Author: sahilbaid

India climbs to 5th spot in top global 500 list released by Hurun.

India, with 20 of the most valuable companies in the world, has moved into the fifth position among countries that are home to the world’s top 500 firms. Last year, it ranked ninth with eight companies. The US continued to top the charts, according to the 2022 Hurun Global 500 list.

Of the 20 Indian companies featuring on the list this year, 11 are based in Mumbai, four in Ahmedabad and one each in Noida, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata. The list, released by the Hurun Research Institute, is a compilation of the 500 most valuable non-state-controlled companies in the world. Companies were ranked according to their market capitalisation (for listed companies) and valuations for non-listed companies.

Led by energy giant Reliance Industries with market capitalisation of $202 billion, the list includes Tata Consultancy ($139 billion) and HDFC Bank ($97 billion).

Billionaire Gautam Adani controlled Adani Group has debuted in the global top 500 companies list with four companies — Adani Enterprises ($63 billion), Adani Transmission ($44 billion), Adani Total Gas ($43 billion) and Adani Green Energy ($40 billion). The other new entrants in the list from India include ITC ($52 billion), Avenue Supermarts ($33 billion), Axis Bank ($33 billion), Bajaj Finserv ($32 billion) and Larson & Toubro ($32 billion)

Alternatives to layoff.

In the span of weeks, the United States’ Silicon Valley which has been a reliable source of high-paying jobs and booming stocks is now witnessing a tough time with major big tech companies including Meta, Twitter, Snap, and Microsoft announcing mass layoffs, which have tens of thousands of people unemployed. 

Layoffs are happening as the world ponders whether a global recession is coming. Whatever label people end up putting on this era, companies are struggling with consecutive lackluster quarters, inflation, price hikes, and uncertainty. Varying interest rates, a plummeting stock market, and a downturn in consumer confidence are only making matters worse. 

Here are some alternatives to layoffs that may help HR avoid all the drama: 

Remote Work

Thanks to the pandemic, most, if not all, companies with knowledge workers are now set up for remote work. 

Hiring Freeze

Many companies that are laying off people are still hiring at the same time. It is a bad look. Employers should have a hiring freeze to save money and stay on budget.

Furloughs

Furloughs can be a short-term way to avoid at least some layoffs. A furlough is a mandatory but temporary leave of absence. A furloughed employee works a reduced schedule or takes unpaid leave.

Pay cuts

Pay cuts can help prevent a business from bleeding jobs. However, to be noted that this strategy can be costly for employees, particularly those living paycheck to paycheck amid high inflation.

Cuts in benefits or perks

Aside from pay cuts, an employer might temporarily reduce benefits or perks to “buy the company some time” to turn around its finances.

One need to spend 4 years instead of 3, to graduate in honours degree.

Students looking to earn an honours degree in undergraduate courses will have to pursue four-year programmes under new regulations likely to be announced by the University Grants Commission this week,  PTI reported.

“Students will be able to get a UG [undergraduate] degree in three years on completion of 120 credits (measured through the number of academic hours) and a UG honours degree in four years on completion of 160 credits,” the news agency quoted from the draft Curriculum and Credit Framework of the University Grants Commission.

At present, students get an honours degree after completing three years of undergraduate programmes. Under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, universities and colleges will offer four-year undergraduate degrees with multiple exit and entry options. Several universities, including DU, and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), have already adopted the programme.

A senior UGC official, requesting anonymity, said, “There will be only one honours degree, that is four-year UG with honours or honours with research. The regulations will be applicable for students who will be enrolled under the new norms from this year onwards.”

India to become a hub of drone technology.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur this week said that India will become a hub of drone technology and the country will require at least 1 lakh drone pilots by next year. He was speaking at the gathering after flagging of the ‘Drone Yatra 2.0’, in Chennai.

Stating that India will require at least 1 lakh pilots in 2023, he said that each pilot will earn at least Rs 50-80 thousand a month. “If you take the Conservative Average even Rs 50,000 × 1 lakh youth × 12 months = Rs. 6000 crores a year worth employment could be created in the Drone sector,” he said

Apart from this, Industries and Government agencies which use Drones will also be impacted. He appreciated the that Garuda Aerospace’s plan to make one lakh ‘Made in India’ drones in the next two years.

Garuda’s Drone Skilling & Training Conference which is to be conducted in 775 districts across the country hopes to reach 10 lakh Youth. With an aim to train 1 lakh Youth to significantly impact not just the Drone ecosystem or generate employment for Youth, but hopes to create a massive impact in agriculture, mining, government departments and Other industries.

