The State Bank of India (SBI) yesterday released a report anticipating India’s GDP growth 7.4% in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2023-24, while the overall growth could touch 8%. The report released by the SBI’s Economic Research department highlights the potential impact of global economic resilience on India’s growth trajectory.
The report identifies a consistent growth trend across both urban and rural sectors in India. Urban economic momentum is indicated by strong performance in passenger vehicle sales, airport passenger traffic, GST collections, credit card transactions, petroleum consumption, and toll collection.
Indian Army Major Radhika Sen has been selected to receive the 2023 Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award. The award recognises her advocacy for women and girls while serving as a peacekeeper. Sen is the second Indian peacekeeper to receive the honour after Major Suman Gawani, who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan and received the award in 2019.
Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, Sen is a biotech engineer who was studying for a master’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay when she decided to join the Army. She was assigned to MONUSCO in 2023 as the Engagement Platoon Commander with the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion, and completed her tenure in April 2024.
Indian mountaineer Satyadeep Gupta has scripted history by becoming the first person to scale Mt. Everest and Mt. Lhotse twice in one season. He also set another record by being the first Indian to traverse from Mt. Everest to Mt. Lhotse in 11 hours and 15 minutes. Gupta conquered the 8,516 metre-high Mt. Lhotse, followed by towering 8,849 metre high Mt. Everest.
This historic achievement marks the first Double Dual Ascent of the world’s highest and the fourth highest peaks in a single season. Gupta had previously summited Mt Everest on May 21 and Mt Lhotse on May 22.
The General Assembly has designated 29 May as the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. This is the date when in 1948 the first UN peacekeeping mission named the "United Nations Truce Supervision Organization", or UNTSO, began operations in Palestine. The theme for the 2024 International Day of UN Peacekeepers is 'Fit for the future, building better together'.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das launched an online portal named PRAVAAH (Platform for Regulatory Application, Validation and Authorisation) portal for regulatory applications and approvals, a mobile app for individuals for transacting in government securities, and two repositories for information on fintech and lenders.
Individuals and entities will be able to track and monitor the status of their application in the PRAVAAH portal, which is secure and centralised, and respond to any clarification or query sought by the regulator. RBI also launched an application for the Retail Direct portal, through which individuals can transact in government securities.
The banking regulator has also launched separate repositories – one for fintechs and another for RBI-regulated entities. The repositories would enable the availability of aggregate sectoral level data, trends, and analytics that can be utilised by policymakers and industry members.
Conceptualised 12 years ago, India’s first Multimodal Logistics Park at Mappedu near Chennai will see the limelight as Reliance Industries starts construction in June, according to multiple sources. In 2022, the company beat Adani Group to win the bid for the Rs 1,424 crore project on 184.27 acres of land in Tiruvallur district.
The project aims to facilitate efficient, cost-effective and value-added logistics services such as cargo aggregation and disaggregation, distribution, intermodal transfer, sorting, packing, and repacking. However, it did not take off due to the poor response from the private sector on issues like connectivity.
The first hydrogen green plant by GAIL (Gas Authority of India Ltd) was inaugurated in Madhya Pradesh. The plant marks a major step towards new and alternate energy and has been installed in line with the National Green Hydrogen Mission.
The plant can produce 4.3 TPD of hydrogen through 10MW PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) Electrolyzer units, by electrolysis of water using renewable power. The purity of hydrogen from this plant shall be 99.999 per cent (by vol.) and will be produced at a pressure of 30 Kg/cm2.
Ghana has signed deals with a Reliance Jio subsidiary, Tech Mahindra, and other vendors to build 4G and 5G infrastructure as the African country aims to enhance its telecom capabilities.
Ghana's state-backed Next-Gen Infrastructure Company has partnered with Jio's arm Radisys, Tech Mahindra & Nokia to build the necessary infrastructure for delivering affordable 5G service.
The Prudential Authority of the South African Reserve Bank has imposed a financial penalty of 10 million rand (₹4.5 crore) on the State Bank of India's South Africa branch. This penalty was imposed under Section 45C of the country's Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001for non-compliance with certain provisions of the FIC Act or other related orders or directives.
Charles Leclerc claimed his first victory at the Monaco Grand Prix. This historic win makes him the first Monegasque to ever stand on the top step of the podium at the prestigious event. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri finished second, 8 seconds behind Leclerc. His Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz finished 3rd followed by Mclaren’s Lando Norris in 4th.
The first of a pair of climate satellites designed to study heat emissions at Earth’s poles for NASA is in orbit after lifting off atop Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand. The PREFIRE mission was jointly developed by NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission consists of two shoebox-size cube satellites, or CubeSats, that will measure the amount of heat Earth radiates into space from two of the coldest, most remote regions on the planet.
As many as four European banks have asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to approve a third-party transaction model.
Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, and BNP Paribas seek to resolve a deadlock between their home authorities and Indian policymakers regarding audit oversight rights.
The European banks face hurdles in trading Indian government bonds and derivatives since the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) de-recognised the Clearing Corp of India (CCIL) in October 2022.
ESMA's decision resulted from the RBI's refusal to grant audit and inspection rights over CCIL, which oversees local government bond trading and ensures settlement.