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Nisha Desai Biswal, former Indian-American assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia has been appointed as the new president of US India Business Council (USIBC) . Biswal was the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, in which capacity she spearheaded the India and South Asia policy of the previous Obama Administration. USIBC said yesterday that she will join the US Chamber beginning October 23.

Nisha Desai Biswal, former Indian-American assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia has been appointed as the new president of US India Business Council (USIBC) .

Nisha Desai Biswal, former Indian-American assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia has been appointed as the new president of US India Business Council (USIBC) . Biswal was the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, in which capacity she spearheaded the India and South Asia policy of the previous Obama Administration. USIBC said yesterday that she will join the US Chamber beginning October 23.

IIT-Kharagpur has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Samsung India for the setting up of a digital academy on the institute’s campus. The Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the institute would host the Samsung Innovation Lab and train students on the Internet of Things (IoT) through Tizen-based operating systems, commonly used by the company for its mobile phones and home appliances.

Govt to introduce 'Food Street' at global food fair in New Delhi Government has said, it will introduce a curated food experience zone 'Food Street' at the global food fair in November in New Delhi. Talking to reporters, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that the aim of this food event is to attract more investment in the food processing sector. The experiential platform will bring together culinary practices, flavours, fragrances from cuisines across the world. Chef Sanjeev Kapoor will be the brand ambassador of the event at the global food fair. The Minister said the global food event, which is being held in India for the first time, will provide a platform to investors to taste the food and then take a call on investing in India under the 'Make in India' programme. The government had last year allowed 100 per cent FDI for marketing, including through e-commerce, of food products manufactured and produced in India.

World Bank President Jim Kim has said India has been growing pretty robustly. Speaking at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum meeting in New York , Kim said Japan, Europe and the US along with India were growing and there was a levelling-out in developing countries. He called for more cooperation among the multilateral system, private sector and the governments to take advantage of the current win-win situation.

The Reserve Bank of India, RBI will introduce 100 rupees coin to mark the birth centenary of AIADMK founder Late Dr M G Ramachandran. Finance Ministry has issued notification in this regard. On the obverse, the face of the coin will bear Lion Capitol of Ashoka Pillar in the centre with Satyamev Jayate inscribed below on it in Devnagari script. It will also bear the rupee symbol and denominational value of 100.On the reverse side, the portrait of Dr MG Ramachandran will be in the centre. The standard weight of the coin will be 35 grams. RBI will also issue 5 rupees coin to mark the birth centenary of Dr M G Ramachandran.

Gujarat Govt- Amul sign MoU to save children of anganwadi from malnutrition. Gujarat Government and Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation-Amul have signed the Memorandum of Understanding to save the children of anganwadi from malnutrition. The MoU was signed in the the presence of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. According to the MOU, under the ‘Take Home Ration’, district dairies in cooperation with the Gujarat milk marketing federation will provide nutritive foods to more than 42-lakh children of more than 53 thousand Anaganwadis, pregnant-mothers, lactating mothers and young girls.

Exactly a year after leaving the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as its governor, Raghuram Rajan is coming out with a new book containing his commentary and speeches. According to HarperCollins India, which is the publisher of the book, it would offer “a front-row view” of his tenure at the central bank in “those turbulent but exciting times”. The book is titled  I Do What I Do . Rajan had said in his last days at the RBI that he won’t be engaging in public discourse for a year after leaving the central bank. The book is being launched after completion of that period. It would be formally launched in Chennai on September 5 and then in New Delhi and Mumbai. The book takes its name from Rajan’s famous quote on September 29, 2015 policy, when the RBI had cut rates by half a percentage point, surprising many. Raghuram G. Rajan in 2004 was the 23rd Governor of Reserve Bank of India.  

Five banks of the BRICS Bank Cooperation Mechanism have agreed to establish credit lines in the national currencies and cooperate on credit ratings. The agreement to this effect was signed yesterday ahead of the BRICS Summit in China’s Xiamen city. Brazilian Development Bank, Vnesheconombank, Export-Import Bank of India, China Development Bank and Development Bank of South Africa signed the agreement in Beijing yesterday. The Chinese official said the decision was taken in order to strengthen further cooperation. The agreement on credit ratings enables them to share information about internal credit ratings and rating assessment. Ahead of the BRICS summit, the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS countries has approved 1.4 billion US dollar loans for sustainable development projects in India, Russia and China. For India, the Bank has approved 470 million US dollars loan for Madhya Pradesh’s Multi-Village Rural Drinking Water Supply Scheme Project.

Five banks of the BRICS Bank Cooperation Mechanism have agreed to establish credit lines in the national currencies and cooperate on credit ratings. The agreement to this effect was signed yesterday ahead of the BRICS Summit in China’s Xiamen city. Brazilian Development Bank, Vnesheconombank, Export-Import Bank of India, China Development Bank and Development Bank of South Africa signed the agreement in Beijing yesterday. The Chinese official said the decision was taken in order to strengthen further cooperation. The agreement on credit ratings enables them to share information about internal credit ratings and rating assessment. Ahead of the BRICS summit, the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS countries has approved 1.4 billion US dollar loans for sustainable development projects in India, Russia and China. For India, the Bank has approved 470 million US dollars loan for Madhya Pradesh’s Multi-Village Rural Drinking Water Supply Scheme Project.

