- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news on Indian economy and business for Wednesday, January 17, 2024:
Indian civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and the chief minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, on Wednesday flagged off an Air India Express flight connecting the temple town of Ayodhya to the eastern city of Kolkata ahead of the inauguration of the Ram temple on January 22. Speaking on the occasion, Scindia said under the leadership of prime minister Narendra Modi and Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh has touched new heights of development. “Uttar Pradesh is a state that ensures India’s progress,” he said. In his address via video-conferencing, Adityanath said, “The Ram mandir pran pratishtha (consecration) ceremony will be held on January 22 and the entire country is excited about the event. People are eagerly planning to visit Ayodhya. Four or five years ago, nobody could have thought that an airport would be built in Ayodhya. However, this is a reality now.”
India’s aviation security regulator Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) on Wednesday slapped fines totalling Rs 1.80 crore (£170,860) on IndiGo and Mumbai airport operator MIAL (Mumbai International Airport Limited) over the incident of passengers having food on the airport tarmac. A penalty of Rs 1.20 crore (£113,907) has been imposed on IndiGo, while the fine on MIAL is Rs 60 lakh (£56,953), according to orders issued by the BCAS. Besides, civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has imposed a fine of Rs 30 lakh (£28,477) on MIAL. On January 14, many passengers rushed out of an IndiGo aircraft at the Mumbai airport, sat on the tarmac, and some were also seen having food there as soon as their diverted Goa-Delhi flight landed after a long delaydue to fog issues.
The world’s confidence in India is at an all-time high while that among investors is growing, Shaktikanta Das, governor of the country’s Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “There is growing confidence on India and I think the international confidence on India is perhaps at an all-time high,” he told Asian News International. Speaking about RBI’s growth projection for India for 2023-24 and subsequent growth estimates put out by the National Statistical Office, the latter pegged higher than that of what RBI did, Das said, “So, when we said 7 per cent for the current year, there were a lot of opinions outside that the RBI is overprojecting.”
Indian airlines and top plane makers such as Boeing and Airbus will speak about new orders this week and showcase large jets as they look to capitalise on a boom in a fast-growing aviation market with a bigger focus on international routes. As India sets its sights on becoming a regional aviation hub to rival Dubai and Singapore, a four-day Wings India event in its southern city of Hyderabad, taking off on Thursday (18), is set to draw representatives of lessors and government as well. “Air traffic, airports and fleet size are going to grow at a double digit growth annually in years to come,” India’s civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia told Reuters last week. India’s newest airline Akasa, due to start international flights this year, is expected to announce an order for about 150 Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body planes at this week’s aviation show, it was reported.
The Indian home ministry has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR) for alleged violation of laws, a move the latter termed “incomprehensible and disproportionate” and vowed to seek legal recourse against. When the FCRA registration of an organisation is cancelled or suspended, it is barred from receiving any funding from abroad or foreign donors. The home ministry’s action came nearly a year after it suspended the NGO’s registration under the FCRA. In a statement, the CPR said the home ministry “actions have had a debilitating impact on the institution’s ability to function by choking all sources of funding”. The think-tank was under scrutiny after a survey was carried out by the Income Tax department in September 2022.
(With agencies)
