- Sunday, March 09, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news related to Indian economy and business for Wednesday, October 12, 2022:
Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran on Tuesday said the conglomerate does not have any plans to have a 5G offering for consumers. He said the group, which exited its consumer-facing telecom service due to losses a few years ago, has concentrated its efforts on building modern technology infrastructure for 4G and 5G and is also investing in 6G, Press Trust of India reported. “On the 5G, we don’t have plans for getting into consumer business. We have exited that business,” Chandrasekaran said at the ‘Lokmat Maharashtrian of Year 2022’ award ceremony in Mumbai. He said the technology being built by the group companies is fully indigenous, and will be tested first for being eventually implemented on a large scale. There are already enquiries for its offerings, he added.
Edtech start-up BYJU’s is set to lay off around 2,500 employees across departments to slash costs amid mounting losses, the company has said in a statement. “To avoid redundancies and duplication of roles, and by leveraging technology better, around five percent of BYJU’S 50,000-strong workforce is expected to be rationalised across product, content, media, and technology teams in a phased manner,” the statement said. It also added that its India K-10 acquisitions, including Toppr, Meritnation, TutorVista, Scholar, and HashLearn, will be consolidated into a single business unit, while Aakash and Great Learning will continue to be operational as separate organisations, Moneycontrol reported.
The Narendra Modi cabinet on Wednesday approved a one-time grant of Rs 22,000 crore (£2.41 billion) to state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) for losses incurred in LPG or liquefied petroleum gas. “Cabinet approves Rs 22,000 crore as one time grant to PSU OMCs for losses in Domestic LPG. It will help the PSU OMCs to continue their commitment to the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, ensuring unhindered domestic LPG supplies,” the government said in an official release. The announcement came hours after CNBC TV-18 broke the story. The news channel had also said that the government is considering an additional grant for the state-run OMCs to compensate them for their losses on the sale of petrol and diesel.
Reliance Retail, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India’s Reliance Industries, and the US’s National Basketball Association (NBA) on Wednesday unveiled a multi-year collaboration to launch an extensive range of NBA merchandise in the South Asian country, Moneycontrol reported. Reliance Retail has introduced a wide selection of NBA team and league-branded products, including a range of adult and youth apparel, accessories, back-to-school supplies, toys, and collectibles, to fans in India, a statement from the company said. “The NBA is one of the most followed sports leagues globally, and Reliance Retail is excited to offer an extensive range of merchandise to NBA fans in India,” said Reliance Retail Ltd president and CEO (fashion and lifestyle), Akhilesh Prasad.
German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz on Wednesday reported a 28 per cent rise in sales in India at 11,469 units in the January to September period this year, surpassing what it sold in the whole of 2021, Press Trust of India reported. The company had sold 8,958 units in the same period last year, Mercedes-Benz India said in a statement. “Our sales are at pre-pandemic level, having crossed CY 2021 sales numbers in the first nine months this year. The current market momentum gives us the confidence for striving to achieve our highest sales ever,” Mercedes-Benz India managing director & CEO Martin Schwenk said. Mercedes-Benz India had sold a total of 11,242 units in 2021.
India’s largest carrier by passenger volumes — IndiGo — has decided to operate wide-body aircraft in the next few months to meet the demand of international operations in the aviation business, an IndiGo statement confirmed, Asian News International reported. “As an interim measure, we have decided to take on wet/damp lease certain aircraft to cover the shortfall for our scheduled international operations,” the budget carrier said. “International air travel is going through a strong period of recovery, and demand continues to rise in the upcoming festive and winter season. This is a positive sign for the industry and IndiGo remains very bullish on strong growth for international travel to and from India in the future,” IndiGo added. This induction of the low-budget carrier into the wide-body aircraft league will give a tough competition to other airlines such as Vistara and Air India.
India’s industrial production contracted by 0.80 per cent in August against 2.2 per cent growth recorded in July, as per the government data released on Wednesday, ANI reported. Industrial production as measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had posted a growth of 13 per cent in August 2021. The ministry of statistics & programme Implementation on Wednesday released the Quick Estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for the month of August 2022. For the month of August 2022, the Quick Estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with base 2011-12 stand at 131.3. The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of August 2022 stand at 99.6, 131.0 and 191.3 respectively. These Quick Estimates will undergo revision in subsequent releases as per the revision policy of IIP, the ministry said.
