India’s coal production has increased by a robust 11.7 per cent to scale a record level of 997.83 million tonnes during the financial year March 31, 2024, Minister of Coal and Mines G Kishan Reddy has informed the Lok Sabha.

He said that the government focuses on increasing the domestic production of the fuel to eliminate non-essential imports of coal in the country.

The minister said that coal production has risen steadily in the last four years from 730.9 million tonnes in 2019-20.

“The double-digit increase has been carried over to the first quarter (April-June) of the current financial year with a growth of 10.75 per cent to 247.396 MT,” the minister said.

He said that the steps taken by the government to step up coal production in the country include a single window clearance portal for the coal sector to speed up the operationalisation of coal mines.

As part of the new reforms, an auction of commercial mining on a revenue-sharing basis was launched in 2020.

“Under the commercial mining scheme, a rebate of 50 per cent on the final offer has been allowed for the quantity of coal produced earlier than the scheduled date of production,” he said.

The minister added that the incentives on coal gasification or liquefaction (rebate of 50 per cent on final offer) have also been granted.

“The terms of commercial coal mining too have been liberalised with no restriction on utilisation of coal, which has allowed new companies to participate in the bidding process,” the minister explained.

He said that coal companies including the country’s largest producer Coal India Ltd have also taken various steps to increase domestic coal production such as the adoption of mass production technologies.

“It has also been using state-of-the-art technology in its high-capacity excavators, dumpers and surface miners. Besides, Coal India is planning large capacity UG mines wherever feasible,” the minister added. AGENCIES

HONOR is poised to make waves in the smartphone market with the upcoming launch of its flagship device, the HONOR Magic6 Pro 5G.

This cutting-edge smartphone is set to introduce a range of best-in-class features that promise to elevate the user experience to new heights.

The Magic6 Pro 5G redefines smartphone photography with the AI-powered HONOR Falcon Camera System. This advanced triple-camera setup features a 50MP main camera with the flagship Super Dynamic Falcon Camera H9000 HDR sensor, a 180MP Periscope Telephoto camera, and a 50MP ultra-wide and macro camera.

The Falcon system boasts an industry-first 1/1.3-inch sensor, offering an 800 per cent improvement in dynamic range and exceptional clarity in all lighting conditions. The front-facing 50MP camera, equipped with a 3D depth sensor, supports 4K video recording, ensuring stunning selfies and video calls.

At the heart of the HONOR Magic6 Pro 5G is MagicOS 8.0, the world’s first intent-based user interface. This groundbreaking UI leverages advanced AI capabilities to provide a seamless and highly intelligent experience.

Built on Android 14, MagicOS 8.0 introduces features like Magic Ring for enhanced device connectivity, Magic Capsule for intuitive interactions, and AI Call Privacy 3.0 for superior call privacy.

The system’s proprietary AI language model, MagicLM, ensures smooth and intuitive natural language processing, making the Magic6 Pro 5G a truly smart device.

The Magic6 Pro 5G is equipped with a 6.8-inch full-range Low Power Consumption LTPO display, featuring a resolution of 2800×1280 and a peak HDR brightness of 5000 nits. The display supports a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, Dolby Vision, and Full Screen AOD (Always On Display) for an immersive viewing experience.

With TUV Rheinland Flicker Free and Circadian Friendly certifications, the Magic6 Pro 5G prioritises eye safety and user comfort.

The HONOR NanoCrystal Shield provides unmatched screen durability, offering 10x toughness and an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance.

Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform, the HONOR Magic6 Pro 5G delivers exceptional performance, with a 30 per cent improvement in CPU and a 25 per cent increase in GPU performance.

The device’s AI capabilities enhance productivity and ensure smooth, stable operations, making it ideal for gaming, multitasking, and more.

The HONOR Magic6 Pro 5G introduces the segment’s first silicon-carbon battery, inspired by advancements in electric vehicle technology. With a robust 5,600mAh capacity, this second-generation battery offers extended usage and exceptional performance, even in low-temperature environments.

