- Tuesday, April 22, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news in brief on India’s economy and business for Wednesday, November 1, 2023:
India’s minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship and electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Wednesday spoke about his country’s perspective on artificial intelligence, emphasising on its commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) with a strong emphasis on safety, trust and accountability. He said this while addressing the inaugural day of the ‘AI Safety Summit 2023’ at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire in the UK. “Our prime minister, Shri Narendra Modi, has argued for several years that the future of technology, whether it involves innovation, partnerships, or the institutional framework for regulating technology and innovation for the benefit of all mankind, should be driven by a coalition of nations rather than just one or two countries,” he said at the two-day event.
Indian education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and his United Arab Emirates (UAE) counterpart Ahmad Al Falasi on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to strengthen existing educational cooperation between the two countries. The MoU aims at facilitating student and faculty mobility, joint research programmes, designing courses, organising and participation in conferences, lectures, symposia, courses, scientific and educational exhibitions in areas of mutual interest held in both countries. “UAE being a global economic hotspot and India being a global talent hotspot, both sides should work together to build a knowledge bridge to cement our civilizational connect,” Pradhan, who is on a three-day visit to Abu Dhabi, said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday said that more than 97 per cent of the Rs 2000 bank notes have been returned to the banking system and only about Rs 10,000 crore (£990.7 million) worth of the notes are still with the public. On May 19, the RBI announced the withdrawal of Rs 2000 denomination bank notes from circulation. “The total value of Rs 2000 bank notes in circulation, which amounted to Rs 3.56 lakh crore (£35.2 billion) as at the close of business on May 19, 2023, when the withdrawal of Rs 2000 bank notes was announced, has declined to Rs 0.10 lakh crore as at the close of business on October 31, 2023,” it said in a circular. Thus, more than 97 per cent of the Rs 2,000 bank notes in circulation as on May 19, 2023, have since been returned, the central bank said. Public can deposit and/or exchange the Rs 2000 bank notes at the 19 RBI offices across the country.
In a significant move, the government has permitted Indian companies to list on foreign exchanges, subject to certain conditions. The corporate affairs ministry has notified the relevant section under the companies law in this regard. Currently, overseas listings by local listed entities are carried out through American Depository Receipts and Global Depository Receipts. “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2020 (29 of 2020), the Central Government hereby appoints the 30th day of October 2023 as the date on which the provisions of section 5 of the said Act shall come into force,” the ministry said in a notification on Monday (30).
AirAsia India, a joint venture (JV) between India’s Tata and AirAsia Berhad, has officially concluded its operations and has been rebranded as IX Connect, Times of India reported. The AirAsia India brand’s journey ended on Tuesday (31), less than a year before completing a decade since its flight took off in June 2014. The Tata-AirAsia Berhad JV had not a smooth flight due to alleged control by the partner from Malaysia. Things got sorted only when the Tatas moved to buy out AirAsia’s stake and decided to merge it with Air India Express that they acquired last January to set up a mega low-cost carrier as part of the Air India family.
India and Sri Lanka have resumed talks for an economic and technology cooperation agreement (ETCA), after a gap of nearly five years, an official statement said. The two countries had 11-rounds of talks from 2016 to 2018. Thereafter the negotiations were paused. “India and Sri Lanka held the twelfth round negotiations on the ETCA in Colombo from October 30 to November 1,” the commerce ministry said in a statement. During this round, it said, both the sides engaged in discussions on various issues, including trade in goods, technical barriers to trade, sanitary (human and animal health) and phytosanitary (plant health) measures, trade in services, custom procedure, trade facilitation, rules of origin, trade remedies, and dispute settlement.
India’s state-run oil and gas majors Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) have inked a 15-year contract for supply of propane, considered a key petrochemical feedstock, the Hindu businessline reported. BPCL said under the agreement with GAIL worth over Rs 63,000 crore (£6.24 billion), it will deliver 600 KTPA (kilo tonnes per annum) of propane from its LPG import facility at Uran in Mumbai. The facility, presently handling 1 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) of LPG imports, is expanding to accommodate 3 MTPA of propane and butane imports, supporting India’s petrochemical industry, the report added.
(With agencies inputs)
