- Sunday, April 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Monday, February 20, 2023:
Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the Narendra Modi government is taking a number of steps to control inflation and will continue to focus on the issue. According to one report, when asked whether the budget presented earlier this month would bring the inflation down, she said the government was taking the steps. “We have taken a lot of steps, for example, encouraging farmers to sow pulses so that the production of pulses in India increases in the coming sowing season,” Sitharaman told reporters in Jaipur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan.
At Andhra Pradesh’s successful Investors Meet in Mumbai on Monday, held ahead of its Global Investors Summit 2023, the government assured the fastest single-window clearance, usable coastline, ports, quality power, abundant land bank, state-of-the-art infrastructure to Maharashtra investors for collaborating businesses for growth, ANI/NewsVoir reported. By calling the state of Maharashtra, the largest economy in India, accounting for over 14 per cent of India’s GDP, and contributing to 20 per cent of industrial output in the country, Gudivada Amarnath, Andhra Pradesh’s industries minister, said the industry meet would help improve cooperation between the growth-oriented, economic power-house states in the country.
Uber Technologies on Monday said it will start electric vehicles (EVs) in India for ride-sharing which will be its first move to adopt clean cars amid the Indian government’s push for greater electrification of public transport and shared mobility, Reuters reported. With plans to introduce 25,000 EVs over three years, Uber is also stepping up competition with local rival BluSmart, an electric mobility start-up backed by BP’s venture fund, which has taken the lead in India’s electric taxi space. “When you’re looking at great transitions, you also don’t want to rush into those without necessarily fully appreciating the economics and trade-offs,” Prabhjeet Singh, president, Uber India and South Asia was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The government of the Indian state of Gujarat on Monday signed 18 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 9,852 crore (£989.8 million) under the its ‘Atmanirbhar Gujarat Schemes for Assistance to Industries’, which was announced last year to boost new investment, an official release said, PTI reported. Through these 18 agreements, various firms have pledged to invest Rs 9,852 crore in different parts of the state, which would generate 10,851 employment opportunities. The MoUs were signed in the presence of Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel on Monday.
Switzerland has offered to make some concessions as it seeks to put talks on the India-European Free Trade Association (EFTA) trade deal on the fast track, hoping to seal it this year as the two countries celebrate 75 years of their friendship treaty, PTI reported. The EFTA is a free trade area between four countries – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland — and the trade deal negotiations have lingered on for over 15 years. Helene Budliger, the state secretary in the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs and Niklaus Samuel Gugger, the Indian-origin member of the Swiss Parliament, are travelling to India for meetings with commerce minister Piyush Goyal and health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, their second meeting in three weeks to push for an early conclusion of the negotiations on the trade deal.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s civil aviation regulator, has suspended the operations of an aviation firm — Aman Aviation & Aerospace Solutions — for three months for non-compliance with safety norms, ANI reported. In a recent complaint filed with DGCA, followed by a detailed inspection by the regulator at the Aman Aviation based in Mumbai and Delhi offices, it was found that the firm was conducting unauthorised maintenance of “Age Limited Module” and also fraudulently tampered with the expiry date of distress signals which is part of survival kit for passengers on board of an aircraft kept below the seat, to be used in case aircraft lands/falls on water.
