campaign featuring Bhatt is being aggressively promoted across television and digital, hinting at the company’s ambitions.

“Ordering food at work or home is the new constant way of life now for the Indian youth. Our first campaign is designed around consumers’ ordering behaviour that goes beyond the basic functional reasons of speed and affordability. In Alia, India’s youth icon, Uber Eats has a partner who shares the spirit of the brand and manifests it through her engaging, aspirational and youthful connect," said Namita Katre, head of brand, strategy and campaigns, Uber Eats India.

For deeper penetration, Swiggy has gone beyond young users and targeted mothers in one of its campaigns trying to break into the under-penetrated household segment which usually shies away from ordering food online. It broke its first television ad last year showcasing everyday moments when users turn to Swiggy, followed by IPL-themed ads and, most recently, emphasising its quick delivery promise.

“All these television ads are true to Swiggy’s style of short but impactful commercials. The 25 to 30 second videos are replete with subtle humour and relatable moments exploring every day scenarios in consumers’ lives," said a spokesperson from Swiggy.

Swiggy claims to have the largest 125,000-strong active delivery fleet which delivers from close to 60, 000 restaurants across 70 cities in the country. Meanwhile, Alibaba backed food ordering platform Zomato has also stepped up its game, moving beyond its quirky digital and social media promotions.

The company is currently leveraging television, radio and outdoor mediums to talk about ‘No Cooking January’ campaign urging consumers to order online.

“Because these platforms are penetrating deep in the country, television will be leveraged heavily to create top of mind recall and driving consideration. There will also be multiple on-ground tie-ups and digital media push," noted Mediacom’s Khemka.

“Deeply funded, the food ordering platforms are focusing on geographical expansion to tier II and III towns which will drive their next phase of growth. Zomato and Swiggy are also counting on cloud kitchens along with leveraging private labels which will add to this growth. Acquisitions in hyperlocal space including concierge services will also bring more efficiency and additional revenues," said Ankur Pahwa, partner and national leader, e-commerce and consumer internet, EY India.

10.1. Government of India has taken several initiatives to provide 'Sabko Shiksha Achchi Shiksha'

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 08, 2019

New Delhi: The Government of India has taken several initiatives to provide ‘Sabko Shiksha Achchi Shiksha’ i.e. for making available good quality education, accessible and affordable for all. In pursuance of the proposal of the Union Budget, 2018-19, to treat school education holistically without segmentation from pre-school to Class XII, the Department of School Education and Literacy has launched the Samagra Shiksha - an Integrated Scheme for School Education as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with effect from the year 2018-19. This programme subsumes the three erstwhile Centrally Sponsored Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

Samagra Shiksha is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class XII and aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education. It envisages the ‘school’ as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels. The main emphasis of the Scheme is on improving quality of school education and the strategy for all interventions would be to enhance the Learning Outcomes at all levels of schooling. The Objectives of the Samagra Shiksha are (a) Provision of quality education and enhancing learning outcomes of students; (b) Bridging Social and Gender Gaps in School Education; (c) Ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education; (d) Ensuring minimum standards in schooling provisions; (e) Promoting Vocationalisation of education; (f) Support States in implementation of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009; and (g)Strengthening and up-gradation of SCERTs/State Institutes of Education and DIET as nodal agencies for teacher training.

The major features of Samagra Shiksha are as under:-

i. Provision for up-gradation of schools up-to senior secondary level and strengthening of school infrastructure as per norms.

ii. Composite school grant increased from Rs. 14,500-50,000 to Rs. 25,000-1 Lakh and to be allocated on the basis of school enrolment.

iii. Annual Grant for sports equipment at the cost of Rs. 5000 for Primary Schools, Rs.10,000 for upper primary schools and up to Rs. 25,000 for secondary and senior secondary schools.

iv. Annual grant for Library at the cost of Rs. 5,000/- for Primary School, Rs.13,000/- for composite Elementary school, Rs. 10,000/- for Secondary school (Class 9th & 10th), Rs.10,000/- for Senior Secondary school (Class 11th & 12th), Rs. 20,000/- for composite Senior Secondary school (Class 1st to 12th).

v. Allocation for Children with Special Needs (CwSN) increased from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 3,500 per child per annum including a stipend of Rs. 200 per month for CWSN girls to be provided from Classes I to XII – earlier it was only for classes IX to XII.

vi. Allocation for uniforms enhanced from Rs. 400 to Rs. 600 per child per annum.

vii. Allocation for textbooks enhanced from Rs. 150/250 to Rs. 250/400 per child per annum.

viii. Upgradation of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) from Class 6-8 to Class 6-12. Strengthening Teacher Education Institutions like SCERTs and DIETs to improve the quality of teachers with ix.

ix. SCERT as the nodal institution for in-service and pre-service teacher training

x. Enhanced use of digital technology in education through smart classrooms, digital boards and DTH channels.

This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Satya Pal Singh today in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question.

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

10.2. First State Level Awareness Programme on Agri Export Policy Held in Pune

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 5, 2019

New Delhi: Commerce Minister, Suresh Prabhu, in his address at the first state level awareness programme on agriculture export policy said that in order to achieve the purpose of the policy clusters have been identified across the country for development of agriculture exports. In Maharashtra, six clusters have been identified for grapes, mango, pomegranate, banana, oranges and onion for successful implementation. Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO’s) and co-operatives should be linked with the farmers and exporters. Required infrastructure needs to be provided in these clusters and use of latest technology in agriculture has to be adopted. He also stressed on attractive packaging in order to increase the demand for the identified products. Indian Institute of Packaging has been roped in for working on packaging standards for international markets.

Government of India has recently released an Agriculture Export Policy which aims at reinvigorating the entire value chain from export oriented farm production and processing to transportation, infrastructure and market access. The Agriculture Export Policy is framed with a focus on agriculture export oriented production, export promotion, better farm realization and synchronization with policies and programmes of Government of India. It is required to have a “Farmers’ Centric Approach” for improved income through value addition at source itself which will help minimize losses across the value chain.

For creating awareness among the farmers, exporters and other concerned stakeholders, a first State level awareness programme on Agriculture Export Policy was organized on 2nd February, 2019 in Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM), Pune.

Suresh Prabhu informed that the Agriculture Export Policy has been prepared jointly with the state governments and will be implemented by the concerned state agriculture and horticulture departments.

The Minister further stated that in India, agriculture and horticulture production is around 600 million tonnes per year and 30% of fresh horticulture produces goes waste. Hence, there is an urgent need to strengthen the supply chain to avoid these losses and the products should not be confined only to our boundaries and we therefore need to explore international markets for exporting India’s agriculture produce. We have to consider the quality standards and health standards at the production level itself, the Minister said. Suresh Prabhu informed that we need to look at agriculture as another industry, for which all the stakeholders should work together for the success of sector. Industrialists must also venture into agriculture which will benefit the farmers and in turn will increase the earnings of the farmers.

Suresh Prabhu informed that the Government of Saudi Arabia is ready to provide facilities like cold chain and warehousing for import of agro and processed food products to Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar.

The Minister further stated that Indian agriculture can definitely help in increasing the GDP of the country in a big way and for this state governments have to play a very important role in implementation of the agriculture export policy. The main aim of the policy is to reach the farmers at grass-root level and increase their earnings for achieving the overall objective of the policy.

Pasha Patel, Chairman, Maharashtra Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices, Santosh Sarangi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Paban Kumar Borthakur, Chairman, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), S.P. Singh, Commissioner Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra also addressed the participants. Presentations were made by APEDA, Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board, Export Inspection Agency and Small Farmers' Agribusiness Consortium on the activities of their organizations. Success stories by prominent FPOs and progressive farmers were also presented during the programme.

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

- INDUSTRY, MANUFACURE

11.1. Bajaj set for foray into electric vehicles next year; e-quadricycle, 3-wheeler on anvil

PTI, Jan. 22, 2019

New Delhi: Pune-based Bajaj Auto is planning to make a foray into electric vehicles (EV) next year, simultaneously with the migration of its conventional engine vehicles to BS-VI emission norms, its Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj said Monday.

The company plans to launch electric version of its quadricycle Qute along with electric three-wheelers next year, even as it gears up to introduce the conventional engine version of the quadricycle around March after much delay.

Bajaj Auto, which on Monday announced a new identity -- 'The World's Favourite Indian' -- to reflect its leadership position in motorcycle segment in many of the overseas markets, also said it was looking to replicate the success in its home market and increase its share.

He also said the company would bring KTM-owned 'Husqvarna' motorcycle brand to the Indian market this year with "half a dozen" products in the pipeline.

"Electric Qute and electric three-wheelers are very much on our agenda...In line with BS-VI, which comes into force from April next year, just as we make our petrol and diesel vehicles compliant with BS-VI, it is our objective to also introduce electric vehicles in terms of Qute and three-wheelers," Bajaj told reporters here.

He, however, hastened to add that there could be a bit of 'back and forth' in terms of the exact timeline as "when you are dealing with new technology, everything is not certain".

Stressing on the significance of the company's foray into EVs, he said: "This we need to do not only for India but for many of our other markets as well. The problem of pollution and congestion and the need for EVs, shared and connected mobility is there, too."

Bajaj Auto has already started exporting Qute to around 20 countries but has not been able to launch it in India due to regulatory hurdles.

When asked by when the Qute would finally be launched in India, Bajaj Auto Executive Director Rakesh Sharma said it could happen around March as the company is in the last stage of getting final approvals in various states.

Commenting on ambitions for the domestic market in the motorcycle segment, Bajaj said the company has leadership positions in over 20 overseas markets such as 70 per cent share in Bangladesh and around 50 per cent in Nepal and Sri Lanka and it would like to replicate the same in India also.

"We are also a company which, we would like to be a little more successful in the domestic market than we have been so far in the motorcycles market," he said.

