National Education Day is celebrated on November 11 every year in honor of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first Education Minister of India and a prominent educationist. This day highlights the importance of education in shaping India's future. With 65% of the nation's population under the age of 35, it is crucial to provide them with opportunities for quality education.
The Government of India has taken significant strides to promote access to education through various initiatives and constitutional provisions. The introduction of free primary education, reinforced by the 86th Amendment of the Constitution through Article 21-A, guarantees free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen as a Fundamental Right.
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, in collaboration with the ‘Rays of Wisdom Society’ and supported by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, held the 8th International Ancient Arts Festival and Symposium from 8th to 10th November,2024 at IGNCA. This event featured an exhibition titled ‘Metaphysical, Symbolic, and Healing Themes in Visual Arts’.
The 8th International Ancient Arts Festival and Symposium highlighted the therapeutic essence of ancient arts, uniting diverse cultural expressions to emphasize their impact on mental and spiritual well-being. The three-day event celebrated the timeless connection between art and holistic health.
The annual U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP29) kicked off in Baku, Azerbaijan. Dubbed the ‘Finance COP,’ the two-week-long event will focus heavily on securing a new climate finance target for countries most vulnerable to climate impacts. For India and the Global South, access to finance, technology, and energy resources remains critical to meeting climate targets and
protecting communities on the frontlines of climate change. At Baku, India will seek a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance, which is far ahead of the outdated $ 100 billion annual target set in 2009.
India’s Economic Survey 2023-24 indicates that India will need approximately 2.5 trillion dollars by 2030 to fulfil its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
In Japan, Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Shigeru Ishiba was re-elected as the country’s Prime Minister today after securing the most votes in both houses of the Japanese Diet. The Japanese Parliament, known as the Diet, convened an extraordinary session this afternoon to elect the Prime Minister.
In the runoff voting in the House of Representatives, 67-year-old Ishiba received 221 votes, outperforming Noda to become the country’s 103rd Prime Minister despite falling short of the 233 majority threshold.
Hindalco Industries Limited, the metals flagship of the Aditya Birla Group, has been ranked the world’s most sustainable aluminium company for the fifth consecutive year.
In the 2024 edition of the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) rankings, Hindalco was the only aluminium company to secure the top position.
It got a total score of 87 points (as of 30 October 2024), improving its tally by 9 points from 2023. It was 22 points ahead of its closest peer, a statement from the company said.
The DJSI World Index comprises the top 10 percent of the largest 2,500 companies by market capitalisation in the S&P Global Broad Market Index based on long-term economic and ESG factors.
Hindalco achieved the 100th percentile in most aspects of the three dimensions of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects.
S&P Global’s Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) is the world’s leading provider of ratings that evaluate publicly listed companies against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.
Satish Pai, Managing Director, Hindalco Industries Ltd.
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Secretary (East) Jaideep Mazumder and BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Secretary General Indramani Pandey signed an agreement to establish the BIMSTEC Energy Centre in Karnataka's Bengaluru. The agreement aims to strengthen inter-grid connectivity across the region.
The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional organization that was established on June 6, 1997 with the signing of the Bangkok Declaration.
President Draupadi Murmu administered the oath of the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to Supreme Court Judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna on November 11, 2024.
Justice Khanna succeeds Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who retired on November 10, 2024, and his term will last until May 13, 2025.
He was one of the few judges elevated to the Supreme Court directly from his parent High Court. He had never functioned as a Chief Justice of a State High Court. He had superceded 32 High Court judges ahead of him in seniority to be appointed apex court judge.
Justice Khanna assumed office as Supreme Court judge on January 18, 2019.
Leading former Indian polo player and Arjuna Awardee Harinder Singh Sodhi, who during his peak achieved a handicap of plus-five, has died due to age-related illnesses.
his legacy in Indian polo endures, as his younger brother, Ravinder Singh Sodhi, is also an Arjuna Award recipient and a celebrated polo player.
Harinder was the manager of the Indian equestrian team during the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
A new fire resilient dual blooming species experiences a burst of flowering triggered by the grassland fires and has an inflorescence structure that is rare in Indian species has been discovered in the Western Ghats which is known to harbour many yet-to-be-discovered species.
The Western Ghats, one of India's four global biodiversity hotspots, has long been a focus of exploration by the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology (DST).
Dicliptera polymorpha is a distinctive species, notable for its fire-resilient, pyrophytic habit and its unusual dual-blooming pattern. In addition to its typical post-monsoon flowering, the species exhibits a second, vigorous burst of flowering triggered by the grassland fires commonly set by locals in the region.
Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman launched the National MSME Cluster Outreach Programme, organised jointly by the Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
Around 150 MSME Clusters were connected virtually for the launch with senior bank officials being present in each of these Clusters. The programme aims to ensure access to Financial Services and promote the growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country.
The Union Finance Minister also virtually inaugurated six new SIDBI Branches in Karnataka, located at Tumakuru, Raichur, Shivamogga, Kalaburagi, Mangaluru and Vijayapura, thereby expanding SIDBI’s reach and financial assistance to MSMEs in these Clusters.