The innovative battery technology, paired with the HONOR E1 Power Enhanced Chip, provides intelligent power management and fast charging capabilities, allowing users to recharge their devices to 100 per cent in just 39 minutes.AGENCIES

Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) on Thursday reported 3.21 per cent drop in total vehicle sales for July at 64,563 units, against 66,701 vehicles in the same month last year.

The automaker sold 49,013 units in the domestic market, a 3.33 per cent decrease from 50,701 vehicles sold in July last year.

In terms of exports, it stood at 15,550 units, 2.81 per cent down from 16,000 vehicles.

In the first half of this year (January-June period), the company sold 4,50,335 units, achieving a growth of 4.3 per cent (year-on-year).

SUVs accounted for 66.6 per cent of the domestic sales, with the new Hyundai CRETA achieving sales of 1 lakh units, since its launch in January.

“The new Hyundai CRETA achieved key milestones of 1 lakh unit sales till July, while also achieving highest-ever monthly domestic sales of 17,350 units in July 2024,” said Tarun Garg, Whole-time Director and Chief Operating Officer, HMIL.

Meanwhile, Kia India continued its growth momentum with 20,507 domestic sales in July.

The automaker registered 2.5 per cent YoY growth compared to 20,002 units sold in July last year.

The newly-launched Sonet claimed the highest contribution to Kia India’s July sales with 9,459 units, followed by Carens and Seltos with 5,679 and 5347 units, respectively.

As per Vahan data, Kia India recorded a growth of 26 per cent against the industry average of 9 per cent in the month.

“We have registered a healthy YoY sales growth in July, a good headstart for the Q3 and H2 of the year. We are determined to maintain this momentum throughout the year, which should give us all confidence in our future success,” said Hardeep Singh Brar, SVP and National Head of Sales and Marketing.

Kia India has completed over 1.2 million vehicle dispatches from its Anantapur plant, including over 9.8 lakh domestic sales and over 2.5 lakh exports. AGENCIES

Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that India is now their largest market for artificial intelligence (AI) usage.

In the Q2 earnings call with analysts, Zuckerberg said they are seeing particularly promising signs on WhatsApp in terms of retention and engagement, which has coincided with “India becoming our largest market for Meta AI usage”.

Meta AI now available in Hindi, unveils largest and most capable open-source model

The AI assistant Meta AI is now available in seven new languages including Hindi, and has become more creative and smarter.

Besides Hindi and Hindi-romanised script, Meta AI is now available in other languages such as French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Users can interact with Meta AI across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook in these new languages. The company said it will soon add more languages.

After posting a revenue of $39.1 billion for Q2, up 22 per cent (year-on-year), Meta CEO said that people can now use Meta AI in over 20 countries and eight languages and in the US, “we are rolling out new features like Imagine Edit, which allows people to edit images they generate with Meta AI”.

“Beyond Generative AI, the Threads community also continues to grow and deepen their engagement, as we ship new features and enhance our content recommendation systems,” he added.

Zuckerberg said that Meta AI is on track to become the most used AI assistant by the end of the year.

“An important part of our vision is that we’re not just creating a single AI, but enabling lots of people to create their own AIs. And this week we launched AI Studio, which lets anyone create AIs to interact with across our apps,” said the CEO. AGENCIES

 India Ratings & Research (Ind-Ra) has raised India’s GDP growth forecast for 2024-25 to 7.5 per cent from 7.1 per cent projected earlier as it expects the Union Budget to give a further fillip to the economy. 

The report states that ongoing growth momentum led by government capex, healthier balance sheets of banks, and incipient private corporate capex cycle has now found support from the Union Budget.

The budget aims to bolster spending in the agricultural and rural sector, improve credit delivery to MSMEs and incentivise employment creation in the economy.

Ind-Ra expects the above-normal monsoon coupled with measures announced in the Union Budget for FY25 to boost the demand for goods and services consumed by rural and lower-income households.

“Ind-Ra believes these measures would help in broad-basing the consumption demand,” the report observed.

Ind-Ra expects Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) to grow to a three-year high of 7.4 per cent in FY25, up from 4 per cent in FY24.

