HC issues notice to PM Modi over preventing ex-soldier from contesting against him

Apr 11: India has sent back 20,473 foreigners who wanted to return to their countries following the Covid-19 global pandemic, it was revealed on Friday (April 10).

"So far, we have successfully evacuated 20,473 foreign nationals as of yesterday. This is an ongoing process," said Dammu Ravi, Coordinator on Covid-19 issues at the Ministry of External Affairs, MEA.

"This involves several countries," Ravi said during the daily government briefing on Covid-19, although he could not list the countries offhand. "We are receiving excellent cooperation from governments all over the world for this process."

Many foreigners, especially tourists, were stranded in India when domestic and international flights were abruptly cancelled last month in a bid to curb transmission of the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Tourism has asked stranded foreigners to get in touch with the government through a special portal started for the purpose, through their embassies in India and other sources to facilitate their evacuation if they wished to head home.

As of Friday evening, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had confirmed 6,761 Covid-19 cases in India, of whom 515 patients have been cured.

There were 206 deaths reported from across the country.

Two states, Punjab and Orissa, have extended the ongoing lockdown until April 30.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will consult state chief ministers on Saturday to decide whether to extend the country-wide lockdown, which is due to end at midnight on April 14.

New Delhi, Jul 23: Riding high on foreign investors buying stakes in Jio Platforms, Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman Mukesh Ambani became the world’s fifth-richest person Wednesday, edging past American investor Warren Buffett on the real-time ranking of billionaires by Forbes. With an estimated wealth of $75 billion, Ambani is only next to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose wealth is pegged at $89 billion.

Buffet had slipped down the rankings after donating more than $37 billion of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock since 2006 to charity. Berkshire Hathaway’s stock performance has also underwhelmed recently.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos still sits at top in the richest list, with a net worth of $185.8 billion. He is followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with net worth of $113.1 billion and luxury group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s chief Bernard Arnault, with a net worth of $112 billion. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is at the fourth position in the Forbes list.

Shares of Ambani’s conglomerate have more than doubled since a low in March as its digital unit got more than $15 billion in investments from companies including Facebook Inc, Silver Lake, Intel, and most recently, Google. The US tech giant has committed a capital infusion of Rs 33,737 crore for a 7.7 per cent stake on Jio Platforms.

The total investment from financial and strategic investors into Jio Platforms stands at Rs 1,52,056 crore. RIL has raised a total of Rs 2,12,809 crore through a rights issue, the combined investments in Jio Platforms and investment by BP.

During the Reliance AGM last week, Ambani had said RIL has made its net-debt free ahead of a March 2021 target due to recent investments. Ambani said Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution that’s ready for launch as soon as spectrum is made available next year.

Jio and Google have also entered into a commercial agreement to jointly develop an entry-level affordable smartphone with optimisations to the Android operating system and the Play Store, Ambani said.

RILs market value jumped to Rs 12.7 lakh crore or $170 billion on Monday, making it the 51st most valued company in the world. Between April 1 and July 13, RIL has gained $81 billion in market capitalisation and has climbed 47 places from being the 98th most valued company on April 1 to 51st most value company now.

The share price of RIL has risen by 120 per cent over the last four months for Rs 883 per share on March 23, 2020 to Rs 1,939 on Monday. Since April 22, when Facebook Inc announced an investment of Rs 43,574 crore in Jio Platforms for 9.99 per cent equity stake, Jio Platforms has announced investments by 12 other investors. The total investment by these 13 investors over the last 12-weeks amounted to Rs 118,318 crore.

New Delhi, May 13: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address a press conference in New Delhi at 4 pm on Wednesday.

The information regarding the press conference by the Union Finance Minister was given through a tweet by the Ministry of Finance today morning.

Sitharaman's press conference comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced USD 265 billion fiscal stimulus to deal with COVID-19 situation in the country. The package is the second largest in Asia after Japan.

"I announce a special economic package today. This will play an important role in the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.' The announcements made by the government over COVID, decisions of RBI and today's package totals to Rs 20 lakh crore (USD 265 billion). This is 10 per cent of India's GDP," the Prime Minister said in his address to the nation on Tuesday.

"This economic package is for our small-scale industries, MSMEs, which are the means of livelihood of crores of people and is the strong base of our resolve for self-reliant India. To prove the resolve of self-reliant India, the emphasis has been given on land, labour, liquidity and laws, in this package," he added.

The PM had also said that the economic package is for "the country's workers, farmers, who are working hard day and night for the countrymen in every season. This economic package is for the middle class of our country, who pays tax honestly and contributes to the development of the country."

He had announced that the fourth phase of the nationwide COVID-19 induced lockdown would be in "new form with new rules."