MUMBAI, JULY 22 (IANS): Two-and three-wheeler major Bajaj Auto's standalone net profit for the first quarter of 2020-21 fell 53.10 per cent due to Covid-19 pandemic. The company's net profit during the quarter under review declined to Rs 528 crore from Rs 1,126 crore earned during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. According to the company, the Q1/FY21 has been an extremely challenging quarter due to the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. "Lockdown and

NEW DELHI, JULY 22 (IANS): Even as the Indian Railways plans to introduce the first set of 12 private trains in 2023, followed by 45 more in the next fiscal, according to an initial timeline drawn by the Railways, the national transporter held a pre-bid conference and several international companies showed interest in the project. According to railway ministry sources, Spanish coach and component maker CAF, Bombardier India, GMR group which owns and operates two airports in the coun

NEW DELHI, JULY 22 (IANS): India's banking sector woes have impacted investments and growth, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Krishnamurthy V Subramanian said on Wednesday. Speaking at the Ficci's 17th Annual Capital Market Conference 'CAPAM2020', he said the sector faced two problems of "scale and quality". The CEA elaborated that these problems are major factors for slow growth. According to Subramanian, NPAs and risk aversion have impacted investment,

NEW DELHI, JULY 22 (IANS): E-governance service provider Alankit Ltd. has tied up with state-owned UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services Ltd. to provide PAN card services to the citizens digitally across India at all its facilitation centres. UTI Infrastructure Technology is a SEBI registered Permanent Category-1 Registrar to an Issue and Share Transfer Agent, offering R&T services to the investors of Mutual Fund AMCs, Bond/Deposit/shareholders of Corporate and Financial In

NEW DELHI, JULY 22 (IANS): Airtel Payments Bank on Wednesday announced a partnership with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to skill youth in rural India and enable them to find employment opportunities within the financial services industry. The partnership aims to combine NSDC's experience, training infrastructure, and wide network with Airtel Payment Bank's industry insights to design and conduct targeted skill development programmes for rural youth. The pr

MUMBAI, JULY 22 (IANS): India's equity market is geared up to aid the country achieve the $5 trillion economy mark, SEBI Chairman Ajay Tyagi said on Wednesday. Speaking at the Ficci's 17th Annual Capital Market Conference 'CAPAM2020', Tyagi said the equity market systems are well geared up to take on the current challenges. The theme of the conference is 'Atmanirbhar Bharat: Role of Capital Market'. He acknowledged that the country is passing through a

NEW DELHI, JULY 21 (IANS): India proposes a major shift in its foreign trade policy, that will explore free trade agreements (FTAs) only with countries that can support its 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' mission and provide it necessary raw materials, critical components and equipment required to support manufacturing activities. As a first step in this direction, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Commerce Ministry has proposed entering into F

NEW DELHI, JULY 21 (IANS): The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday reviewed the progress of the National Broadband Mission (NBM) with officials of several states and Union Territories along with officials of Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA), COAI and field units of DoT through a video conference. Officials from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Gujarat, Puducherry and Lakshadweep were present at the virtual meeting.

NEW DELHI, JULY 21 (IANS): Researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point on Tuesday cited an instance when hackers used advanced features on Google Cloud Platform to host phishing pages and hide them. Some of the warning signs that users generally look out for in a phishing attack include suspicious-looking domains, or websites without a HTTPS certificate. However, by using well-known public cloud services such as Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure to host their phishing pages, the

NEW DELHI, JULY 21 (IANS): Targeting the next generation of gamers in India, PC and printer major HP Inc on Tuesday unveiled new OMEN laptops and accessories, along with introducing the first 16-inch Pavilion gaming laptop in the country. The latest 'OMEN 15' gaming laptop featuring a redesigned chassis is now available in two chip variants - Intel and AMD which is making its CPU debut on the 'OMEN' series. While OMEN 15 (Intel) is available at a starting price of