In India, he further said: "We have only 20-21 per cent share. We think now the time has also come that after having done a good job overseas, after having huge dominant position in India in three-wheelers, it is about time we make the same impact in the domestic motorcycle segment in India as we have done across the world."

Citing SIAM data, Bajaj said that in the last nine months, the company has added almost 6-7 per cent market share to its domestic motocycle market.

This is double of Yamaha's bike market share in its 35 years of presence in India, equivalent of TVS Motor Co's lifetime market share and Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India's motorcycle market share since parting ways with Hero in 2010, Bajaj said.

Stating that the company wants to increase its market share, Bajaj said: "This is now the main focus of our energy and attention in the near future."

When asked if the company had set any target, he replied in the negative.

"Last year, if we had asked ourselves, if we could add market share equal to that of TVS, double of Yamaha and almost half of HMSI in just nine months, it could have sounded frightening," he said.

On the Husqvarna bikes, Bajaj said the brand had a potential to become even bigger than KTM, not just in India but across the globe.

Bajaj, however, declined to comment on future products from the company's partnership with British niche bikemaker Triumph saying work has already started with Bajaj Auto taking responsibility of the engineering part.

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

11.2. Kia Motors commences trial production at Andhra plant

PTI, Jan. 30, 2019

New Delhi: South Korean auto maker Kia Motors Tuesday said it has commenced trial production at its manufacturing facility at Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.

This important step not only signifies the completion of the 536-acre plant but also marks the arrival of Kia's new flagship car for India, the Kia SP2i, a new SUV based on the Kia SP concept, first showcased at auto expo 2018, Kia Motors said in a statement.

The trial production of the SP2i will enable Kia to synchronise and fine-tune the brand's manufacturing equipment and technologies before series production commences later this year, it added.

"India will play a singularly important role in expanding Kia Motors global footprint, and today feels like the start of another chapter in our Indian success story," Kia Motors Corporation President and CEO Han-Woo Park said.

Commencing trial production is a significant moment that the company has been preparing for as it takes on the challenges of future mobility across the country, he added.

The Anantapur facility has an installed annual production capacity of up to 3 lakh units. Kia and its vendors are investing USD 2 billion on the facility.

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

12.1. Tata companies' market cap rises 21% in 2 years of N. Chandrasekaran

Livemint, 13 Feb. 2019, Ashwin Ramarathinam, Nasrin Sultana

Investors repose faith in Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran after the controversial ouster of Cyrus Mistry

Market capitalization of all 28 listed Tata group companies rose to₹10.88 trillion as of 12 February

Mumbai: Investors have reposed faith in the ability of Tata Sons Ltd chairman N. Chandrasekaran to steer India’s biggest conglomerate to a healthier future in the aftermath of the controversy over the ouster of its former boss Cyrus Mistry. The overall market capitalization of Tata companies has risen by about 21% in the two years since Chandrasekaran took charge as chairman on 21 February 2017.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), the company that Chandrasekaran ran for more than seven years before he was named group chairman, led the growth in market value.

Market capitalization of all 28 listed Tata group companies rose to ₹10.88 trillion as of 12 February, according to corporate data provider Capitaline. Of the top 19 conglomerates, the market value of six had declined during this period.

TCS alone accounts for more than 70% of the group’s market value. The software services company’s market capitalization rose 39% to ₹7.69 trillion in the two-year period.

Excluding it, the picture looks less rosy, with the Tata Group’s market capitalization declining 7.35% in the two-year period, underperforming the 19% gain in benchmark Sensex.

Among group companies, the shares of Tata Motors Ltd were the worst performers under Chandrasekaran’s leadership. With a current market cap of ₹43,728.9 crore, Tata Motors has plunged 59% in the period. The auto maker has been under pressure because of its British luxury unit Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

Tata Motors posted the biggest quarterly loss in India’s corporate history in the December quarter owing to an impairment charge for JLR, following which its shares plunged as much as 22.4% on 8 February, the auto maker’s biggest single-day drop since February 1993, which led to many brokerages slashing its target price.

Tata Motors reported a consolidated loss of ₹26,993 crore after its biggest ever write-off of £3.10 billion for JLR. The write-off has been attributed to slowing sales in China and disruptions from a shift towards eco-friendly hybrid and electric vehicles.

JLR’s sales, which have been contracting every month since July, fell 6.4% from a year earlier in the December quarter to 144,600 vehicles. JLR is also facing headwinds such as the growth slowdown in China and uncertainties because of Brexit.

In terms of market capitalization, TCS is the second most valued stock in the country after Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).

“Our optimism on TCS is based on strong growth visibility backed by robust deal bookings and strong deal pipeline, scale and growth leadership in digital with increasing penetration in large accounts, revival in BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) vertical and better outlook supported by reduction in captive intensity, and efficient capital allocation," HDFC Securities Institutional Equities said in an 11 January note.

RIL, India’s second largest conglomerate, saw its market capitalization rise the most in percentage terms, jumping 81% to ₹8.1 trillion, mainly on the back of its retail and telecom businesses in the same period. For purposes of this report, conglomerates have been considered as a group of listed companies that have the same promoters and are in different businesses.

12.2. ISRO selects 10 firms for transfer of Lithium-ion technology

PTI. Jan. 31, 2019

Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation has selected ten companies for transfer of its Lithium-ion cell technology.

The selected firms are- Amara Raja Batteries Limited, Chittoor,Bharat Electronics Limited, Pune, Carborundum Universal Limited, Kochi, Exicom Tele-Systems Limited, Gurgaon, GOCL Corporation Limited, Hyderabad;

GOCL Corporation Limited, Hyderabad,National Aluminium Co Limited, Bhubaneswar, Sukhbir Agro Energy Limited, New Delhi, Tata Chemicals Limited, Mumbai, and Thermax Limited, Pune, ISRO said on its website.

ISRO will intimate further modalities to all the applicants through individual communications, it added.

In June, ISRO had issuedRequest for Qualification (RFQ) in connection with the technology transfer, containing a brief description of the qualification aspects, technology transfer process, timelines and other relevant details.

In August, the space agency had said it has received response from 141 companies to its RFQ.

ISRO's VSSC has successfully developed and qualified lithium ion cells of capacities ranging from '1.5 Ah to 100 Ah' for use in satellites and launch vehicles.

According to the space agency, lithium-ion (Li-ion) cell technology is one of the "most promising" electro chemical energy storage technologies owing to its high voltage, high energy density, long life cycle and high storage characteristics.

It finds wide applications in electronic gadgets, tele-communication and industrial applications as well as in aerospace.

Recent progress in Li-ion battery technology has made it the favorite power source for electric and hybrid electric vehicles.

According to ISRO, with the successful deployment of indigenous lithium ion batteries in various missions, VSSC is planning to transfer this technology to the industries to establish production facilities for producing lithium ion cells to cover the entire spectrum of the country's power storage needs.

Floating the RFQ, ISRO had earlier said, "This initiative is expected to enable Zero Emission Policy of India and accelerate the development of indigenous electric vehicle industry."

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

13.1. Raymond is using AI to automate sales, connect retailers and dealers

Livemint, 4 Feb 2019, Abhijit Ahaskar

Till even a few months back, the sales staff at textile company Raymond would manually take orders from retailers. Consequently, it would take the sales staff months to reach out to its 5,000 dealer network in case of a product launch, promotion or price reduction.

That’s when Raymond reached out to Applicate, a four-year-old Gurgaon-based startup, to automate the process using artificial intelligence (AI). The company launched a pilot project in March 2018 with Applicate’s hybrid software as a service (SaaS) based B2B platform called Channel KART (renamed Midas by Raymond for internal communication) to communicate between the retailers and dealers.

Hybrid SaaS refers to a software delivery model where the software and the data linked to it are hosted on the cloud, and integrated with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) or document management systems (DMS) of an organization, allowing large enterprises to incorporate custom work-flows when needed.

Midas, on its part, allows Raymond’s sales team to connect with retailers located anywhere in the country and provide them with timely service. Retailers can now place orders, pay, track order/delivery, get instant notification about new products, schemes, claims and promotions.

“The textile industry is still behind other consumer industries in terms of sales automation. The variety in designs and types of fabrics which we offer to consumers requires retailers to carry those wide varieties as well," says Sudhanshu Pokhriyal, president textiles, lifestyle business, Raymond. He believes that this automation exercise will significantly improve demand forecasting and reduce wastage in the system while also lending visibility to dealers under wholesalers who are currently not visible to Raymond.

Channel KART uses Applicate’s proprietary AI platform for sales. It has an AI sales assistant called Sellina to assist, train and engage with millions of retailers simultaneously. “Sellina can understand the sales related conversations and assist the sales team and channel partners with data, information and content based on natural language conversation in voice and text. It can even take customer orders in the absence of sales representatives," explains Ranjeet Kumar, chief executive officer and co-founder of Applicate.

Applicate’s Kumar points out that the app has been designed keeping in mind that it should easily be used by anyone who can use WhatsApp or any other e-commerce app. Since most retailers are exposed to such consumer applications they can use it without any assistance or training. The retailer app pilot, which lasted four months, has since been scaled-up to more than 2,400 retailers across India. The total number of retailers on the platform is more than three times of what was originally planned, says Pokhriyal. He adds this is one of the key initiatives to make Raymond’s distribution network future ready.

13.2. H&M India sales up 41% in Q4 to SEK 389 million

PTI, Feb. 01, 2019

New Delhi: Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz Thursday reported 41 per cent jump in its sales in India at SEK (Swedish Krona) 389 million (around Rs 306 crore) for the fourth quarter ended November 2018.

The company, which follows December-November financial year had posted net sales of SEK 276 million in the year-ago period, Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) said in a statement.

For the full year 2018, the company said its sales in India stood at SEK 1,408 million as gainst SEK 1,092 million in 2017, up 29 per cent.

The company said it was "able to outperform a number of markets in the fourth quarter", H&M CEO Karl-Johan Persson said.