While food inflation poses a risk, the report expects lower average retail inflation in the current financial year compared to the previous year, to support real wage growth.

The RBI has projected a growth rate of 7.2 per cent for the Indian economy while the Economic Survey has estimated GDP expansion between 6.5-7 per cent.

However, Chief Economic Advisor Anantha Nageswaran said achieving a 7 per cent GDP growth rate “is doable” for India despite the global environment having become more challenging since the beginning of the year.

“We were more confident of a 7 per cent GDP growth when we wrote the interim Economic Survey in January. Since then the global environment has become even more polarised. Given that we feel 7 per cent is doable, but yet we want to be not necessarily cautious but prudent,” he added. AGENCIES

 India’s manufacturing activity continued to expand at a robust pace in July on the back of strong domestic demand and new export orders, according to an HSBC survey released on Thursday.

“With demand conditions remaining favourable and new orders coming in, goods producers purchased additional inputs in July,” the survey highlighted.

The HSBC final India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) compiled by S&P Global, came in at 58.1 last month which was about the same as the June figure of 58.3.

The index has been above the 50-mark separating growth from contraction since July 2021 which is the longest expansionary phase in the last 11 years.

“India’s headline manufacturing PMI showed a marginal slowdown in the pace of expansion in July, but with most components remaining at robust levels, the small drop is no cause for concern,” Domestic demand recorded a healthy growth in new orders while exports rose at the second-fastest pace in 13 years driven by rising demand from countries in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, the report states.

“New export orders remain a bright spot, rising by 1 point to the second-highest level since early 2011,” said Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC.

The outlook for the coming 12 months remained optimistic with firms still taking on additional staff. While the pace of hiring was slower than in June, it maintained the positive momentum in creating new jobs, the survey states.

However, high demand pushed up both the input and output price sub-indexes. “The rate of expansion was sharp, as more than a quarter of panellists increased their buying levels. In turn, strong input demand drove cost inflation higher. Manufacturers reported paying more for coal, leather, packaging, paper, rubber, and steel,” the survey observed.

“The continuous increase in the output price index, driven by input and labour cost pressure, may signal further inflationary pressure in the economy,” Bhandari said. AGENCIES

 Infosys shares fell on Thursday after it received a GST notice citing an alleged Rs 32,000 crore tax evasion, a claim that the IT major has disputed.

Infosys shares that opened at Rs 1,850 were trading 0.5-1 per cent low.

The company’s share has gained more than 20 per cent since January this year.

Reports earlier claimed on Wednesday, citing Directorate General of GST Intelligence, that Infosys is “liable to pay IGST under reverse charge mechanism on supplies received from branches located outside India to the tune of Rs 32,403.46 crore for the period 2017-18 (July 2017 onwards) to 2021-22.”

The company denied this in a late evening stock exchange filing.

“Karnataka State GST authorities have issued a pre-show cause notice for payment of GST of Rs 32,403 crore for the period July 2017 to March 2022 towards the expenses incurred by overseas branch offices of Infosys Limited,” said the company in the filing.

The company responded to the pre-show cause notice.

Infosys also received a pre-show cause notice from the Director General of GST Intelligence on the same matter and “is in the process of responding to the same”.

“The company believes that as per regulations, GST is not applicable on these expenses. Additionally, as per a recent Circular issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on the recommendations of the GST Council, services provided by the overseas branches to Indian entities are not subject to GST,” said Infosys.

Infosys said it has paid all its GST dues and is fully in compliance with the central and state regulations on this matter. AGENCIES

 The Rs 37,000 crore investment plan of Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) over the next three years is a testament to our commitment to boost growth, innovation and job creation in the country, Mahindra Group Chairman, Anand Mahindra, said.

Urging the private sector to utilise the government’s employment-linked schemes, announced during the Union Budget 2024-2025, Anand Mahindra said that this approach will help create more jobs for the youth, especially the fresh talent coming out of colleges.

