‘Thousand Schools’ benefits over 28K kids
Bhubaneswar: Tata Kalinganagar has extended help to 12,705 underprivileged children under its ‘Thousands Schools’ project in the state. The project was implemented under its CSR initiative to bridge learning gap in government schools. “A core programme of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives of the company, the programme has succeeded in linking back 10,000 out-of-school children back to mainstream education, which is being looked upon as a major achievement towards ensuring uplift of communities,” an official release stated. It also added “…In addition, a total of 12,705 children of primary classes were assisted as part of this programme to overcome their learning deficits. Overall, about 16,000 children were helped to overcome basic deficits of reading, writing and mathematics through 40-day summer camps.
Safeguard duty probe on solar cells begins
New Delhi: India has started a probe to determine imposition of safeguard duty on surging imports of solar cells with a view to protect domestic manufacturers. Domestic manufacturers have approached the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) with a complaint that their market share has remained stagnant despite rapid expansion in demand for solar cells in the country. India is targeting to 100 GW (gigawatt) solar capacity by 2022. The current installed capacity is about 15 GW. The government has planned to auction 20 GW capacities by March 2018, and 30 GW each in next two fiscals. Solar cells, electrical devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity, are imported primarily from China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. The application for imposition of the import restrictive duty has been filed by the Indian Solar Manufacturer’s Association (ISMA) on behalf of five Indian producers — Mundra Solar PV, Indosolar, Jupiter Solar Power, Websol Energy Systems and Helios Photo Voltaic.
Offshore funds, ETFs Nov inflow at $565 mn
New Delhi: India-focused offshore funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) witnessed net inflows of $565 million in November and helped the overall tally to reach nearly $6.5 billion in 2017, reflecting confidence of overseas investors in Indian markets. In comparison, these funds had seen a pull out of $674 million in November last, according to a report by Morningstar. Offshore India funds — not domiciled in India — receive flow from overseas investors and in turn, invest the money in Indian markets. India-focused offshore funds and ETFs are a subset of the overall foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows. According to the report, India-focused offshore funds have seen an investment of $501 million last month, while those of ETFs witnessed an infusion of $55 million, translating into a total of $565 million.
BSNL to start 4G services from Kerala in January
New Delhi: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is set to launch its 4G services from Kerala next month, followed by Odisha, a top company official said. The telecom corporation hopes that the ensuing 4G launch on Long Term Evolution route (a standard for high-speed wireless communication) will enable its mobile customers to enjoy faster data speeds and improve its user experience. “We are going to start 4G from Kerala. That will be our first circle on 4G LTE. We will initially focus on those areas where 3G coverage is low,” BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava said. This will be followed by Odisha, a revenue positive circle for BSNL, he added. The state-owned telco — which competes with private operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Jio that already have an established 4G footprint — expects the 5MHz spectrum it currently has in the 2100 MHz band to be sufficient for the initial launch of its 4G services. But to expand the 4G service to rest of the country, BSNL will require additional spectrum. For this, BSNL is seeking another 5MHz spectrum in the 2100 MHz band, which it wants to fund by offering additional equity to its promoter, the government.
Fooya! founder in patent war
New Delhi: The founder of fooya! and inventor of ‘digital vaccine’ technology Bhargav Sri Prakash has run into a trademark war with $5-billion pharma giant Moderna Therapeutics. Moderna has filed for the ‘digital vaccines’ trademark and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is opening up the case for public comment Tuesday. Silicon Valley-based Sri Prakash claimed that he submitted an abstract proposal in November 2016 and made a presentation at the Stanford University School of Medicines’ Stanford Medicine X Conference on April 22 this year. Moderna filed for exclusive access to ‘digital vaccines’ trademark a month after Sri Prakash submitted the abstract. The Boston-based firm’s first bid to patent ‘digital vaccines’ was rejected by the trademark attorney who cited publications on the subject by Sri Prakash’s FriendsLearn, among other information.
IOC, BPCL keen to acquire GAIL
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) are both keen to acquire gas utility GAIL India Ltd to become fully integrated energy companies. IOC and BPCL have separately indicated to the petroleum ministry their interest in taking over GAIL to help add natural gas transportation and marketing business to their kitty, official sources said. GAIL, on the other hand, feels a merger with oil and gas producer ONGC would be more appropriate. The merger options were indicated following Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s announcement in the 2017-18 Budget speech on the government’s plan to create integrated public sector oil majors that will be “able to match the performance of international and domestic private sector oil and gas companies”. ONGC, India’s largest oil and gas producer, proposed to acquire oil refiner and fuel marketing company HPCL, which was approved by the Cabinet.