"In several markets the total growth was driven by both physical stores and online. Among these were China (24 per cent), India (43 per cent) and Russia (27 per cent)," he added.

The company's growth of 43 per cent in India is in rupee term.

On its store count, H&M said in the fourth quarter it added five new stores in India.

For the full year, 12 new stores were added in India ending the year with a total of 39 stores.

H&M further said its global integration of stores and online continues. Work is continuing at full speed to roll out online globally to all existing H&M markets and to other markets as well.

In the 2018 financial year, H&M's online store opened in a further four new markets India and, via franchise, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and also on Tmall in China, it added.

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

14.1. Maruti’s drive to meet green norms to be fuelled by CNG

Livemint, 6 Feb. 2019, Malyaban Ghosh

Carmaker hopes CNG cars will account for 12% of sales by 2022, asks dealers to bid for pumps

Maruti plans to increase the sales of CNG vehicles, which will be followed by hybrid and electric models

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is doubling down on compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicles as the nation’s largest carmaker steps up efforts to meet the upcoming fuel efficiency norms aimed at curbing extensive air pollution in major cities.

The Indian unit of Suzuki Motor Corp. has asked dealerships to bid for licences to set up their own CNG dispensing stations to keep pace with the company’s plan of selling about 200,000 CNG passenger vehicles annually by 2022 by introducing more models that run on the eco-friendly fuel, four people aware of the development said on condition of anonymity.

Maruti’s strategy to focus on vehicles that run on cleaner fuels stems from the Union government’s plan to introduce Bharat Stage VI emission norms in 2020 and subsequently stricter fuel efficiency rules in the second phase of the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency norms by 2022.

The norms require cars to become 10% or more fuel efficient between 2017 and 2021 and 30% or more fuel efficient from 2022. The mileage improvement will be decided on the basis of litres of fuel consumed by a vehicle to run 100km. CNG is regarded as an affordable way to meet the norms, especially with diesel coming under the scanner from the courts and authorities.

Maruti’s internal target of selling 200,000 CNG vehicles by 2022 will comprise about 10-12% of its annual sales, the people cited earlier said. The company has sold about half a million CNG cars between 2010 and 2018.

But with inadequate infrastructure for distributing CNG in India, Maruti wants its dealers to bid for licences to set up fuel retail outlets across the country, said the people.

“CNG vehicles will be beneficial in the short term and Maruti being the largest manufacturer with products in the portfolio will create an ecosystem with the help of other stakeholders," said Puneet Gupta, associate director-vehicle sales forecasting at IHS Markit. “Since the vision of the government is also to build a huge network of CNG pumps across the country, Maruti’s plans seem to be in sync with the government."

Some of Maruti’s products such as the Ertiga multipurpose vehicle, Swift hatchback and Dzire compact sedan might also be offered with CNG options, the people said.

Maruti currently offers seven models with CNG options, the most by any carmaker in India.

Other makers of CNG cars in India include Honda Cars India Ltd and Hyundia Motor India Ltd.

A spokesman for Maruti declined to comment.

The government, in its efforts to arrest rising air pollution levels, has also been urging auto makers to develop environment-friendly vehicles, and is expected to install 10,000 CNG stations by 2030.

Maruti had to expedite efforts to sell more CNG cars as it would otherwise be difficult to meet the stricter fuel efficiency norms in 2022, one of the people cited earlier said.

“The target to sell around 200,000 CNG vehicles every year by 2022 is not an ambitious one if the infrastructure improves across India," said the person cited above. “A lot of cities still don’t have access to CNG, which is the biggest impediment towards increasing sales of such vehicles."

Hence, Maruti plans to increase the sales of CNG vehicles, which will be followed by hybrid and electric models. Maruti’s parent, Suzuki, and Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. are collaborating on producing full hybrid cars, which are expected to be launched in India by the end of 2021.

“The company will not invest on behalf of the dealers since the dealers are profitable enough to invest in setting up CNG pumps on their own," the second person cited earlier said. “This move was an imperative for Maruti as it will not have substantial volumes from hybrid and electric vehicles by 2020 to compensate for the petrol and diesel vehicle production."

Currently, most of the CNG vehicles are used commercially by cab aggregators such as Ola and Uber.

According to the third person, CNG is more affordable than petrol and diesel and sales had zoomed after cab services and other public transport vehicles in the national capital region were made to compulsorily operate only CNG vehicles.

“If similar steps can be taken by other state governments, then Maruti stands to benefit with its existing range of CNG vehicles," said the third person cited earlier.

14.2. As prices of generics slide, pharma firms shift focus to specialty drugs

Livemint, 5 Feb. 2019, Teena Thacker

Price erosion because of increased competition in US hastens firms’ push towards specialty medicines

Sun Pharmaceuticals is of the view that specialty medicines will drive medicine spending in the coming years

NEW DELHI: Indian drug makers are shifting focus from their once lucrative generics medicines to specialty drugs amid continued price erosion in its biggest market, the US.

The focus on specialty medicines has been accelerated by measures taken by the Food and Drug Administration of the US (US FDA) to increase competition in generic medicines to bring down prices, experts said. Specialty drugs are high value prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic conditions such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.

The price erosion, caused by increased competition and channel consolidation in the US, has put pressure on Indian generic drug companies over the past few years to look at newer avenues, the experts said.

“With increased competition, price erosion and decline of Para 4 opportunities (patent challenges by generic drug makers) in the US market, leading Indian generics (companies) have been trying to plot a specialty play for the past couple of years," said Sujay Shetty, pharma practice leader for India and Asia Pacific at PwC.

“The journey is difficult as the dollar spends and the capabilities from R&D to marketing are of a much higher magnitude than the conventional oral solid dosage (OSD) type products. For Indian companies this is a must-win battle as we look at 2020 and beyond."

India’s largest drug maker Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd is of the view that specialty medicines will drive medicine spending in the coming years.

“The share of specialty medicines in global spending in 2017 stood at 32%, up from 19% in 2007. In the US and EU5 markets(Germany, France, Italy, UK, and Spain), the contribution of specialty medicines to overall pharmaceutical spending has almost doubled over the preceding 10 years. This trend is likely to continue," a company spokesperson said.

Sun Pharma has a portfolio of around 10 specialty products, of which seven have already been commercialized. Indian firms have been working to create a pipeline of specialty drugs, innovative products and biosimilars by increasing investments in research and development through acquisitions.

“We have accelerated our innovation-led journey with key specialty investments in the US, where our aim is to satisfy unmet needs of patients and healthcare providers in the areas of movement disorders and the central nervous system (CNS), lung delivery of medicines (inhalation therapies), and respiratory illnesses besides hospital and institutionally administered products," said Umang Vohra, global managing director and chief executive officer, Cipla.

Several other institutional assets of Cipla are under late-stage evaluation as the company explores acquisition and in-licensing, said Vohra. “These moves are in keeping with our stated intention to build a specialty pipeline in the US market and reinforce Cipla’s innovation-led approach and commitment to caring for the life of patients," he said.

Glenmark also started building a pipeline of specialty products a few years ago.

A new drug application for the first specialty product from the company’s organic pipeline, Ryaltris, a treatment of seasonal allergic rhinitis, has been filed with the FDA and the product is likely to be launched in the first quarter of FY20.

Glenmark has signed pacts to commercialize Ryaltris in Australia and New Zealand with Seqirus and in South Korea with Yuhan Corp.

The pharma major has two other organically developed products in the pipeline, a biosimilar of Xolair (used to treat asthma) and a nebulised formulation of tiotropium (used in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

“The specialty products’ space is very exciting and offers significant opportunities. Respiratory and dermatology are Glenmark’s stronghold and we are leveraging the capabilities in these therapy areas to build our specialty business in the US. We expect to launch our first specialty product Ryaltris in the US in FY20. We continue to invest in enhancing our pipeline and expect the specialty business to start contributing meaningfully to our US revenue in the next 2-5 years," said Glenn Saldanha, chairman and managing director of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals.

15.1. Adani enters petchem with ₹16,000 crore project in Gujarat

Livemint, 18 Jan. 2019, Maulik Pathak

BASF SE, the world’s largest chemical producer, will set up a petrochemical production hub at a cost of ₹16,000 crore in Gujarat in a joint venture with Adani Group.

Ahmedabad: BASF SE, the world’s largest chemical producer, will set up a petrochemical production hub at a cost of ₹16,000 crore in Gujarat in a joint venture (JV) with Ahmedabad-based Adani Group, the two companies said after signing a memorandum of understanding on Thursday. The German company will hold the majority in the joint venture, which will invest in the “acrylics value chain”, they said. The designated site would be at Mundra port in Gujarat and a feasibility study will be completed by the end of 2019.

The investment will go into the development, construction and operation of production plants including propane dehydrogenation (PDH), oxo C4 complex (butanols and 2-ethylhexanol), glacial acrylic acid (GAA), butyl acrylate (BA) and potentially other downstream products.

The products are predominantly for the Indian market to serve a wide range of local industries, including construction, automotive and coatings, whose growing demand is currently supplied via imports.

“India continues to be a very large importer of petrochemicals given the rapid expansion of the middle class, and this leads to a significant outflow of precious foreign exchange. Our partnership with BASF is a big step forward in enabling our country’s ‘Make in India’ programme, as this partnership will allow us to produce in Mundra several of the chemicals along the C3 chemical value chain that we are currently importing. Mundra’s infrastructure is ideally suited to enable chemicals production, and our ability to deliver renewable power makes this a unique partnership on several fronts,” Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani said in a statement.

In line with BASF’s carbon neutral growth strategy, the chemical site in Mundra would be the firm’s first CO2-neutral production site. The companies have developed an overall plan including new technologies and the supply of the site with 100% renewable energy.

Therefore, in addition to the investment outlined in this MoU, BASF plans to co-invest as a minority partner in a wind and solar park, according to the media statement.

