- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Wednesday, April 19, 2023:
HSBC India on Wednesday announced signing up ace India cricketer Virat Kohli as its brand influencer. As part of the association, a multi-media campaign featuring Kohli will bring to life the value proposition of banking with HSBC, a statement said, PTI reported. Sandeep Batra, head of Wealth and Personal Banking, HSBC India, said, “Cricket is a unifying force and strikes an emotional chord with the Indian diaspora across the world.” Kohli is currently in Chandigarh as part of the Royal Challengers Bangalore team to take part in an Indian Premier League match in Mohali on Thursday. When asked at an event here what commonalities he finds between cricket and financial planning, Kohli replied, “You need to be aware of the situation you’re in”.
Indian civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday said it was a landmark achievement for India as domestic airlines witnessed an annual growth of 51.70 per cent in passenger traffic during January-March 2023 as compared to the corresponding period last year. In a tweet, he said, “A landmark achievement for the Indian aviation sector as domestic airlines witness an annual growth of 51.70 per cent in passenger traffic from Jan-Mar 2022 to Jan-Mar 2023.” He also said on the social media platform, “This shows their growing domestic footprint and the potential to grab a bigger share of the global aviation market.”
Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart aims to challenge established names Uber and Ola for market share in the country by banking on an all-electric taxi fleet and an aggressive bid to lure unhappy passengers and drivers from the incumbents, Reuters reported. A clean energy push by prime mnister Narendra Modi’s government is expected to change India’s transport industry significantly in years ahead and ride-hailing firms are set to witness major implications. For Uber and SoftBank-backed Ola which are dominant players, a full shift to electric vehicles is likely to be a huge undertaking as both face challenges of driver retention and customer satisfaction issues.
The Narendra Modi government has asked the states of India to incorporate certain provisions in the contracts of outsourced workers to protect their rights amid concerns about underpayment of wages and other benefits, PTI reported. The country’s ministry of labour and employment recently incorporated six statutory obligations on GeM (Government e Marketing) portal in the contract of hiring manpower through outsourcing agencies in Government of India offices in order to protect the interest of the contractual workers, a labour ministry statement said.
Indian food delivery company Zomato on Wednesday said the company had shut some of its stores of Blinkit for a few days and added, “Most of these stores have now resumed operations”, ANI reported. In addition to this, the food aggregator said over the past few days, it made changes in the delivery partners’ payout structure with respect to the Blinkit business to address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience and reduce cancellation or order rejection frauds by a few delivery partners in the system. According to a statement shared with stock exchanges by Zomato, it said, “such changes are done from time to time, as needed.”
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a first-information report against Oxfam India and its office-bearers for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act based on a complaint from the Union Home Ministry, officials said Wednesday, PTI reported. The complaint, which is now part of the FIR, has alleged that though Oxfam India’s FCRA registration ceased, it planned to circumvent the law by taking other routes to channelise funds.
