REC Limited has been awarded ‘Plaque’ under the ‘Financial Services Sector (Other than Banking and Insurance)’ category at the ICAI Awards for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the financial year 2022-23.

REC’s Director (Finance) Ajoy Choudhury, ED (Finance) Sanjay Kumar and HoD (Finance) Jatin Kumar Nayak received the award from the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Vishnu Deo Sai at the ceremony held at Raipur. Cabinet Ministers of Chhattisgarh Brij Mohan Agrawal and OP Choudhary were also present in the event along with ICAI President CA Aniket Sunil Talati, Vice President CA Ranjeet Kumar Agarwal, Research Committee Chairman and Vice Chairman and the ICAI Council Member.

Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have ranked as best performing states in the startup ranking for 2022 based on their initiatives taken to develop the startup ecosystem for promoting budding entrepreneurs. Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and Telangana are categorized as top performers.

The new ranking was released by union commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday. The states and union territories are ranked by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), a department under commerce ministry.

Meanwhile, the minister will meet senior representatives of about 40 unicorn startups such as Lenskart, Zerodha, CarDekho, EasyMyTrip, Boat and others on Wednesday to hold discussions on ways to further promote sustainable growth of the sector, and to understand risks and domestic capital mobilization plans, etc, a senior official informed.

Sunil Dahiya is set to be next Director (Projects) of Engineering Projects (India) Limited, a PSU under the Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises. He has been recommended for the post by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) panel on Tuesday. Presently, he is serving as Senior General Manager of Engineers India Limited's (EIL) HRRL Project, Barmer, Rajasthan.

Dahiya has been recommended for the post of Director (Projects) of EPIL from a list of eight candidates, who were interviewed by the PESB selection panel in its selection meeting held on January 16. Out of eight candidates, five candidates were from EPIL and one each from EIL, KIOCL and Reliance Industries Limited.

Well-known Malayalam music director K J Joy died on Monday at his residence in Chennai, film industry sources said. He was 77 years old.

Joy, known as the first ‘techno musician’ in the Malayalam film music world for his use of instruments like the keyboard in the 1970s, had been bedridden for some time following a stroke, the sources said.

His funeral will be held in Chennai on Wednesday, they said.

Switzerland on Monday agreed to host a global peace summit on Ukraine at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Neutral Switzerland has previously acted as a broker to resolve conflicts and could now help find a resolution for the war that began when Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

"At the request of the Ukrainian president, Switzerland has agreed to host a summit on the peace formula," the Swiss government said. "Further details are now being worked out."

Yes Bank has announced the launch of SmartFin, an end-to-end digital supply chain finance (SCF) platform, powered by Veefin Solutions.

Ajay Rajan, country head-government, multinational & international business, transaction banking & knowledge units, Yes Bank, said, “At Yes Bank, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to support MSMEs and with the growing significance of Supply Chain Financing (SCF) as a model to drive working capital efficiencies, we felt the need to invest in a robust platform like ‘SmartFin’ to help augment our digital offerings in this space. The SmartFin platform, through its end-to-end digital offerings, will help us drive the required operational & financial efficiencies for all stakeholders.”

As part of its digital transformation journey, HPL has prioritized digitising and optimising its processes, placing people at the core of its approach.

The seamless collaboration these tools offer enhances teamwork and propels the entire organisation forward digitally.

In a certificate handover ceremony at HPL Kolkata head office, Nirupam Sen, Business Head- North & East region handed over the certificate to Navanit Narayan, WTD & CEO, HPL.

By attaining this certification, HPL has demonstrated its ability to protect sensitive information and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of valuable data and systems. ISO 27001:2022 is the standard of ISMS (Information Security Management System) program to protect the information asset of the organization.

Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt on Sunday flagged off the indigenously developed and manufactured Astra Missiles for supply to the Indian Air Force. The event was held at Bharat Dynamics Limited, Kanchanbagh Unit where BDL CMD Commodore A Madhavarao (Retd) and other senior officials from DRDO, IAF and BDL participated, a release from the BDL said.

Astra is a beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air missile indigenously developed by DRDO and manufactured by BDL for the IAF, it said.

"Astra Weapon System is best in its class of weapon systems in the world in the category of air-to-air missiles. The missile has a range of 100 plus km," the release said.

The 2024 Dakar Rally has something special each day and stage 8 saw the first-ever Indian to take a stage win — Harith Noah. Riding for TVS Sherco in the Rally 2 class, Noah has been showing consistent performance and stage 8 saw him take the stage win in his class. In the overall rankings, Noah is in 13th place, while in his class, the Indian rider is currently third, with a little over 8 minutes separating him and the leader.

In the overall motorcycle category, defending champion Kevin Benavides took the overall stage win in the motorcycle class while Mattias Ekstrom took the win in the cars category.

To enhance efficiency of the electronic toll collection system and provide seamless movement at the toll plazas, NHAI has taken ‘One Vehicle, One FASTag’ initiative that aims to discourage user behaviour of using single FASTag for multiple vehicles or linking multiple FASTags to a particular vehicle.

The highway developer is also encouraging FASTag users to complete ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) process of their latest FASTag by updating KYC as per RBI guidelines.

This is being done as FASTags with valid balance but with incomplete KYC will get deactivated or blacklisted by banks after post 31 January.