As diesel prices touched a record high across metro cities on Monday, the Congress said that this is the distorted and horrendous definition of “aache din” and asked the government to stop giving excuse of legacy issue.

“If this is the distorted, horrendous definition of ‘aache din’, then I would like to find out which dictionary defines ‘aache din’ like this,” said Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

“We are talking of diesel for tractors and trucks and also because your distribution of everything is too crucial. But there is silence,” he added.

Singhvi said: “We are getting sermons from the Finance Ministry every day and the only best answer they find is ‘legacy’ issue. After four-and-a-half years, the petrol and diesel prices are touching Rs 77 and Rs 70 respectively.

“You still have to talk of legacy issue. Actually, the legacy was very beneficial to you when you came to power. You were getting oil per barrel at half the price at which we were getting,” he added.

Diesel prices touched a record high across metro cities on Monday, barring Mumbai. Prices of petrol too inched nearer to all-time peak across major cities.

In the national capital, diesel was priced at Rs 69.46 per litre, against the previous high of Rs 69.32 recorded on Sunday, according to data from the Indian Oil Corporation.

(Ians)

When it comes to IT transformation, 17 per cent of organisations in India have achieved the fully Transformed status — a much higher percentage than was observed in other Asian countries researched (4 per cent), a Dell EMC study said on Tuesday.

Respondents at the transformed companies in India were 8.5 times more likely than legacy or emerging firms to say their company almost always makes better and faster data-driven decisions, the findings showed.

A whopping 90 per cent of Indian respondents agreed that failing to embrace IT Transformation will hurt their company’s competitiveness.

“Today, Indian organisations not only realise the importance of transforming their IT infrastructure to ensure they have a competitive edge to reduce costs, but they also now know that it is crucial to turn data into business intelligence,” said Rajesh Janey, MD and President, Enterprise India, Dell EMC.

Transformed firms in India are more likely to execute the majority of application roll-outs ahead of schedule compared to lower-scoring organisations, said the study.

Over 70 per cent of Indian respondents whose organisations have achieved transformed status also report having mature digital transformation projects underway versus only 3 per cent of the Indian legacy/emerging companies surveyed.

“Indian organisations are more virtualised than other Asian organisations – 49 per cent of Indian production servers are virtual machines versus 45 per cent in the rest of Asia.

In addition to modern data centre technologies, Indian organisations are, in general, exceeding the rest of Asia in terms of automation and process evolution.

The “IT Transformation” maturity study surveyed 4,000 IT decision makers worldwide, out of which 400 were from India.

“With our expansive set of infrastructure and software technologies, Dell EMC has become a powerful ally to help any business in its IT Transformation journey to fuel digital innovation,” Janey added.

(Ians)

As the festive season inches closer in India, Vivo is focused on building brand loyalty and offering consumers innovative new “made in India” products across all price segments, a top company official said here on Tuesday.

The Chinese smartphone maker is set to launch another flagship smartphone Vivo V11 Pro on September 6.

“When it comes to the V series, Vivo has done very well. And with V11 Pro, we will take innovation to the next level in Rs 20,000-Rs 30,000 segment,” Nipun Marya, Director, Brand Strategy, Vivo India, told IANS.

“To be successful in the long term, we must have great products. That is the reason why you see so many innovations from Vivo, whether it is the elevating camera in Vivo Nex or the in-display fingerprint scanner in X21,” he added.

According to Counterpoint Research, Vivo’s India market share in terms of shipment went down to 12 per cent in the second quarter of 2018 — from 13 per cent in the same quarter last year — while that of Xiaomi’s went up to 28 per cent from 16 per cent during the same period.

Marya, however, claimed that in terms of value, Vivo is the leader in the 20K to 30K segment and overall No. 2 in the Indian smartphone market for the past 18 months.

“We have more than 50 per cent market share in the 20K to 30K segment,” Marya said, adding that what has worked in its favour is that old Vivo customers have been upgrading to new Vivo phones.

“The Indian smartphone market is increasingly becoming a ‘replacement’ market, meaning an increasing number of customers are now second time or third time smartphone buyers,” Marya said, explaining the reasons behind Vivo India’s focus on building brand loyalty.

“Moreover, the average selling price (ASP) is increasing and consumers are becoming more aware – they know what brand they want to buy and what features are their priority, and accordingly they make their choice,” he added.