“BASF’s intention to invest in a major new site for the acrylics value chain in India clearly demonstrates our strong and long-term commitment to our Indian customers. Together with the Adani Group, we would have the opportunity to provide our customers with high-quality chemicals and support them in growing their business. With our production powered by renewable energy, we would be able to minimize our impact on the environment,” Martin Brudermüller, chairman of the board of executive directors, BASF SE, said in the media statement.

Adani Green Energy is one of the biggest companies involved in solar power generation in India. Besides the group has also set up solar PV manufacturing unit at Mundra SEZ. The facility with multi-level infrastructure is optimised for scaling up to 3GW of modules and cells under a single roof.

The announcement comes on the eve of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019 where top leaders from Adani Group and BASF are going to attend.

Gujarat accounts for over 50% of India’s polymer production and plastics industry generates demand for petrochemical derivatives, according to official information available on Vibrant Gujarat’s website.

Gujarat has 61% share in national exports of petroleum products, according to the website.

The state is a hub for refinery and petrochemicals. Reliance Industries Ltd, which operates two refineries with a total capacity of over 68 million tonnes at Jamnagar, has set up a huge petrochemical complex as part of its expansion.

ONGC Petro Additions Ltd, set up by state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp., has also set up a petrochemical complex at Dahej, Gujarat, that houses a houses a dual-feed cracker unit.

15.2. Assam will be transformed into an Oil and Natural Gas Hub, says PM

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 11, 2019

PM visits Guwahati, lays foundation stone of North East Gas Grid Unveils various development projects NDA government fully committed to protect the culture, resources and languages of the Northeast states: PM

Guwahati: PM visited Guwahati as a part of his visit to Arunachal, Assam and Tripura. He laid foundation stone for North East Gas Grid. He also unveiled several other development projects in the state.

Speaking on the occasion he said, “Today is a new chapter in the history of the Northeast and the fast-paced development of this region has been a top priority for my government," He added that Assam is on the path to progress. He added that,“Our dedication to North East has been proven in the interim budget as allocation to North East has been increased by more than 21%. .”

PM said his Government is committed to all round development of North eastern states and assured them that it will protect their culture, resources and languages. On Citizenship Bill, PM urged people not be carried away by the rumours related to the citizenship bill. He said, “36 years have passed Assam accord has not been implemented yet and only Modi-led government would fulfil this.” PM urged he political parties to stop playing with the emotions of the people of Assam for political gain and vote bank. He also assured the people of north east that their state will not be harmed through Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. Will ensure your demand of Assam Accord is implemented, he added.

Speaking about corruption PM said, "The chowkidar is cracking-down on the corrupt". "Earlier governments had made corruption a state of normalcy but we are uprooting this menace from the society." PM said.

PM laid the foundation stone of North East Gas Grid which will ensure uninterrupted availability of natural gas across the region and boost industrial growth in the region. He inaugurated Hollong Modular Gas Processing Plant in Tinsukia which will deliver 15% of the total gas produced in Assam. PM inaugurated LPG Capacity Augmentation of Mounted Storage Vessel in North Guwahati.

The foundation stone of NRL Bio Refinery at Numaligarh and a 729 km gas pipeline from Barauni - Guwahati passing through Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim & Assam was laid by PM on this occasion.

PM said “Numaligarh will be the largest among 12 bio refineries to be built across India”. These facilities will transform Assam into oil and natural gas hub and boost India’s economy, he added. He spoke about Government plans for blending ethanol by upto 10%.

He laid foundation stone of City Gas Distribution Networks in Kamrup, Cacher, Hailakandi & Karimganj districts. He said, “In 2014 there were around 25 lakh PNG connections which became 46 lakh in just four years. The number of CNG refuelling stations also increased from 950 to 1500 in the same period.”

PM laid the foundation stone of a six-lane bridge over mighty river Brahmaputra. On the occasion he said that today we are starting the work for a six-lane highway over Brahmaputra which will reduce time between the two river banks - from 1.30 hours to 15 mins.

PM said that he was proud that his Government gave Bharat Ratna to Gopinath Bordoloi, Bhupen Hazarika. He said "Bhupen Hazarika could have been alive to receive the award but it did not happen in the previous regime as Bharat Ratna used to be reserved for some people the moment they were born, it used to take decades to honour people who spent their lives to bring honour to nation”.

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

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

16.1. Hiring at top IT firms rises fourfold in 2018

Livemint, 11 fev 2019, Varun Sood

The top five IT firms added 99,010 employees last year to take their workforce to about 1.23 million

Analysts say that there is no structural change to conclude that the pace of hiring will continue

New Delhi: India’s top 10 information technology (IT) companies added 114,390 engineers to their workforce in 2018, a more than four-fold increase from the previous year. While the numbers are the best in five years, few are predicting a similar showing in 2019.

Much of the jobs added in 2018 may have been because of increased hiring in the US under pressure from the Donald Trump administration and customers outsourcing large contracts on the condition that the vendors absorb some of their employees, two human resources (HR) executives said.

Although none of the companies disclosed details of hiring in the US or the number of employees absorbed from clients, the HR executives claimed that at least half of the net hiring made by companies in 2018 is on account of one of these two reasons.

The top five IT firms—Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Cognizant Technology Services Corp., Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd—added 99,010 employees last year to take their workforce to about 1.23 million as against an addition of 19,360 people in 2017, according to an analysis by Mint.

The rest of the top 10—Tech Mahindra Ltd, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd, Mindtree Ltd, Cyient Ltd and Zensar Ltd—added just 15,380 engineers compared with 2,796 in the previous year.

India’s $167 billion software services industry employed 3.7 million people at the end of December and the 10 largest companies accounted for 38% of them.

Some experts say last year’s jump looks more like a temporary recovery as the industry undergoes a structural change from a people-led model to a platform-based approach.

“I see the global economy slowing this year, and IT hiring will slow with it. Plus, the emerging IT services models will ultimately require fewer people to support it with smarter automation and the use of platforms," said Phil Fersht, CEO of US-based HfS Research, an outsourcing-research firm.

For now, stable macroeconomic growth in both the US and Europe has made more companies across industries spend more on outsourcing technology work, resulting in higher demand for services offered by IT outsourcing companies.

Unsurprisingly, a few analysts expect the sector to grow at faster pace in 2019 than in the recent past.

“(A)nnual growth rates in CC (constant currency) slowed in CY (calender year) 2017 by ~250bps (basis points) y/y across the Indian IT services industry, and improved in CY18 by ~90bps across the industry. Based on current Street estimates, we expect the Indian IT services industry revenue growth rates to continue to re-accelerate in CY19 at 9.3% y/y growth," Keith Bachman, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note dated 6 February.

Mumbai-based TCS is expected to grow its revenue by more than 11% in constant currency terms while Infosys expects full-year revenue to grow, at best, 9% in the year ending 31 March.

A large number of big IT outsourcing contracts have seen some employees of clients join the workforce of technology vendors.

For instance, 9,000 of the 13,514 people added by Wipro in 2018 joined from Alight Solutions as part of an outsourcing contract. Wipro won a $1.6 billion deal from Alight Solutions LLC, the former benefits administration and human-resources outsourcing business of Aon Plc in September last year.

Infosys’s contract with Verizon and TCS’s two mega contracts—the over $2 billion, 10-year contract from Transamerica Life Insurance Co. and $1.36 billion over 10 years from a unit of British insurer Prudential Plc—also saw the two IT firms absorb employees from their clients. The Transamerica contract alone added 2,200 employees to TCS’s workforce, which totalled 417,929 at the end of December.

Not many expect IT firms to add as many people in 2019 as they added last year.

“There is no structural change to conclude that the pace of hiring will continue. The industry is going through a change and faces the same pressure from automation. Of course, we will continue to hire in the US. But overall hiring depends on client budgets, which in turn is tied to macroeconomic growth," an executive at Wipro said on the condition of anonymity.

“Talent in areas such as algorithm development and automation is increasingly scarce and expensive, which will stifle resources and put increased pressure on services firms to train junior or mid-level staff at a faster pace than ever. I predict hiring will slow in the second half of 2019 and not pick up aggressively until early 2021," said Fersht of HfS Research.

16.2. OYO aims at 1mn rooms to become world's "largest" hotel chain

PTI, Jan. 15, 2019

Kolkata: Hospitality firm OYO Hotels and Rooms on Monday said it is working on a roadmap for 1-million room inventory from the existing count of 4.6 lakh.

"We will have one million rooms inventory into our fold in the near distant future. I think, it should happen in a year and a half," OYO CEO, India and South Asia, Aditya Ghosh told PTI.

This will help OYO to become the "world's top player from number three now", he claimed.

The company has set a target of 2.5 million rooms by 2023, its promoter Ritesh Agarwal said.

At present, OYO has over 13,000 franchised and leased hotels, and over 450,000 rooms, adding over 64,000 rooms every month, globally.

"In India, we have over 8,700 leased and franchised hotels, and more than 164,000 rooms," a company official said.

The firm has changed from the aggregator model to own inventories through the franchisee or lease operation model.

In China, a traditionally strong market for corporates, OYO's revenue is lower despite having a higher inventory of about 1.8 lakh rooms in that country, the official said.

OYO has active presence in seven countries, and is planning to expand to at least 15 countries with focus on Asian nations.

Over the next few weeks, it is expected to announce a fresh corporate growth plan focused on Asia and Japan, where it aims to become the largest player by the 2020 Summer Olympics, company officials said.

The hospitality firm is also aggressively putting in place a digital record system to facilitate direct data sharing of customers' arrivals and departures with various state governments.

The state governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and Telangana have so far shown interest in this digital record system, Ghosh said.

OYO on Monday extended an offer to the West Bengal government, too, to maintain a realtime data repository for 'Digital Arrival and Departure Register'

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

17.1. At 138.9 million, number of flyers on domestic routes registers 18.6 pc growth: DGCA

PTI, Jan. 23, 2019

New Delhi: The number of flyers on domestic routes increased to 13.89 crore in 2018 from 11.71 crore in 2017, a growth of 18.6 per cent, according to data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday.