Smt. Sitharaman also inaugurated four Nari Shakti Branches of Union Bank of India at Bengaluru, Chennai, Jaipur and Vishakhapatnam, with the goal of empowering women entrepreneurs and the Learning Centre of Canara Bank at Bagaluru, Bengaluru.
The Union Finance Minister set the target for all Scheduled Commercial Banks and NBFCs for providing additional MSME credit of Rs. 1.54 lakh crore in the current financial year. Thus the banks and NBFCs should aim at total credit growth of Rs 5.75 lakh crore, Rs. 6.21 lakh crore and Rs 7 lakh crore to MSMEs in Financial Year 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27 respectively.
During the event, SIDBI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Peenya Industries Association strengthening the collaboration to support MSMEs through capacity building, credit facilities, and knowledge-sharing.
Smt. Sitharaman also distributed sanction letters to 11 MSME customers of SIDBI, aggregating to Rs. 25.75 crore and 2 sanction letters to MSME customers of Nari Shakti Branch of Union Bank of India aggregating Rs.11 crore, across various sectors aimed at supporting enterprises from traditional industries to advanced sectors such as aerospace and quantum technology.
The Union Finance Minister also handed over sanction letters to five borrowers of Canara Bank under newly launched Tarun Plus category of Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojna (PMMY). The DFS had recently implemented the Union Budget 2024-25 announcement to increase the loan limit under the PMMY from Rs 10 lakh to Rs. 20 lakh.
Former BJP MP and member of the erstwhile Mewar royal family Mahendra Singh Mewar died at a private hospital in Udaipur. He was 83.
Mahendra Singh Mewar was a descendant of Maharana Pratap, the 16th-century Rajput king who ruled Mewar until he died in 1597.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Chittorgarh seat in 1989 on a BJP ticket.
Emami Limited Vice Chairman and Managing Director Harsha Vardhan Agarwal has been elected as the Ficci president for 2024-25, the industry body said. Agarwal is currently serving as the Senior Vice President of Ficci.
He will succeed Mahindra & Mahindra's Group CEO and Managing Director Anish Shah as the new president.
At the conclusion of the 97th Annual General Meeting of Ficci, which will be held on November 21.
Agarwal spearheads the FMCG business of the Group - Emami Limited - as its Vice Chairman and Managing Director.
Financial regulators Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) directed foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to obtain necessary approvals from the government and concurrence from the investee companies in cases of acquisition of equity holdings beyond the prescribed limits.
The regulators issued an operational framework for the reclassification of overseas investments by FPIs to foreign direct investments (FDI), outlining the process to be followed in case of breach of the thresholds.
The Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) norms prescribe 10 percent as the threshold for investments made by FPIs in the total paid-up equity capital.
Any FPI breaching this limit has the option to divest its holdings or reclassify such holdings as FDI, subject to several conditions. The rules provide a window of five days from the settlement of trades to do the same. Experts said that the notification clarifies that government approval must be obtained first before making the additional investment.
Further, the FPIs need to explain the intention to reclassify the investment as FDI.
Notably, the facility for reclassification from FPI to FDI is not permitted in certain prohibited sectors.
Necessary approvals from the government, as applicable, including approvals required in the case of investment from land-bordering countries,
must ensure that the acquisition beyond the prescribed limit is made following the provisions applicable for FDI. This means that the investment should adhere to the entry route, sectoral caps, investment limits, pricing guidelines, and other attendant conditions for FDI under Schedule I to the Rules,” said the circular.
Following reclassification, the entire investment of the FPI in the company will be considered FDI and will continue to be classified as such even if it falls below 10 percent.
RBI and Sebi have separately shared the process to be followed for reporting such breaches and reclassification by the FPIs and custodians.
After ensuring that the reporting for reclassification is complete in all aspects, the custodian shall unfreeze the equity instruments and process the request. The date of the investment causing the breach in such cases shall be considered the date of reclassification, as per the circular.
Shriram Mutual Fund (MF) announced the launch of an industry-first multi-sector rotation fund, which will take concentrated sectoral bets through a quantamental approach. The scheme will invest in 3-6 sectors that are likely to outperform in the near-to-long term.
The fund will move in and out of sectors based on their relative momentum and other factors.
The sectors will be selected based on Shriram AMC’s proprietary Enhanced Quantamental Investment (EQI) framework. These sectors will then be vetted based on fundamentals, including macroeconomic parameters, investment indicators, sentiment, prices, etc., before final sector selection.
The fund will be market-cap agnostic, with the share of largecap, midcap, and smallcap stocks in the portfolio depending on the size of companies operational in the selected sectors.
One of the key advantages, according to the fund house, will be on the tax front.
"This is also tax-efficient for the investor, as there is no capital gains tax implication when the fund manager rebalances across sectors within the scheme," said Kartik L Jain, managing director and chief executive officer, Shriram AMC.
The fund is differentiated from flexicap and business cycle funds as it plans to invest only in a limited number of sectors.
The scheme will be launched on November 18 2024.