According to him, the brand awareness of Vivo, which bagged the title sponsorship for five consecutive sessions of Indian Premier League (IPL) starting this year with a whopping Rs 2,199 crore bid, is 100 per cent.

“When we entered India four years ago, our initial strategy was to build awareness for the brand and that is what we did. Now we are focusing on building consideration and preference for the brand,” Marya said.

“Today everybody knows about us. But the brand awareness has to be backed by great products, great after-sales services and a good retailer network as brand awareness alone can help a company survive for a maximum period of about two years,” the company executive noted.

Vivo has long term plans in India and all its investments in the country – be it in marketing or manufacturing – offer testimony to that.

“India is a very important market for us and all the investments we have made here are from a long term point of view. We have so far invested Rs 300 crore in the Greater Noida factory which has a capacity to assemble 2 million units per month and an SMT (surface-mount technology) capacity of 1.8 million per month,” Marya said, adding that all Vivo phones sold in India are now “made in India”.

“We are now looking at expanding our manufacturing capacity in the country to meet the increasing demand of our products,” he said without divulging further details.

There are currently more than 70,000 retailers in India where Vivo phones are available and the company has more than 200 exclusive stores and two experience centres.

The company has service centres in almost all parts of the country except in Manipur, Lakshadweep and Daman and Diu, Marya pointed out.

“When we entered into India, we were very clear that we wanted to build a very strong foundation here. And four years after entering the Indian market, we stay totally committed to the country,” he said.

(Ians)

Kerala is looking to raise a World Bank loan to rebuild public infrastructure that has been ravaged by the worst floods in over a century, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in an interview. Vijayan did not disclose the amount of money the state plans to raise from the multilateral development bank, but a state government official who is privy to the discussions said that the government is preparing a concept note to raise Rs 3,000 crore.

“We will discuss with all international agencies including World Bank. With World Bank, we are planning to begin talks. We will start the discussions without much delay. We are still at the phase of recovering from the disaster, that’s why the discussions haven’t started yet. But we will start the talks really soon,” Vijayan said.

The Kerala floods have left a trail of destruction. As many as 384 people were killed, a million others were displaced, 50,000 houses turned uninhabitable or were washed away, 80,000km of roads and 39 bridges were lost over the past two weeks because of the floods. The rebuilding exercise is officially estimated to cost the public exchequer about Rs 20,000 crore.

The talks of an international loan comes at a time when the state is reportedly at odds with the centre for not approving a Rs 700 crore aid from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Kerala.

The Indian government has refused all offers from foreign countries, citing that it will meet the challenge through domestic resources, Mint reported on 22 August. This, along with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led centre’s decision to release Rs 600 crore against Kerala’s demand of Rs 2,000 crore as immediate assistance, has cornered the local party unit.

The centre is unlikely to object to the state raising a loan, said the official cited above, requesting anonymity. “We are in touch with the centre, they seem to agree in-principle,” he said.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a meeting with Kerala governor P. Sathasivam in New Delhi, clarified that the Rs 600 crore released by the centre is only an advance assistance, according to a statement by the governor.

Modi “assured that additional funds will be released from the National Disaster Response Fund as per laid down procedure,” the governor’s statement said.

Taking an international loan at times of crisis is not without precedence in India. Tamil Nadu availed a $100 million loan from World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) combined, after it was hit by a tsunami in 2005, that caused loss of lives and severe damage to public and private property.

The development also needs to be seen in the background of several international agencies offering to help Kerala. On 22 August, Shashi Tharoor, writer and parliamentarian from Thiruvananthapuram, informally met officials of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), World Health Organisation (WHO), and International Red Cross, in Geneva, and explored ways to get funding for Kerala’s rebuilding.

Local politicians of Communist Party of India (Marxist), however, have long opposed neoliberal economics and free market policies, and its professed supporters including institutions such as the World Bank.

Earlier, Vijayan’s appointment of Harvard professor Gita Gopinath, who previously worked with World Economic Forum and International Monitory Fund, institutions not known for their support to socialist programmes, had triggered a controversy within the party, although it died soon when the party’s Kerala head, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, solidly backed Vijayan.

London Plane journeys are taking longer than a decade ago, according to a report that claims the change is due to airlines “padding” their schedules to create an impression that passengers are reaching their destinations on time.

The report by London-based travel guide, Which?, carriers were adding extra time to flight schedules, in some cases up to 30 minutes, to ensure they maintain punctuality and are therefore less likely to be liable for compensation payouts, the Guardian reported on Monday.