NEW DELHI, JULY 21 (IANS): Telecom major Bharti Airtel has renewed its agreement with Swedish gear maker Ericsson to provide pan-India managed network operations, the two companies announced on Tuesday. The three-year deal will see Airtel launching 'Ericsson Operation Engine' this year. The agreement covers nationwide Artificial Intelligence-driven managed services, network and IT automation for Airtel's India mobile operations. Ericsson said it will also manage Ai

NEW DELHI, JULY 21 (IANS): E-commerce giant Amazon has confirmed that it will run its Prime Day annual shopping festival in India on August 6-7, a bit later than usual. Last year, the sales holiday was conducted in mid-July, but the pandemic this year has disrupted its schedule as the company said that the roll out of the global event for other participating markets will take place even later. According to a report in TechCrunch on Tuesday, this will be the first time that Prime

NEW DELHI, JULY 20 (IANS): Indian sellers, including MSMEs, have recorded total sales worth over $2 billion through the Amazon Global Selling programme.   In January this year, Amazon had pledged to enable $10 billion in cumulative exports by 2025 helping Indian businesses grow by selling online worldwide.   According to Amazon, its global selling programme currently enables more than 60,000 Indian exporters to sell 'Made in India' products to customers wo

MUMBAI, JULY 20 (IANS): The Indian equity indices surged on Monday with the Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange reclaiming the 11,000-mark.   The BSE Sensex settled nearly 400 points higher. Healthy buying was witnessed in finance, banking and consumer durables stocks.   The indices were supported by an inflow of foreign portfolio investments. Net FPI inflow on Monday stood at Rs 1,709.97 crore. Domestic institutional investors however took to selling during th

NEW DELHI, JULY 20 (IANS): The Covid-19-induced economic turbulence has led airline major IndiGo to decide to lay off 10 per cent of its workforce.   According to Ronojoy Dutta, CEO, IndiGo, the company, after carefully assessing and reviewing all possible scenarios, will require to bid "a painful adieu" to 10 per cent of its around 27,000-strong workforce.   "It is for the first time in the history of IndiGo that we have undertaken such a painful m

NEW DELHI, JULY 20 (IANS): The economic turbulence due to Covid-19 is expected to push India's debt-to-GDP ratio higher, according to a SBI Ecowrap report on Monday. Together with the declining GDP growth, debt-to-GDP ratio has been adversely affected in all countries.   "India's debt-to-GDP ratio has increased gradually from Rs 58.8 lakh crore (67.4 per cent of GDP) in FY12 to Rs 146.9 lakh crore (72.2 per cent of GDP) in FY20," it said. Higher borrowing t

NEW DELHI, JULY 20 (IANS): The ongoing pandemic has impacted the recovery of loans given by IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN), and also delayed the sale of the real estate assets of the IL&FS Group, IL&FS non-Executive Chairman Uday Kotak said on Monday.   Kotak also said that the pandemic is likely to impact the valuations of the realty assets.   Talking to the media, through video conference, he also said that the proposed sale of some road assets have

New Delhi, July 20 (IANS): Hindustan Copper Ltd, which was already in dire straits due to weak performance in FY 2019-20, is in a worse situation now amid the pandemic, its Chairman and Managing Director Arun Kumar Shukla has said.   He is of the view that only optimisation and cost cutting can help the company survive.   In his note in the company's house journal, Shukla said that optimisation and cost reduction are required in all fronts, both operational an

New Delhi, July 20 (IANS): Google on Monday announced the appointment of Oracle veteran Mitesh Agarwal as Director of Customer Engineering for Google Cloud India.   In this role, Agarwal will lead a team of engineers and consultants who are focused on helping Indian organisations accelerate their ability to transform through data powered innovation with Google Cloud Platform and G Suite.   He will further provide impetus to the technology, architecture and the sol

Mumbai, July 20 (IANS): Shares of telecom operators Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel rose on Monday ahead of the hearing on the AGR matter in the Supreme Court.   Around 1.45 p.m., shares of Vodafone Idea on the BSE were trading at Rs 9.50, higher by 6.98 per cent from its previous close.   Share price of Bharti Airtel was higher by 1.12 per cent at Rs 573.70.   The top court would hear on Monday the arguments on the government's petition to allow te