While noting that currently there are over 200 drone start-ups operating in the country, the minister said that this number will increase to generate lakhs of new job opportunities for the youth.

US’s list for religious freedom, Pakistan questioned why India not blacklisted.

Last week, Pakistan expresses strong exception to the United States recent decision to add the country to its religious freedom blacklist and exclude India from it, saying the decision is “detached from ground realities of Pakistan”.

Last week, the US added Pakistan, China and Latin American adversaries Cuba and Nicaragua, among others, to a blacklist — Countries of Particular Concern from 2021 — on international religious freedom, opening the path to potential sanctions.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken took no action against India, ignoring a recommendation by the autonomous US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), which said that treatment of minorities was “significantly” worsening under Prime Minister Narendra Modi´s Hindu nationalist government. India is seen by the US as a key emerging ally.

India won’t be a US ally rather a great power : WH official.

Washington: India, which has a unique strategic character, will not be an ally of the US, but another great power, a top White House official has said, asserting there is no other bilateral relationship that is being “deepened and strengthened” more rapidly than between the two countries over the last 20 years.

Responding to a question on India during his appearance at the Aspen Security Forum meeting here on Thursday, Kurt Campbell, the White House Asia Coordinator, said that in his view India is the most important bilateral relationship for the United States in the 21st century.

“The fact is, I don’t know of any bilateral relationship that is being deepened and strengthened more rapidly than the United States and India over the last 20 years,” he told a Washington audience.

The United States needs to invest even more of its capacity, and build in people-to-people ties, working together on technology and other issues, he said.

“India has a unique strategic character. It will not be an ally of the United States. It has the desire to be an independent, powerful state and it will be another great power. But I think there are reasons to believe that our strategic alignment is growing across the board in almost every arena,” Campbell said.

Indian telecom sector to hire staffs laid off by big tech MNCs.

According a report by Economics Times : The Indian telecom eco-system could absorb up to 30% of the workforce laid off at the big tech firms and who chose to return to India. These include employees across technical and service profiles, say staffing experts.

Companies like Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft and Stripe among many others have laid off employees and rationalised their employee base. According to estimates by TeamLease, over 62,000 employees have received the pink slip in 2022.

While employees at tech firms are facing headwinds in light of the pink slips being dealt out, the Indian telecom eco-system has increased its hiring over the past few quarters in light of the 5G rollout.

Given the hiring impetus that the telecom sector is seeing, one would expect it to absorb a majority of the employees laid off. However, there is only so much of a skill overlap between the workforce being laid off, and the requirement at the telecom companies say experts.

How roll out of 5g services will help Indian economy?

The transition to 5G will unlock new use cases and revenue streams through innovative business models. It will bolster the startup ecosystem and enable India to be an R&D hub for 5G technology and use cases. Developing 5G applications is likely to have a huge impact across industries.

In India, the engineering/advanced manufacturing segment offers the largest 5G/IoT opportunity. Multiple use cases exist in this segment with benefits of increased efficiency, productivity, better safety standards, and highly efficient production. In healthcare, 5G’s benefits can immediately be realized in home-based care and connected hospital devices as 5G facilitates real-time data transfer.

The Indian M&E sector is transitioning from passive consumption to participative consumption fueled by the popularity of immersive technologies such as AR and VR, networked gaming, and interactive game shows. 5G may help accelerate this trend and completely transform the consumer experience.

Further, the advent of 5G may significantly enhance connected car features and usher in the age of autonomous vehicles (AV) in India.

India likely to face extreme heat waves.

India, very soon, could experience heat waves that could exceed the survivability limit of humans.  This startling revelation was made in a report by the World Bank. 

According to the report, India will soon be one of the first countries in the world that will experience severe heatwaves that will break the human survivability limit.  India, over the past couple of decades, recorded several deaths due to intense heat waves. 

Frequency of extreme weather events such as heatweaves and floods is expected to increase in India as a result of the climate change.

According to one study, if the global mean temperature increases by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial level, the proportion of the total population and urban area that will be exposed to successive extremes will rise rapidly.

According to the researchers, under the lowest emission scenario, the length of a heatwave will grow from an average of 3 days in the current climate (1981-2010) to 11 days by the end of the twenty-first century (2071-2100).

Under the scenario with the highest emissions, however, they predicted that the length of heat waves would increase to 33 days by the end of the century.

Passenger cars to witness a price hike in the new year.

Kia, Maruti Suzuki, Tata, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have announced a price hike across their model range from January 2023. All carmakers have cited an increase in commodity prices as the major reason behind the hike.

Maruti Suzuki has confirmed that it will be increasing the prices of its entire model line-up, although the hike will vary depending on the model. 