The government today gave its go ahead to the RBI to issue 200 rupee notes that will ease pressure on lower-denomination currency bills. Finance Ministry, in a notification, said that on the recommendations of the Central Board of Directors of the RBI, government has notified bank notes of 200 rupees. The new 200 rupee notes are likely to be in circulation shortly . This is the fourth new note to be announced since November when 1000 and 500 rupee notes were demonetised. The introduction of the new notes is expected to ease the problems faced by people due to high-value 2,000 rupee notes.

Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in Petroleum Ministry, Rajiv Bansal has been given additional charge of Chairman and Managing Director of Air India. This came following the appointment of incumbent Ashwani Lohani as the new Chairman of Railway Board. Mr. Bansal has been given charge for a period of three months.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley chairs 17th meeting of FSDC The Council discussed the issues and challenges facing the Indian economy and stressed the need to keep constant vigil to manage any external and internal vulnerabilities. The Council noted that India has macro-economic stability today on the back of improvements in its macro-economic fundamentals, structural reforms with the launch of the GST and long-term positive consequences of demonetization. The FSDC also took note of the developments and progress made in setting up of Computer Emergency Response Team in the Financial Sector (CERT-Fin) and Financial Data Management Centre. Chief Economic Adviser, Dr. Arvind Subramanian made a presentation on the state of economy. RBI Governor Urjit Patel was also present in the meeting.

The 10th round of negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement between India and Canada started in New Delhi today. The commerce ministry said both sides discussed issues relating to goods market access. The previous round of negotiations was concluded in New Delhi in March 2015. The negotiations for the agreement, officially dubbed as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), were launched in November 2010 to boost bilateral trade and investments. Liberalisation of norms for the services sector and phasing out of taxes on maximum number of goods traded between the countries are some of the contentious issues in the proposed pact. The 10th round was earlier scheduled to be held in Canada, but could not take off because of elections there and lack of traction on some key issues.

The board of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, ONGC, has given 'in-principle' approval to acquire government's 51(point)11 per cent stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd. The ONGC board at its meeting in New Delhi on Monday constituted a committee of directors to examine various aspects of the acquisition and to provide its recommendations to the board of directors. The government last month had approved sale of its 51.11 per cent stake in oil refiner HPCL to India's largest oil producer ONGC. The deal will be completed within a year. The government had also constituted a committee - headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan and road minister Nitin Gadkari to work out the modalities of the sale. Jaitley had in his Budget for 2017-18 talked about creating an integrated oil behemoth.

Foreign direct investment, FDI, into the country grew by 37 per cent to 10.4 billion US Dollar during the first quarter of the current fiscal. According to the figures of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, DIPP, India had received around eight billion FDI US Dollar during the same period last year. The main sectors which attracted the highest foreign inflows include services, telecom, trading, computer hardware and software and automobile. Bulk of the FDI came in from Singapore, Mauritius, the Netherlands and Japan. The government has announced several steps to attract foreign inflows. The measures include liberalisation of FDI policy and improvement in business climate. Foreign investments are considered crucial for India, which needs around one trillion US Dollar for overhauling its infrastructure sector such as ports, airports and highways to boost growth. A strong inflow of foreign investments will help improve the country’s balance of payments situation and strengt...

RBI will shortly issue new banknotes of Rs 50 denomination in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series. A RBI press release has informed that the base colour of the new notes will be fluorescent blue and its dimension will be 66 mm x 135 mm. It will have a motif of Hampi with Chariot on the reverse, depicting the country’s cultural heritage along with the Swachh Bharat logo , year of printing, numeral 50 in devnagiri and the language panel. The banknote will bear the signature of RBI Governor Dr. Urjit R. Patel on the front side along with the guarantee and promise clause and the RBI emblem. It will have Mahatma Gandhi’s portrait at the Centre and a see through register with enominational numeral 50. Micro letters ‘RBI’, ‘भारत’, ‘INDIA’ and ‘50’ and Ashoka Pillar emblem on the right will also feature on the front side. The security thread will have inscriptions ‘भारत’ and RBI. The number panel will have numerals growing from small to big on the top left side and bottom right side. RBI has clar...

CEO and managing director of India’s second largest software export firm Infosys, Vishal Sikka, has resigned. UB Pravin Rao, chief operating officer of the company, will step in as interim CEO and managing director. Sikka has been retained as the executive vice-chairman. In his resignation letter, Sikka is reported saying that distractions have undermined his good work. This took the excitement and passion out of his amazing journey, Sikka wrote. In the past, Sikka has been criticised for issues ranging from his salary to decision on acquisitions made.

The first shipment of American crude oil worth USD 100 million will reach India next month, with US President Donald Trump promising to be a reliable, long-term supplier of energy to India's developmental needs. The shipment of crude oil to India comes nearly two years after the then US president Barack Obama lifted the 40-year- old ban on its export. During their maiden meeting on June 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump agreed to deepen the engagement in the energy sector. Soon, Indian companies started purchasing crude from the US. Two Indian oil giants, Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum, placed orders for over four million barrels. With this India, the world's third-largest oil importer, joins Asian countries like South Korea, Japan and China to buy American crude after production cuts by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries drove up prices of Middle East heavy-sour crude, or grades with a high sulphur content.