Mumbai: The Reserve bank of India’s (RBI’s) monetary policy committee (MPC) on Wednesday raised repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 6.5% on account of inflationary pressures arising due to hikes in minimum support prices for the crop. The six-member committee voted to maintain a neutral policy stance, thus keeping its options open for further rate hikes. A majority of economists surveyed by Mint was expecting a second consecutive RBI rate hike in today’s policy.

The RBI also raised its average inflation projection for the second half of the year to 4.8% from the 4.7% it had projected in June. The central bank expects inflation to edge higher to 5% in the first quarter of the next fiscal year.

Two oublic sector units -- BEML and Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd (HEC) -- signed an MoU to to produce heavy mining equipment leveraging the capabilities of each other.

"The MoU will result into additional Rs 150-200 crore revenue for both PSUs. The collaboration will entail re-entering rope shovels and walking draglines manufacturing with higher indegenisation " BEML chairman and managing director D K Hota said after signing the pact.

BEML had not participated in tenders for the last 3-4 years in these two products, officials said.

New Delhi: The IT ministry has launched a desktop software e-Aksharayan to enable editing of text printed on scanned documents and it can be downloaded for free from its website. "e-Aksharayan is a desktop software for converting scanned printed Indian language documents into a fully editable text format in Unicode encoding. The text can be also saved separately," Swaran Lata, programme head and director technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) said after unveiling the software at a FICCI event.

The software supports editing in seven Indian languages - Hindi, Bangla, Malayalam, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Kannada & Assamese.
There exist some gap in Internet accessibility and 90 per cent of the gap is due to non-availability of content in Indian languages, Electronics and IT Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney, at the event organised to push development of content in local languages, said.

"We all know about India Stack. We should now come up with 'India Language Stack', which will help in overcoming the barriers of communication," Sawhney said.

Scaling 22 places in 4 years to 96th rank, India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has managed to break into the top 100 of United Nations E-Government Index (EGDI).

The comprehensive survey released once in two years, assesses among others, government development at the national level based on telecommunications infrastructure, human capital, and national online presence. It maps how digital technologies and innovations are changing the public sector and people’s lives for the better.

 India has managed to jump 11 ranks from 107 in 2016, in the list topped by DENMARK(0.9150) followed by Australia, Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom. 

WASHINGTON: 

The United States has eased export controls for high technology product sales to India, granting it the same access as NATO allies, Australia, Japan and South Korea, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday.

Ross, speaking at U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, said the move to grant Strategic Trade Authorization status STA1 to India reflects its efforts to improve its own export control regime, its adherence to multilateral export rules and its growing status as a U.S. defense partner.

Mumbai: Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Tuesday surpassed India’s biggest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) to become the country’s most valued firm in terms of market capitalization—a first since April. Data from the BSE showed RIL has a market cap of ₹ 7.51 trillion, after its shares rose 3.1% on the BSE to record high of ₹ 1,185.85. TCS, which closed 0.19% lower at ₹ 1,941.25 per share, was valued at ₹ 7.43 trillion.

The surge in RIL share price follows its Q1 results where its standalone net profit increased 18% to ₹ 9,459 crore. TCS, on its part, reported quarterly revenues of over $5 billion for the first time in Q1.

RIL shares have beaten the market by a wide margin in the past two months on expectations of a regulatory boost for its refining business and excitement about revenue accretion from its telecom subsidiary Reliance Jio’s non-mobile businesses.

Renu had taken over as the CEO of the Paytm Bank in May 2017 and recently resigned to take over the operations at the new initiative by Paytm which involves working with local restaurants, grocery stores and pharmacies for enabling them for local ordering and delivery.

After her step down, the position of the head of the bank lies vacant and it is the second time when the office at the newly-licensed payments bank has been vacant after its previous CEO, Shinjini Kumar left before the formal launch of Paytm Payment Bank.

Renu Satti has juggled multiple roles at Paytm, from managing human resources to building businesses ground up including marketplace, movie ticketing and most recently Paytm Payments Bank.  

Paytm also aims to build a P2P logistics with a countrywide network for intra-city deliveries. This new launch is expected to become one-thirds of Paytm's orders and GMV by 2020, says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder of Paytm.

Rajasthan will soon have its first ‘cow sanctuary’, a shelter for 10,000 bovines spread over an area of more than 220 hectares in Bikaner district. The state government on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a private trust in this regard, during Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s visit to Bikaner. The cow sanctuary will be the latest in a string of initiatives announced by the BJP government in the state for the protection of bovines since it came to power in 2013. The state already has a ministry dedicated to the welfare of cows and last year it had announced a 10 per cent surcharge on stamp duty towards cow protection.

“This will be the first cow sanctuary in Rajasthan and will be situated in Bikaner’s Napasar. The objective is to dedicate the entire area for cows, much on the lines of a wildlife sanctuary. The signing of the MoU was done on Friday and we are looking to start the facility at the earliest,” Gopalan minister Otaram Dewasi said. He added the sanctuary will be managed by a private trust.