A majority of flight routes are advertised as taking longer than 10 years ago, despite improvements in aircraft technology, the report found.

Researchers examined average flight times for 125 routes operated by large airlines in 2009 and compared them with last year.

They found that 76 routes, 61 per cent, are now slated to take longer; with 87 per cent of British Airways flights analysed found to be slower. That proportion is 82 per cent for Ryanair, 75 per cent for Virgin Atlantic and 62 per cent for easyJet.

British Airways flights from Heathrow to Bangkok, New York and Singapore were extended by 20 minutes, and a Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow to Newark Liberty airport, New Jersey, now takes an average of 35 minutes longer.

Rory Boland, Which? travel editor, said: “Passengers are likely to feel that schedule padding is another case of airlines pulling the wool over their eyes. Instead, longer scheduled flight times are likely to mean passengers spend more time sitting around at the gate or on the plane itself, just so the airline can pat itself on the back for being ‘on time’ at your destination.”

[IANS]

Referring to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that it was only with NDA coming to power in 2014 that the economy had undergone a transformational change.

In postings over both Twitter and Facebook, Jaitley, who resumed his duties earlier this week, said that a comparison of the data released in 2014 and 2018 proved that high inflation, fiscal deficit and current account deficit, besides a standstill in the infrastructure and power sectors, as well as in allocation of natural resources, were some of the failures of the previous UPA government.

“We have come a long way. The last four years have seen a series of reforms, both legislative and otherwise, which have been carried on by the Government. The system has been substantially cleaned up and made more transparent,” Jaitley posted on Facebook.

“Decisiveness has led to easier decision making and made the economy stand out before several other countries. I would urge all to read these two reports (IMF), the copy of which are now publically available,” he said.

“The tightening of global liquidity has increased external pressures and heightened the focus on India’s macroeconomic imbalances (high inflation, large current account and fiscal deficits) and structural weaknesses (particularly supply bottlenecks in infrastructure, power and mining),” The Finance Minister said regarding the report’s references to the situation in 2014.

“Growth is expected to slow to 4.6 per cent this fiscal year, the lowest level in a decade, reflecting global developments and domestic supply constraints. Headline CPI inflation is expected to remain near double digits for the remainder of the fiscal year. The current account deficit is narrowing, driven by a significant improvement in exports, robust remittances flows, and a rapid diminution of gold imports.

“Nonetheless, India has very little room to adopt countercyclical policies, constrained by persistently-high inflation, and sizeable fiscal and external imbalances. Spillovers from renewed external pressures interacting with domestic vulnerabilities are the principal risks,” he said referring to the situation in 2018.

“Stability-oriented macroeconomic policies and progress on structural reforms continue to bear fruit. Following disruptions related to the November 2016 currency exchange initiative and the July 2017 goods and service tax (GST) rollout, growth slowed to 6.7 per cent in FY 2017/18, but a recovery is under way led by an investment pickup”, he added.

(IANS)

Chinese electronics giant Huawei on Saturday announced it would provide free repair services for Huawei and Honor smartphones damaged in the Kerala floods.

In order to ensure the availability of services in the state, the company has activated technical teams across all operational authorised and exclusive service centres in Kerala, the company said in a statement.

“We have deployed our customer service team in full action to support customers affected by Kerala floods. We will be providing free of cost service to Huawei smartphones damaged due to water-logging,” said Allen Wang, Director, Product Centre, Huawei Consumer Business Group, India.

The free repair services would continue till August 31.

[IANS]

New Delhi The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation is gearing up to set up more than 100 railway stations and terminals — all of them “specially designed” — along the 3,360-km-long, much-delayed network linking the eastern and western seaboards to the northern heartland.

Besides, the dedicated freight corridor, known as DFC, will have as many as 12 private freight terminals, 15 private sidings and 10 goods sheds to cater to over 300 million tonnes of traffic a year from 2020-21.

Designs of these new DFC buildings will be influenced by local culture and architecture so that they become iconic structures of the area’s skyline, a senior official of the Corporation said.

“Special care has been taken that all the station buildings reflect the heritage of the region,” the official told IANS, not wishing to be identified.

Passing through nine states and 60 districts, the Rs 81,459 crore project will have 48 stations and junctions along the Western DFC and 58 in the Eastern DFC.