The figure for December was 1.26 crore as compared to 1.12 crore in December 2017, a growth of 12.91 per cent, according to the DGCA.

IndiGo's market share increased from 39.6 per cent in 2017 to 41.5 per cent in 2018. The budget carrier flew 5.76 crore passengers domestically in 2018 as compared to 4.63 crore in 2017.

Due to intense competition, the domestic market share of Air India, Jet Airways and SpiceJet fell marginally in 2018 even though their passenger count increased by 20.31 lakh, 11.43 lakh and 16.72 lakh, respectively.

"Despite the marginal increase in airfares and localised and seasonal issues like bank strikes and cancellations due to fog, the domestic passenger market has registered a strong YoY (year-on-year) growth of 18.6 per cent," said Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Co-founder of travel website Ixigo.

The DGCA data shows that the passenger load factor for SpiceJet was 92.7 per cent in December 2018 in comparison to 91.1 per cent in November 2018.

"We are happy to finish 2018 on a high note by registering the highest passenger load factor of 92.7% in December -- a feat we accomplished every single month of the previous year," said Shilpa Bhatia, Chief Sales and Revenue Officer, SpiceJet.

Passenger load factor for IndiGo, GoAir, Jet Airways, Vistara and Air India was 88.9 per cent, 88.5 per cent, 87 per cent, 83.1 per cent and 81.2 per cent, respectively, in December 2018.

Passenger load factor is the percentage of occupied seats in a flight.

The DGCA data also shows that on-time performance (OTP) of GoAir, SpiceJet and Vistara -- on four metro airports of the country -- was 83 per cent, 77.9 per cent and 77.7 per cent, respectively, in December 2018.

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

17.2. Tourism generated USD 234 bn revenue in 2018: Alphons

PTI, Feb. 04, 2019

Guwahati: Union Minister K J Alphons Sunday said the country's tourism sector fetched USD 234 billion revenue last year, registering a growth of over 19 per cent.

Delivering the inaugural speech at the 2nd ASEAN-India Youth Summit here, he said the country was ranked third in the tourism sector, according to the 2018 report of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

"Last year, India generated USD 234 billion revenue from the tourism sector. While the global revenue growth was five per cent, it grew by 19.4 per cent in India," the Union tourism minister said.

This revenue was contributed by 87 per cent domestic and 13 per cent foreign tourists, Alphons said.

"From the foreign tourists we earned USD 27 billion, which grew by 14 per cent compared to global growth of seven per cent," he said, adding that around 82 million people are employed in the tourism sector.

About spiritual tourism, Alphons said 60-70 per cent of the total domestic tourists fall under this category.

"The Indian philosophy is yoga. We see all as one. Yoga is the way of life and it says the entire universe is part of me. If I want to be happy, others have to be happy -- this is the philosophy behind yoga.

"This is Indian philosophy. This is the common philosophy of ASEAN. Let us forget physical connectivity, this is the spiritual connectivity between us," the minister said.

Alphons also advocated for a peaceful and sustainable world, free of pollution and damage to the environment.

"Let us talk how we can bring sanity to world politics. Today, the world is being crushed under xenophobic politics. We need to think beyond our own countries," he appealed to the international gathering from the ASEAN nations.

On the occasion, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said more collaboration on various fields between the countries are needed to strengthen the relationship.

"We have requested the MEA to negotiate with the ASEAN countries to have their consulates in Guwahati, which will soon become the gateway of India in the northeast. Already, Bangladesh and Bhutan have opened their consulates here," he said.

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

18.1. Government clears Rs 4,242cr IT-filing project, selects Infosys as developer

PTI, Jan. 17, 2019

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday said IT major Infosys will develop the next-generation income tax filing system for Rs 4,241.97 crore which will cut down the processing time for returns to one day from 63 days and expedite refunds.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave its "approval to expenditure sanction of Rs 4,241.97 crore for Integrated E-filing and Centralised Processing Centre 2.0 Project of the Income Tax Department", Union minister Piyush Goyal said.

Briefing media about the decision, he said the processing time at present for Income Tax Reurn (ITR) is 63 days and it will come down to one day after implementation of the project.

Goyal said the project is expected to be completed in 18 months and will be launched after three months of testing.

Infosys, he said, has been selected to implement the project after the bidding process.

The current system, he said, has been a success and new project will be more tax friendly.

The e-filing and Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) projects have enabled end-to-end automation of all processes within the Income Tax Department using various innovative methods to provide taxpayer services and to promote voluntary compliance.

The Cabinet also sanctioned a consolidated cost of Rs 1,482.44 crore for the existing CPC-ITR 1.0 project up to 2018-19.

Goyal also informed that tax refunds worth Rs 1.83 lakh crore have been issued so far in the current fiscal.

The decision will ensure transparency and accountability besides faster processing of returns and issue of refunds to the taxpayers' bank account directly without any interface with the Income Tax Department.

The broad objectives of the integration project include faster and accurate outcomes for taxpayer, enhancing user experience at all stages, improving taxpayer awareness and education through continuous engagement, according to an official release.

Besides, it will also be promoting voluntary tax compliance and managing outstanding demand.

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

18.2. Infosys drafts a new strategy to focus on growth from top clients

Livemint, 4 Feb 2019, Varun Sood

Executives from Infosys Ltd’s consulting practice will now work jointly with sales and delivery heads to garner more business by offering a wider array of services to its top clients.

This effort is the latest initiative being rolled out by Infosys under chief executive Salil Parekh, who since taking over in January last year has focused on bringing stability at India’s second largest information technology (IT) services firm.

“There is a lot more focus on driving growth in top 30 accounts," said U.B. Pravin Rao, Infosys chief operating officer. “As part of this, we are looking to get digital strategists. Digital strategists are people, who will be again a handful, and who are consultants or technologists or people with industry background and will be looking at these top accounts."

Infosys expects to grow at a faster pace in the current financial year than in 2017-18. The company, after posting a 2.2% sequential increase in dollar revenue during the October-December period, raised its revenue outlook for 2018-19 to 8.5-9% in constant currency terms.

Infosys’s revenue grew 5.8% in constant currency terms in financial year 2017-18.

“We need it (consulting) to be part of the account team. It has to be a consultative-led selling approach," said Mark Livingston, Infosys’s head of consulting.

Infosys, like its peers, gets the bulk of its business from its largest clients: the top 25 clients accounted for a third or $1 billion of Infosys’s $2.98 billion in revenue in the October-December quarter.

In the quarter ended December 2017, just before Parekh took over as CEO, the top 25 customers accounted for 35.3% or $972.5 million of Infosys’s $2.75 billion in revenue.

This means that in calendar year 2018 business from top 25 clients grew at a slower pace of 4.1% as against an 8.4% growth in Infosys’s quarterly revenue.

Infosys’s latest effort appears it is looking to take a leaf out of its rival Cognizant’s approach which during the last decade modeled its ‘three-in-a-box approach’ under which the Nasdaq-listed firm got a consulting partner to work along with a sales and delivery executive for its largest accounts.

One reason behind this push by Infosys to make consulting more integral to its business is also driven by the change in the way companies globally, from big banks to healthcare firms, are looking to do business with their IT vendors.

Over the last few years, newer digital technologies like data analytics and cloud computing platforms offer companies to run their business better.

“Consulting is key as you have to work with clients at a strategic level to identify opportunities and co-create and co-innovate solutions. The account-based models require consulting to be a key part of the selling and service model," said Ray Wang, founder of Constellation Research, a technology research and advisory firm.

Infosys’s latest approach to consulting comes after many failed attempts by its earlier management over the last 15 years to leverage its consulting arm: From setting up a consulting arm at the start of the century to buying Swiss consulting unit Lodestone, then later merging it with its own small consulting business, Infosys has struggled to scale up its consulting business.

None of the Indian IT firms, including Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, share revenue from their consulting practices but analysts attribute Cognizant’s industry-leading growth over the last decade to its strong consulting business.

19.1. Taj Mahal & Agra fort among the top ten revenue generating monuments: Dr. Mahesh Sharma

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 06, 2019

New Delhi: The top ten revenue generating monuments during 2015-18 are Taj Mahal, Agra Fort,Qutub Minar, Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb, Sun Temple Konark, Group of monuments Mamallapuram, Ellora Caves, Group of monuments Khajuraho, and Ajanta Caves,Aurangabad

The year wise details of expenditure incurred for conservation of protected monuments under Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) during 2015-2018 are given below:

The above information was given by Minister of State (independent charge) for Culture and Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate change Dr. Mahesh Sharma, in reply to a Starred Question in the Rajya Sabha, today.

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

19.2. Digital ad industry to grow 32% to touch ₹ 24,920 crore by 2021: report

Livemint, Jan. 17, 2019

New Delhi: The digital advertising industry is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.96% to reach ₹ 24,920 crore by 2021 , on the back of affordable data and increased content consumption, said a report from Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN).

Digital will contribute 29% of the ad market size by 2021.

Digital ad spends currently stand at ₹ 10,819 crore, contributing 17% to the total expenditure of the advertising industry. This is expected to touch ₹ 14,281 crore by 2019 growing at 31.9%, said the digital ad spend forecast report published by DAN in association with trade portal exchange4media

. The Indian ad industry stands at ₹ 61,878 crore and is expected to touch ₹ 85,250 crore by 2021 growing at a CAGR of 10.62%.

The report clearly stated that the surge in digital ad spends will be led by three main factors including voice-based search technology, vernacular as well as video content. This growth will be further enhanced by engaging mobile experiences based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies.

“We have about 500 million people on the internet today and in the next three to four years, another 300-400 million people will join in. Concurrently, the next phase of internet users will speak regional languages and as a result, you will probably see a lot more advertising in regional languages on digital in the years to come,” said Ashish Bhasin, chairman and chief executive - South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network.