Kia will hike the price of its entire model line-up by up to Rs 50,000 from January 2023. The South Korean manufacturer has also stated increasing commodity and transportation costs as the reason for the hike.

Along with the rise in commodity prices, Tata also states that updating its vehicles to meet the upcoming RDE norms will also lead to a hike in prices. 

India to test Agni-V missile.

India recently issued a NOTAM notice declaring the Bay of Bengal a no-fly zone ahead of another Agni-V ballistic missile test scheduled for December 15-16 from Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.

The development comes amid the reported movement of a Chinese research vessel in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). According to data collected by the Norwegian company Maritime Optima, as reported by ThePrint, Yuan Wang 5 re-entered the Indian Ocean region. The report stated that the Yuan Wang 5 was currently southbound in the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Indonesian island of Java.

Agni V is India’s long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, capable of hitting a target 5,000 kilometres away with pinpoint accuracy. This range puts almost the entire country of China within the missile’s range. Though an ICBM requires a missile with a range of at least 5,500 km, India’s closest contender for an ICBM is the Agni 5, which can reach countries on other continents, including parts of Africa and Europe.

Though the government claims that it has a maximum range of around 5,000 kilometres, several reports indicate that it can hit targets as far away as 8,000 kilometres, according to the report. The nuclear-capable missile can carry a warhead weighing around 1,500 kg and has a launch weight of 50,000 kg, making it one of the country’s most powerful missiles.

UPI payments remains favourite mode for Indians.

UPI has once again emerged as the most favoured mode of payment in India. The UPI transactions volume and value has almost doubled since last year and recorded about an 88 per cent increase in volume and over 71 per cent increase in value in the third quarter of the current fiscal as compared to the same quarter last year, according to Worldline India’s ‘Digital Payments Report’ for the third quarter.

UPI clocked over 19.65 billion transactions in volume and Rs 32.5 lakh crore in terms of value in the third quarter this year. The top three UPI apps in terms of volume and value were PhonePe, GooglePay and Paytm Payments Bank App.

UPI, Debit and Credit cards, Prepaid Payment Instruments like Mobile Wallets, and Prepaid Cards executed a total of 23.06 billion transactions amounting Rs 38.32 trillion. 

India assumes G-20 presidency.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo officially handed over the G20 presidency to India on November 16 this year at the summit in Bali. The year-long presidency assumed by India comes at a time when the world is struck with uncertainties about recovery from a pandemic-hit economy.                                  Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a series of tweets, highlighted the country’s commitment towards resolving challenges of “climate change, terrorism and pandemic” through international cooperation.

The main objectives of G20, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), includes policy discussion and coordination on economic and financial issues around the globe. However, over the years, the meeting has extended its aims to cover global terrorism, health and sustainable development.

The leadership of G20 rotates annually among nations, where the President nation determines the agenda of the summit held every year. Non-members, namely, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), among others participate regularly in the G20 proceedings.

Top 5 fastest growing states by GSDP.

After witnessing unprecedented challenges due to the covid-19 pandemic, India’s states are well on their way to recovery, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s Handbook of Statistics on Indian States released last week. Almost every state economy has already surpassed its pre-pandemic size and state finances are looking up even as concerns over elevated fiscal deficit remain. Rural wage growth, however, has failed to keep pace with average retail inflation, which may become a cause of decline in spending. 

Gujarat is the fastest-growing state for the last nine years (from FY12 to FY21), according to the latest data released by RBI. Gujarat’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at the constant price has increased at compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2 per cent.

Karnataka is the second fastest-growing major state economy, with a CAGR of 7.3 per cent. At the third spot is Haryana. With a CAGR of 6.7 per cent, Madhya Pradesh is ranked fourth in the list of fastest-growing states. Madhya Pradesh is followed by Andhra Pradesh which has registered an annual GSDP growth rate of 6.5 per cent.

India’s first gold ATM launched in Hyderabad.

India’s first Gold ATM began its operations in Hyderabad and now users can purchase pure gold coins from the ATM using their debit and credit cards. According to the sources, the first Gold ATM was inaugurated at Raghupathi Chambers in Begumpet, Hyderabad. Telangana women commission chairperson Sunitha Lakshmareddy inaugurated the gold ATM centre.

Users can purchase gold coins from 0.5 grams to 100 grams and the customers will also get a certificate stating their purity and weight. Gold ATMs will be available for 24 hours. It is said that the officials will set the Gold ATMs at Guljar House, Secunderabad and Abids in Hyderabad and Peddapalli, Karimnagar and Warangal.