While the Western DFC will cover 1,504 km from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust near Navi Mumbai to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, traversing through Vadodara-Ahmedabad-Palanpur-Phulera-Rewari, the Eastern DFC covers 1,856 km from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni, near Kolkata in West Bengal, and will traverse the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

“Many private players have shown interest to build multi-modal logistics parks and terminals along the corridor to facilitate value addition — including packaging, labelling, retailing and transportation of goods on the dedicated route,” the official said.

All the newly-designed station buildings are expected to be ready before the corridor becomes operational in 2020-21.

There is a focus on station buildings as economic activities get a boost around the rail stations and terminals.

The Western DFC — a section of which (between Ateli in Haryana and Phulera in Rajasthan) opened for a trial run on August 15 — is expected to largely carry petroleum products, imported fertilisers and coal besides steel and iron among others in double-stack containers.

According to initial estimate, Western DFC will carry about 152.24 milliion tonnes (MT) of goods in 2020-21.

The Eastern DFC aims to speed up the movement of coal, cement, fertilisers, foodgrain and general goods, among others. The expected traffic on the Eastern DFC is 153.23 MT in 2020-21.

The Western and Eastern DFCs — both of which will be fully electrified — will intersect at Dadri, near Delhi.

Also, in a first for Indian Railways, there will be a time table for freight trains once the DFCs are operational.

The eastern wing of the DFC is being funded by the World Bank and western side is being financed by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, or JICA.

[IANS]

New York US stocks closed higher as investors digested a batch of economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday rose 133.37 points, or 0.52 per cent, to 25,790.35. The S&P 500 was up 17.71 points, or 0.62 per cent, to 2,874.69, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 67.52 points, or 0.86 per cent, to 7,945.98.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in July decreased $4.3 billion or 1.7 per cent to $246.9 billion, said the Commerce Department on Friday. The decrease followed a 0.7 per cent increase in June.

Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.2 per cent. Excluding defence, new orders decreased 1 per cent.

US weekly jobless claims slipped by 2,000 to 210,000 last week despite the ongoing trade worries, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The 4-week moving average was 213,750, a decrease of 1,750 from the previous week’s unrevised average.

Meanwhile, investors also paid close attention to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech delivered at the Jackson Hole Symposium in Wyoming, where leading central bankers are meeting to discuss the future of monetary policy.

“If the strong growth in income and jobs continues, further gradual increases in the target range for the federal funds rate will likely be appropriate,” said Powell.

On Wednesday, the US central bank released the minutes of its latest monetary policy meeting, where Fed officials saw an escalation in international trade disputes as a potentially “consequential downside risk” for the US economy.

While many Fed officials signalled that the central bank was ready to raise interest rates as soon as next month, some worried that current trade disputes could force the central bank to rethink its interest rate hike plans.

[IANS]

Distinguished aerospace scientist G. Satheesh Reddy was on Saturday appointed the Chairman of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and Secretary in the Department of Defence Research and Development (DDR&D).

Reddy succeeds S. Christopher, who retired in June.

The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet approved Reddy’s appointment for a period of two years from the date of assumption of charge or until further orders, whichever is earlier, an official statement said.

Reddy, renowned for his research and development in missile systems and sustained contributions towards advancement of aerospace technologies and industries, is now employed as the Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Reddy led the conceptualization, design and development of inertial sensors, navigation schemes, algorithms systems, calibration methodologies, sensor models, simulation along with development of satellite navigation receivers and hybrid navigation systems.

Under his leadership, advanced products and varieties of avionics systems have been produced and successfully flight tested in strategic programmes of the country.

A graduated in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) in Andhra Pradesh, Reddy is a renowned navigation scientist.

He holds the distinction of being inducted as fellow of Royal Institute of Navigation, London, Royal Aeronautical Society, UK, and has been awarded the full member diploma as a Foreign Member of the Academy of Navigation and Motion Control, Russia.

He is an Honorary Fellow of Computer Society of India and Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering (FNAE), Aeronautical Society of India, Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK, Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, US, and many other professional and scientific bodies in the country and abroad.

Reddy received the prestigious Indian Science Congress Association Homi J. Bhabha Memorial award.

He is the first defence scientist working in India to receive the Silver Medal of Royal Aeronautical Society, UK, and has been selected for the first IEI (India) and IEEE (USA) joint award for Engineering Excellence.

(Ians)