Currently, the advertising expenditure on the digital advertising formats is led by social media (29%) followed by search (25%), display (21%) and video (20%). Digital Video is expected to have the fastest growth, with CAGR of 37% that will touch ₹ 5,545 crore by 2021.

In terms of brand categories, the service industry has embraced digital media for scaling businesses. Industries such as banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) are experimenting with non-traditional media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram Stories to connect with users.

BFSI is the biggest spender on digital media with a contribution of 38% of all their marketing budgets. This is followed by consumer durables (36%), e-commerce (34%) and telecom (31%). Meanwhile, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) continues to spend heavily on the television (63%) while retail sector spends largely on print (54%).

With a user base second only to China, mobile is driving growth for content platforms as well as advertisers who are experimenting with different ad formats to connect with users. The market size of advertising spending on mobile is expected to grow from the current ₹ 5,102 crore to ₹ 16,718 crores by 2021.Currently, spending on the mobile advertising is 47% of the total digital advertising budget which is predicted to be 67% by 2021.

Apart from video content, engaging ads on mobile, voice based interactions and emerging technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and internet of things will make story telling engaging on digital media.

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

20.1. Election, World Cup set to boost India ad spending to a four-year high

Livemint, 13 Feb. 2019, Saumya Tewari

Advertising spending in India is expected to grow 14% to ₹80,678 crore in 2019, says GroupM

In 2019, 37% of incremental ad spending will go towards digital

New Delhi: GroupM, the media investment group of WPP Plc, expects Indian advertising spending to grow 14% to ₹80,678 crore in 2019, the fastest pace in four years, driven by the cricket world cup and national elections.

Consumer goods, auto, retail, e-commerce and technology/telecom sectors are expected to account for 66% to the overall advertising expenditure (adex) this year, GroupM said on Tuesday.

India is the fastest growing ad market in the world and the third highest contributor to incremental ad spending, behind China and the US, the report said.

“While we are estimating the global advertising expenditure to grow at 3.6%, India would be witnessing the fastest growth at 14%. We expect sustained and stable media investment growth across categories in India," said Sam Singh, chief executive, GroupM South Asia.

In 2019, 37% of incremental ad spending will go towards digital. GroupM estimated the digital adex will grow by 30% to reach ₹16,038 crore this year. Meanwhile, television will continue to grow at a steady pace of 15% while radio is predicted to grow faster than the previous year’s 15%.

Print is estimated to grow by 2.2% and the share of print to all media is expected to be at 23%. While it is expected that both English and regional languages will grow, the latter will see faster growth.

Cinema advertising growth is expected at 25% in 2019, as 2018 saw more titles winning audiences at the box office.

“India is unique among key markets and will witness growth in all media segments and not just digital. Offline media is poised to continue to grow and will contribute to being around 80% of ad spends in 2019," said Prasanth Kumar, chief operating officer at GroupM South Asia.

Rohit Gupta, chief revenue officer (ad sales and international business) at Sony Pictures Networks India, said the forecast is an aggressive one. “We’ve seen trends where every year the estimates have always been pegged downwards and there is a reset midway," he said.

20.2. Media and entertainment industry may touch USD 52,683 million by 2022: Study

PTI, Jan. 28, 2019

New Delhi: The Indian media and entertainment industry is estimated to touch USD 52,683 million (around Rs 3.73 lakh crore) by 2022 led by increasing disposable income, population and content consumption across the formats, according to a survey.

Besides the traditional media such as TV and cinema, new-age digital platforms such as over-the-top (OTT) services would play a key role, said an Assocham-PwC joint study.

By 2022, the Indian video OTT market will be among the top-10 markets globally with a market size of USD 823 million (Rs 5,363 crore), said the study.

"The entertainment and media industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.7 per cent from USD 30,364 million in 2017 to USD 52,683 million in 2022," the report said.

It further added: "TV, cinema and OTT will collectively account for 46 per cent of the overall growth in the Indian entertainment and media industry for the period 2017 to 2022."

The survey added that both the conventional media industry as well OTT players will coexist in India and achieve impressive growth in the coming years.

With the launch of OTT services, video-on-demand (VoD) has been at the forefront of disruption in the media industry, and the production budgets of companies such as Netflix and Amazon now rival those of traditional studios, said PwC India Partner and Leader (Entertainment and Media Sector) Frank D'Souza.

"Globally, the OTT market is set to grow at a CAGR of 10.1 per cent during the period 2017 2022. During the same period in India, the segment is expected to grow from USD 297 million (Rs 1,932 crore) to USD 823 million (Rs 5,363 crore) in 2022 at a CAGR of 22.6 per cent," it added.

In this, subscription video on demand (SVoD) will hold a majority share throughout the projected period, it said.

According to the joint survey, over the past decade, the VoD market has evolved across the world, including India, and now with increase in smartphone penetration and lower data tariffs, it is showing promising growth here.

"Mobile video advertising (largely AVoD) is the fastest growing sub-segment of India's Internet advertising market, projected to rise at a CAGR of 32.8 per cent from 2017 to 2022 and to reach USD 317 million (Rs 2,064 crore) by 2022," it added.

Data consumption in India will grow from 71,67,103 million MB in 2017 to 10,96,58,793 million MB in 2022.

"With lower-than-ever data tariffs and increasing smartphone penetration in the country, which is around 40 per cent as of 2017, it is safe to assume that the VoD market will be a significant beneficiary of these developments," it added.

Now, the regional and quality content, delivered with a focus on unique and customised 'user experience' through the use of technology, is set to become the mainstay of success for VoD service providers.

However, it also added that the country's per-capita media and entertainment spend will be capped at a mere USD USD 32 by 2021.

"The spend is much lower than that of China, which will stand at USD 222 for the same period, and that of the USA, which will have the highest spend at USD 2,260," it added.

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

INDIA AND THE WORLD

21.1. Air passenger traffic to grow sixfold by 2040: Report

Livemint, 16 Jan. 2019, Rhik Kundu

India may have 190-200 operational airports, of which three each will be in Delhi and Mumbai, says the ‘Vision 2040’ report released at the Global Aviation Summit 2019

Mumbai: India’s air passenger traffic is expected to grow sixfold to 1.1 billion per year by 2040, according to the Vision 2040 report for the civil aviation industry released on Tuesday at the government-backed Global Aviation Summit 2019.

The Indian commercial air fleet is expected to be 2,359 by March 2040, says the report prepared by consultancy firm KPMG and industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. India is also expected to have 190-200 operational airports by 2040, with Delhi and Mumbai having three airports each, it says.

India may consider investments of up to $2 billion for low traffic airports, excluding land acquisition costs, the report says. It also recommends that a strong leasing industry for financing of aircraft and maintenance, repair and overhaul, be established in India to prevent domestic airlines from going abroad for the facilities.

The Vision 2040 report was prepared in consultation with the government though it was not commissioned by it, said aviation secretary R.N. Choubey. “We didn’t commission the report as we wanted suggestions from the industry,” he said. The government will deliberate on the suggestions and take a call on which ones to implement, Choubey said.

Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu said the report will address the immediate challenges of the aviation sector. “We are working on getting aircraft financing and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry in India, which will also increase jobs in the country,” Prabhu said. At present, most airlines go abroad for MRO services and for raising capital to finance aircraft purchases.

Four of the five engine issues related to the Pratt and Whitney engines on Airbus 320neo planes have been resolved, while the fifth issue, that of the gearbox, is being addressed, said minister of state for aviation Jayant Sinha.

Domestic airlines such as IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd) and GoAir have had several flights grounded over the last few months because of glitches in the Pratt and Whitney engine. “The director general of civil aviation is expected to issue further directives regarding this shortly,” Sinha said.

The Centre also proposed amendments to the draft drone policy, including allowing drones beyond visual line of sight. The amendment also proposes the use of algorithm to pilot drones, and a dedicated drone corridor, besides creating drone ports for landing and taking off. It also bats for 100% foreign direct investment in drone manufacturing.

Meanwhile, Qatar Airways’s group chief executive officer Akbar Al Bakr said on the sidelines of the event that the airline is in talks with IndiGo and GoAir for code share opportunities.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects India to become the third-largest aviation market worldwide in the next decade, it said in a report released at the summit.

“The fundamental drivers of air passenger demand, including population and demographics and increasing incomes, are favourable and supportive of ongoing growth over the longer-term,” the report said.

The aviation industry in India is not yet on a sound financial footing and this remains a work-in-progress for the industry and its key stakeholders, including policymakers, it said.

“While the industry has demonstrated resilience in the face of various shocks and disruption, including the global financial crisis and airline exits, financial stability is a key factor for the industry to be able to successfully develop and grow,” according to the IATA report.

21.2. Byju's acquires US-based Osmo for US$ 120 million

Livemint, Jan. 17, 2019

Bengaluru: Online tutoring startup Byju’s (Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd) has acquired Osmo, a maker of educational games, for $120 million in its first-ever purchase of a US company. The acquisition will help Byju’s offer learning solutions to children aged between three and eight by tapping into Osmo’s physical-to-digital technology and content.

Byju’s has aggressive plans for the international market and will continue to make big investments in technology to further personalize learning for students, the company said on Wednesday. Byju’s is on target to triple revenue to ₹ 1,400 crore this year.

Last month, Byju’s raised $540 million at a valuation of $3.6 billion, as robust investor demand swelled the size of its latest funding round and turned Byju Raveendran, the founder of the eponymous startup into an overnight billionaire. That funding round put Byju’s fourth on the list of India’s most valuable startups, after digital payments firm Paytm (One97 Communications Pvt. Ltd), cab-hailing service Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) and budget hotel chain Oyo Rooms (Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd).