The Mahindra Group Chairman, while addressing shareholders at the annual general meeting of Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), said it is a collective responsibility of the private sector and the government to generate employment for nation-building.

He said that as India stands to benefit from the re-orientation of global supply chains, its growth and prosperity must be driven by job creation.

The Group reached over 2.2 lakh women through skilling interventions, including employability-focused training and domain-specific skill development in FY24.

Employment generation coupled with improving employability is the priority of the government and it has taken various steps to generate employment in the country.

The Budget 2024-25 announced five schemes and initiatives to facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities for 4.1 crore youth over a five-year period with a central outlay of Rs 2 lakh crore.

According to the government, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 29 years has been declining steadily over the last five years.

According to data tabled in the Parliament this week, it has come down from 17.8 per cent in 2017-18 to 10 per cent in 2023-24.

Meanwhile, the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India have generated more than 20.5 crore jobs in the last four years, the Centre informed this week.

More than 12.5 crore jobs were created from FY14-23, with an average of 2 crore jobs per year.

There has been a 56 per cent rise in workers’ income (FY22-23) and India is on track to become a $10 trillion economy. AGENCIES

 Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH) platform has seen around 88 lakh candidate registrations till June, along with 9.59 lakh mobile app downloads and 7.63 lakh candidates being enrolled for online courses.

SIDH offers 752 online courses, leading to 7.37 lakh minutes of digital content readily available and accessible for learners, informed Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development, Jayant Chaudhary.

According to the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, the primary objective of the platform is to provide a comprehensive and accessible platform for skill enhancement, offering industry-relevant skill courses, job opportunities, and entrepreneurship support.

“SIDH is at the intersection of two of the most important initiatives of the government — Skill India and Digital India,” said the Minister.

It aims to serve India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for skill development, education, employment and entrepreneurship landscape.

Envisioned to integrate with MSME and facilitate access to entrepreneurship schemes for the learners and job seekers, it offers courses and apprenticeship opportunities to the learners.

The minister also informed that there are 19 National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) out of 33 which are exclusively for women.

These women NSTIs offer 19 courses under the Craft Instructor Training Scheme (CITS) as well as 23 courses under the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS).

To empower women entrepreneurs and spur economic growth, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has also unveiled the Women Entrepreneurship Programme.

This is aimed to address the distinct challenges that women face when starting and growing businesses.

In partnership with Britannia Industries Limited, the initiative will also offer financial grants and feature their products and services on the Skill India Digital Hub.

“In the skilling segment, under Jan Shikshan Sansthan, 82 per cent of our trainees are women. In the PMKVY short-term training programme, close to 45 per cent of the participants are women,” said Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship. AGENCIES

 Indian equity indices opened at a lifetime high on Thursday following positive global cues.

In the early trading hours, Sensex and Nifty made a new all-time high of 82,129 and 25,078 respectively.

At 9.41 a.m., Sensex was up 299 points or 0.37 per cent at 82,040 and Nifty was up 101 points or 0.41 per cent at 25,051.

Buying is also seen in the midcap and smallcap stocks. The Nifty midcap 100 index is up 213 points or 0.36 per cent at 59,222 and the Nifty smallcap 100 index was at 19,227, up 90 points or 0.47 per cent.

There is a positive trend in the stock market also. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1,503 shares are in the green and 570 shares are in the red.

In the Sensex pack, Maruti Suzuki, JSW Steel, Power Grid, Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Axis Bank, NTPC, IndusInd Bank and HDFC Bank are the top gainers. M&M, Sun Pharma, UltraTech Cement, Asian Paints and Bajaj Finserv are the top losers.

On the global front, the markets of Seoul, Bangkok and Jakarta are trading briskly. At the same time, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong are in red. The US markets closed positive on Wednesday.

Market experts said, “The Fed chief signalling a possible rate cut in September is positive for global equity markets. More importantly, his comments that the US economy is normalising is a shot in the arm for bulls.”

“A serious geopolitical risk is the escalation of tensions in West Asia following the killing of the top Hamas leader in Iran. The risk of a regional aggravation of the Gaza war is high,” they added. AGENCIES