Gangster Munna Bajrangi shot dead inside UP jail

Jan 27: Bidders for Air India Ltd. will need to absorb $3.26 billion of its debt, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration tries once again to sell the national carrier.

The entire company will be sold but effective control needs to stay with Indian nationals, according to preliminary terms published Monday. Bids are invited by March 17 with Ernst & Young LLP India as transaction adviser.

Air India, which started in 1932 as a mail carrier before winning commercial popularity, saw its fortunes fade with the emergence of cutthroat low-cost competition. The state-run airline has been unprofitable for over a decade and is saddled with more than $8 billion in debt.

Indian regulations allow a foreign airline to buy as much as 49% of a local carrier, while overseas investors other than airlines can buy an entire carrier. The government didn’t find a single bidder when it tried to sell Air India in 2018.

Visakhapatnam, Jun 30: Two people were killed and four others were taken ill after benzene gas leaked at a pharmaceutical company at Parawada near here early on Tuesday morning, official sources said.

The situation was now under control as the leak was restricted to one unit in the Sainor Life Sciences company, the sources said.

The two killed were senior employees of the company, they said.

The injured persons have been admitted to a hospital in Gajuwaka, with one of them being put on ventilator support, the sources added.

District Collector V Vinay Chand and Police Commissioner R K Meena visited the company to take stock of the situation.

The cause of the leak that took place in a reactor unit at the plant is yet to be established.

The incident comes nearly two months after 11 people were killed and over 1000 taken ill after gas leak at a chemical plant here.

New Delhi, June 27: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led union government of India is not ready to stop all imports from aggressive China in spite of mount calls to boycott Chinese products in India.

The Centre is reportedly considering to stop only non-essential imports from the neighbouring country.

However, the Inward shipment in sectors such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, certain electronics and others will continue until a domestic alternative is found.

“India will gradually move towards import substitution. It will not happen overnight. In the meantime, attention has to be paid on production and job creation. We cannot throttle our industry. There are certain absolutely essential imports. Needless to say, those will keep going,” official sources said.

Sources said that both the government and the industry are in the process of identifying products that can be domestically manufactured in the medium term. There are certain chemicals, automotive components, handicrafts, cosmetics, agriculture items and certain consumer electronics, which can be manufactured domestically in the short to medium term. The government is doing all it can to raise the capacity of domestic industries.

However, there are certain other imports in the automobile and the pharmaceutical sectors which cannot be done away within the short to medium term. Their domestic production at the moment may not be that cost-effective.

The six-crore strong traders’ body CAIT has been at the forefront of such a demand and has launched a campaign to celebrate Indian Diwali this year with a total absence of Chinese goods.

“Ease of doing business, capital availability at lower rates and globally competitive logistics and energy costs are some of the prerequisites that the government should look into to ensure the growth of the domestic auto component industry,” according to Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) Director General Vinnie Mehta.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman R C Bhargava said, “People who are boycotting Chinese goods have to remember that in some cases it may lead to their being asked to pay more for the same product."

Meanwhile, domestic rating agency Acuite Ratings & Research has analysed the current import portfolio from China and found 40 sub-sectors have the potential to lower their import dependency on China. These sectors contribute to $33.6 billion worth of imports from China and about 25% of these imports can be substituted by local manufacturing without any significant additional investments.