The focus at Byju’s has been on creating engaging, immersive content offered through personalized learning experiences for students. Osmo’s use of mixed reality interactions can help it expand its platform to new audiences and applications, the company said.

“Our partnership with Osmo will help kids acquire love for learning at an early age by introducing ‘play-based learning’. Together with Osmo, we have the critical elements needed to build an unprecedented library of engaging and entertaining educational content for a global pre-K-12 student audience,” Raveendran said in a statement.

Byju’s has raised $784 million in total funding so far and has made three acquisitions before Osmo, according to data from Crunchbase.

Launched in 2015, the Byju’s Learning App offers personalized programmes for school students across grades 4-12. It has over two million annual paid subscriptions and 30 million students learning from the app. Palo Alto-based Osmo was founded in 2013 by ex-Google engineers Pramod Sharma and Jerome Scholler.

“We started Osmo for parents looking for a way to combine physical, hands-on play with the power of digital platforms to foster a love of learning,” Osmo co-founder and chief executive Sharma said.

Osmo will continue to scale on a standalone basis after the purchase and its core team, headed by Sharma, will remain at its helm.

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

22.1. MSME exports cross USD 147390 Million in 2017-18

Press Information Bureau, Feb. 12, 2019

New Delhi: Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Giriraj Singh has said that the value of MSME related products’ exported during 2017-18 has reached USD 147,390.08 million, as per the information received from Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS). The Minister was replying to a question in Lok Sabha today. The revenue of exports of specified MSME related products during the last six years is as follows:

Giriraj Singh further informed that the Government has taken several measures to enhance exports by MSMEs. These include efforts made under Make in India Programme, Promotion of Ease of Doing Business, improved availability of credit through MUDRA, Stand up India, schemes such as ‘Merchandise Exports from India Scheme’ (MEIS) for incentivising export of specified goods to specified markets and ‘Service Exports from India Scheme’ (SEIS) for increasing exports of notified services from India, 2 percent interest subvention for all GST registered MSMEs on fresh or incremental loans and increase in interest rebate from 3 percent to 5 percent for exporters who receive pre-shipment and post-shipment loans.

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

22.2. Gig economy has jobs, but long hours, no security and little pay

Livemint, 08 Feb 2019, Nidheesh M.K.

In Kerala, the online economy taps into a labour pool willing to take up transient jobs due to lack of better options

The gig industry is defined as a labour market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs

ERNAKULAM: The city was fast falling asleep. In home after home, bright porch lights were being turned off behind closed gates. Down an empty street, the light from pole lamps kept flickering over a small gathering of people waiting outside a restaurant. Suddenly, one of their smart phones made a loud factory siren-like sound. It was time to get to work.

As the person reached for a packet of food and drove away on his bike to deliver it to a corner of the city, he waved bye to his co-worker, Sidheek Shahudeen.

Shahudeen does not exactly know how the online food delivery system comes together, but he is hungry for work. He raises his phone to the sky every now and then, hoping for better reception from the cell tower, hoping to land a task faster.

Shahudeen is among thousands of others who found new opportunities in the gig economy and were quick to grab them. But they are fast realizing that this is not exactly what they expected. They are told they are their own bosses, but in reality, little distinguishes them from being a slave to their apps. Their days keep getting longer, the earnings fluctuate and the going gets harder.

The gig industry is defined as “a labour market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs".

In an increasingly service-oriented job market, the delivery executives for startups such as Uber, Ola, Swiggy and Zomato have been the most visible segment where jobs were created. In fact, NITI Aayog chief executive Amitabh Kant said so in a recent press meet, while countering a leaked government report that stated unemployment in India in 2017-18 touched the highest mark in 45 years. Ola and Uber alone created 2.2 million jobs, Kant said.

Actually, a chunk of these gig economy jobs may not qualify as fresh employment, but what urban affairs expert V. Ravichandar terms “rotating attrition".

“If you look at the profile of people who are getting into Ola, Uber, Swiggy or even startups that offer elder care— these are reasonably educated people in a rotating attrition. People are coming and going from one job to another. People are desperate for jobs, so they take this up and work with some IT company (even if) it is not something they want to do. But they need the income. So they are forced to take that till they can get out of this and do what they want to do," says Ravichandar, also the chairman of Feedback Business Consulting, a business advisory firm.

“They thought life is going to be easy with education. They are finding it’s not; therefore, there is a lot of underlying tension and stress that is building up there," he adds.

For Shahudeen, it worked initially. He returned from Dubai some months back, like many fellow Keralites, after he lost his job to increased nationalization there. He then read in the papers that an online food delivery startup was hiring executives 140km away from his village, in Kochi. “I was earning ₹10,000 per week earlier, now just about ₹800 per week. But these days, I don’t get that many orders. Maybe because a large number of people are joining—each month I think they are adding 500 more men," he says.

But this has not meant a lighter workload. “Most of us work from 12pm to 12am every day. Look at this," he says, pulling up his phone. The screen shows his work log for the last three days of the week. Each day, he clocked between 16-21 hours of work, but his income for three days was below ₹1,000.

In Kerala, where the unemployment rate is 12.5%, double the national average of 5% according to the 2015 employment survey by India’s labour bureau, the online economy taps into a labour pool willing to take up transient jobs due to lack of better opportunities. In other words, they are all searching for a dream job.

“I am happy with this job. This guy (Shahudeen) may have switched on the app and it did not work for him," chips in Ashkar C.A., who joined an online food startup after its competitor terminated his contract for failing to deliver a falooda to a far end of the city without melting, a humanly impossible task. “This company has been really good to me, they even gave ₹35,000 as medical help during my wife’s pregnancy."

Many are yet to come to terms with the fact that they are not employees of the startups they work for. Though they claim to be largely treated well by their employers, all of them agree that they usually labour in difficult conditions. Lack of decent wages, an absence of predefined hours and benefits; the physical strain associated with the work, with all the dust and the heat on the roads; abuse and harassment are among the issues they regularly face. Like many others, they are hit by rising petrol prices. In their case, the rising prices directly eat into their earnings.

This is apart from the usual violence on the streets. Roshin R., who is standing next to Shahudeen, recounts a story. He had an order to deliver to a suburb of the city at night last month, and when he reached the spot he was beaten up by a bunch of goons. They simply did not want to pay for the order. Roshin said he tried to complain to the company, but nobody listened.

Some like Jawahir, a food delivery executive whose ordeal was reported in the local media recently, are trying to channelize the pent-up anger and frustration by unionizing workers.

Some months back, Jawahir arrived at a restaurant to pick up an order and found the owner beating up an employee. He tried to intervene and the owner thrashed him too.

“This whole system depends on how longer and faster you can work, and I am naturally disadvantaged," adds Mukesh V., who is recovering from a stroke that left him unemployed two years ago and could not find a job. His biggest discomfort is the lack of toilets or provision to drink water, something as common as pen and paper for any employee in an office.

Rajesh E., another delivery executive, is struggling to find a balance. He lived a life of comfort until recently, when he moved out of Malaysia. He had lost his job and returned home.

“There is pressure from the family to earn a salary. And I have to repay loans of about ₹20 lakh, which I took to migrate to Malaysia. What else to do," he asks, before setting out to deliver an order.

Post midnight, around 1am, one by one, they begin to switch off their apps and leave for home. Like it happens after a factory shift ends, the workforce vanishes within minutes, only to regroup at the same spot the next day.

“All I want to do is to lead an honest life, earn enough so that I don’t have to worry about money, bills, food..." Shahudeen says. “I am going to take a week off, I know it will cut short my income. But otherwise, my body will not be able to cope up. I’m not a superman."

23.1. India's exports up 32 pc to China, 12 pc to US during June-Nov 2018: FIEO

PTI, Jan. 25, 2019

New Delhi: The tariff war between the US and China is benefitting India as its exports to the neighbouring country have increased by about 32 per cent to USD 8.46 billion during the June-November 2018 period, exporters body FIEO said Thursday.

Exports to China had stood at USD 6.37 billion in June-November 2017.

In June and September 2018, the US announced high customs duties on several Chinese goods. In retaliation, China also raised levies on American goods.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta also said that during the period, India's exports to the US grew by 12 per cent.

"Exports to China jumped from USD 6.37 billion in June-November 2017 to USD 8.46 billion in June-November 2018," Gupta said in a statement.

He said commodities that have exhibited high growth during the period to China include petroleum products, chemicals, cotton yarn, plastic raw material, and marine products.

"While tariff war is not good for the global trade, the same has come as an opportunity for other countries including India. Our exports to China in June-November 2018 went up by 32 per cent and to US by 12 per cent in the same period," Gupta said.

If the tariff escalation continues, India has to increase production capabilities to meet the growing demand in both the markets, he added.

Growth in exports to China is beneficial for India as it has huge trade deficit with the neighbouring country.

Trade deficit with China increased to USD 63.12 billion in 2017-18 from USD 51.11 billion in 2016-17.

India is taking several steps to promote shipments to China. Recently it has managed to export agricultural goods such as non-basmati rice to China.

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

23.2. JLF 2019: A galaxy of literary stars in Jaipur

Livemint, 18 Jan. 2019, Somak Ghoshal

From a crime fiction sensation to last year’s Pulitzer winner, here’s the ‘Lounge’ guide to JLF 2019

It’s festival season again and “the greatest literary show on earth” is round the corner. Like every year, the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) is bringing writers from different corners of the world to Diggi Palace in the capital of Rajasthan. Among Indian writers, the list features prominent names in the regional languages, including Malayalam writer Benyamin, who won the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature last year, and the stars of Tamil writing, such as poet Salma and Perumal Murugan. Actor Manisha Koirala, who recently released her memoir about surviving cancer, is one of the attractions, as are English-language writers like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Prayaag Akbar. From this long and august list of writers, Lounge picks 10 names to look out for at JLF 2019.

AJ Finn

American publisher Daniel Mallory, who worked in the UK for a decade, shot to fame last year with the publication of his noir fiction (under the pseudonym of A.J. Finn), The Woman In The Window. Described as a Hitchcockian thriller, it is now of a league with Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins’ The Girl On The Train. The crime fiction enthusiast has now turned to full-time writing and returned to New York City, where he is from. A movie based on the book is coming up in 2019.

Ahdaf Soueif

Acclaimed Egyptian writer and chronicler of the revolution of 2011, Soueif is best known for her novel, The Map Of Love, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 1999. An outspoken critic of authoritarian regimes and defender of human rights, her sessions will hopefully lead to some fiery conversations.

Alexander Mccall Smith

This well-loved Scottish novelist and creator of the popular series, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, hardly needs any introduction. Apart from his delightful mysteries, the former professor of medical law is also known as an “amateur bassoonist” and is the co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra.

Akwaeke Emezi

Igbo and Tamil writer and artist Emezi made a splash with their debut novel,Freshwater, published last year. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa in 2017, their work has featured in several literary journals and magazines.

André Aciman

If you were bowled over by Luca Guadagnino’s award-winning movie Call Me By Your Name, here’s your chance to meet the man whose book started it all. The New York University professor of writing and scholar of Marcel Proust is currently working on a sequel to the best-selling novel and movie. We are all ears!

Andrew Sean Greer

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature last year for his novel Less, Greer is one of the big-ticket appearances at this year’s JLF. Arthur Less, the anti-hero of his much lauded comic novel, is a failed novelist, who, in his 50th year, decides to undertake a whirlwind tour of the global lit-fest circuit. That’s really as meta as it gets.

Ornit Shani

Scholar of Indian democracy, this political scientist has written extensively on universal franchise, caste, communalism and citizenship. Currently working on a social history of India’s first elections, Shani will be a widely anticipated speaker in a year when India is gearing up for electoral turmoil.

Germaine Greer

One of the grandes dames of international feminism, Greer is the author of several highly influential books, including The Female Eunuch (1969). Although her views on transgender identity have created discord within and without academia of late, we can expect her to light a few controversial fires at JLF this year.

Irvine Welsh

Most of us know him from Danny Boyle’s film adaptations of Trainspottingand Porno, but Welsh is a legend in contemporary writing. From recreational drugs and football to sex and class conflict, his novels bristle with an energy that can feel at once manic and addictive.

Katty Kay

This BBC journalist, based in Washington DC, is the author of The Confidence Code For Girls, which, as its subtitle says, is a book about “Taking Risks, Messing Up and Becoming Your Amazingly Imperfect, Totally Powerful Self”. Debuting at #1 on The New York Times best-seller list last year, it started heated conversations on the internet. In light of the #MeToo movement, it should generate some exciting debate in India too.

24.1. Two-wheeler exports from India rise 19.5 pc in Apr-Jan

PTI, Feb. 11, 2019

New Delhi: At a time when two-wheeler manufacturers are finding sales moving at a slow pace in the domestic market, their exports have risen by 19.49 per cent in the April-January period this fiscal, according to the latest data from auto industry body SIAM.

Total two-wheeler exports during the period stood at 27,59,935 units as compared with 23,09,805 units a year ago, showed the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data.

The growth in exports of two-wheelers from the country is driven mainly by motorcycles and scooters.

Motorcycle shipments to foreign markets during the period stood at 24,12,800 units as against 20,34,250 units in the corresponding period last fiscal, up 18.61 per cent.

Likewise, scooter exports zoomed by 26.67 per cent to 3,32,197 units as compared to 2,62,253 units in the year-ago period, SIAM said.

Exports of mopeds grew by 12.3 per cent to 14,938 units, against 13,302 units a year ago.

Recovery in markets such as Africa and Latin America has helped two-wheeler manufacturers crank up their exports from India, industry observers said.

Leading the two-wheeler export bandwagon is Bajaj Auto, which shipped a total of 14,50,766 units in the April-January period, a jump of 24.87 per cent.

Chennai-based TVS Motor Co's exports also zoomed by 29.18 per cent to 5,04,799 units during the period, as per the SIAM data.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India also posted a 10.3 per cent increase in its two-wheeler exports to 3,25,759 units during the period.

India Yamaha Motor posted a 2.39 per cent increase in its exports to 2,09,352 units, while Hero MotoCorp's shipments stood at 1,63,480 units, up 5.74 per cent.

The rise in exports comes at a time when two-wheeler sales in India have slowed down to single-digit growth.

According to SIAM, two-wheeler sales in the domestic market stood at 1,81,25,656 units in the April-January period this fiscal as against 1,67,71,630 units in the corresponding period last fiscal, a growth of 8.07 per cent.

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

24.2. India pips Japan to be second largest global steel producer

Business Standard, Jan. 22, 2019

Bhubaneswar: India has surged past Japan to become the second largest steel producer in the world with expansion in output backed by a sound growth in demand.

According to World Steel Association, India produced 96.92 million tonnes of crude steel during the first eleven months of 2018 compared to 92. 39 million tonnes during the same period of 2017, representing a growth of 4.9 per cent

Japan recorded a dip of 0.1 per cent in steel output in the same period at 95 .86 million tonnes while China maintained its position at the top with 857 million tonnes of steel production.

“The January to November crude steel production statistics released by worldsteel show that India has become the second largest steel producer in the world, overtaking Japan for the second month in a row, with a growth rate of 4.9 per cent. The growth in steel production is supported by fast-growing steel demand”, said Adam Szewczyk, Head, Data Management with World Steel Association in a blog captioned ‘India to significantly boost demand for steel’.

India’s apparent steel use per capita for finished steel products stood at 66.2 kilogram (kg), way below the world average of 212.3 kg in 2017, which suggests that India has a huge unrealised potential for steel demand growth, he added.

According to the association, India also likely to become second largest nation in steel use by the end of 2019 as the steel demand is expected to grow by 7.3 per cent.

The Indian steel industry, after recovering from the twin shocks of demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform, is one of the few bright spots for the world’s steel industry which is projected to enter a sluggish growth era.

Recently, India has been trying to unleash its growth potential through an extensive reform agenda to clear institutional bottlenecks. Also, there is an ongoing push for infrastructure development. These factors, along with the favourable demographics, are improving the macroeconomic fundamentals, which translate into sustained growth in steel use , Szewczyk added.

A World Steel study of India, conducted in collaboration with the Indian Steel Association, has identified the construction sector as a pan-India steel demand driver on the back of strong infrastructure development and housing demand, especially affordable housing.

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

25.1. New Delhi begins expanding its diplomatic footprint in Africa

Livemint, 4 Feb. 2019, Elizabeth Roche

India is appointing ambassadors to nations such as Djibouti, where it had no representation before

With the new appointments, India seeks to extend its reach to 47 of 54 African nations, up from existing 29

India has begun to implement plans to expand its diplomatic footprint across resource-rich Africa, appointing ambassadors to countries where previously it had no representation, such as Djibouti and Burkina Faso.

New Delhi seeks to extend its diplomatic reach to 47 out of 54 African nations, up from the existing 29, with the new appointments. Indian embassies will also be set up in Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland and Togo, in a phased manner up to 2021, according to a decision taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union cabinet last year against the backdrop of strategic rival China having embassies in almost all African countries.

Budgetary constraints have come in the way of such appointments in the past, according to Rajiv Bhatia, former Indian high commissioner to South Africa and Kenya and currently with the Mumbai-based Gateway House think tank. Former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh said the lack of personnel had hampered India’s efforts to ensure a wide diplomatic presence.

During the 2015 India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi, India had recognized that, while its links with Anglophone Africa were quite strong because of their common colonial past, and it had substantial presence in large Francophone countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Portuguese-speaking Angola and Mozambique, the lack of resident diplomatic presence in countries such as Rwanda, Djibouti, and Burkina Faso, besides Sao Tome and Principe, was a weak link in its Africa strategy. In the case of Rwanda, India had declared the country a strategic partner in 2017, though New Delhi did not have a full-fledged diplomatic presence in the country.

In the 1960s-1980s, India was seen as a key influence in Africa, supporting independence and decolonization in the continent. However, its prominence has since faded and has been supplanted primarily by China, as India focused on closer ties with developed economies for investments and technology.

The Chinese presence in Africa dwarfs that of other countries with its trade deals, help to build infrastructure, and provision of cheap finance.

In the past decade, India has been working to recast its ties with the African continent, which is seen as a major growth pole and a major source of resources. New Delhi has hosted two of three India-Africa Summits held so far, including the last one held in October 2015 and attended by representatives from all 54 African countries.

New Delhi has ensured high-level engagement, including visits at the presidential, vice presidential and prime ministerial levels, besides ministerial interactions.

Rajiv Bhatia was also of the opinion that Indian businesses need “to be energized to invest more in Africa, and to export more" for India to ensure an upgrade of its profile.

25.2. L&T Hydrocarbon bags over Rs 7,000 cr order from Algeria's Sonatrach

PTI, Feb. 13, 2019

New Delhi: L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of engineering major Larsen & Toubro, Tuesday said it has won an over Rs 7,000 crore (around USD 1 billion) order from Algeria's Sonatrach for setting up three central processing facilities in that country.

While the company did not disclose the value of the contract, it said it has bagged a mega order from Sonatrach and defined orders valued in excess of Rs 7,000 crore as mega orders.

"The engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contract is to set up three central processing facilities (CPF)...The three facilities are located close to each other in the Adrar province of Algeria," Larsen & Toubro said in a BSE filing.

The contract has been awarded through international competitive bidding on a lump sum turn key basis.

Shares of Larsen & Toubro were trading 0.41 per cent higher at Rs 1,251.05 apiece on BSE.

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

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Tuesday 19 February 2019

NEWSLETTER, 20-II-2019

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NEWSLETTER, 20-II-2019

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

- INDUSTRY, MANUFACURE

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

INDIA AND THE WORLD