India's bid to join US alliance could irk China, Pak: media

Jan 22: Microsoft Corp’s chief executive officer said he worries that mistrust between the US and China will increase technology costs and hurt economic growth at a critical time.

Using the $470 billion semiconductor industry as an example of a sector that is already globally interconnected, Satya Nadella said the two countries will have to find ways to work together, rather than creating different supply chains for each country.

“All you are doing is increasing transaction costs for everybody if you completely separate,” Nadella said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at Bloomberg’s The Year Ahead conference in Davos. That’s a concern as the executive said the world is on the cusp of a revolution around technology and artificial intelligence.

“If we take steps back in trust or increase transaction costs around technology, all we are doing is sacrificing global economic growth,” he said.

The agreement signed last week between the US and China was “not sufficient,” said Nadella, but represented “progress” on the issue of intellectual property protections for US technology companies working with China.

Nadella said he worries about the development of two separate internets, noting that to some degree they already exist “and they will get amplified in the future” with massive technology companies already in place in China.

The viewpoint clashes with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has been sceptical about the idea that ongoing US-China trade tensions could ever lead to a bifurcated system of two internets.

China and the US are the two leading AI superpowers, however the cooling political relations between them have slowed the international collaboration.

Nadella also warned that countries that fail to attract immigrants will lose out as the global tech industry continues to grow. The CEO has previously voiced concern about India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, calling it “sad.”

“However, Nadella said he remained hopeful.

“The fact that there is a 70-year history of nation-building, I think it’s a very strong foundation. I grew up in that country. I’m proud of that heritage. I’m influenced by that experience.”

Mumbai, Mar 27: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said that Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has taken note of the global economic activity coming to a near standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic and added that large parts of the world could slip into recession in the coming days to the coronavirus crisis.
"The MPC noted that global economic activity has come to a near stand-still as COVID-19 related lockdowns and social distancing are imposed across a widening swath of affected countries. Expectations of a shallow recovery in 2020, from 2019's decade low in global growth, have been dashed," Das said.
"The outlook is now heavily contingent upon the intensity, spread and duration of the pandemic. There is a rising probability that large parts of the world will slip into recession," he added.
The RBI Governor further added that "the implied GDP growth of 4.7 per cent in Quarter 4 of 2019-20, in the second advance estimates of the National Statistics Office which was released in February 2020, within the annual estimate of 5 per cent for the year as a whole is now at risk."
As per the outlook for the year 2020-21, Das said, "Apart from continuing resilience of agriculture and allied activities most other sectors of the economy will be adversely impacted by the pandemic depending upon, its intensity, spread and duration."
Das also announced a reduction in the repo and reverse repo rates for banks.
"The repo rate has been reduced by 75 basis points to 4.4 per cent. The reserve repo rate has been reduced by 90 basis points to 4 per cent," Das said addressing the media.
The decision for "a sizeable reduction" in the policy repo rate, according to the RBI Governor was taken to "revive growth and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and ensure financial stability." 

New Delhi, May 7: Food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy on Thursday said its co-founder and CTO Rahul Jaimini will move away from active role in the company during the month to pursue another entrepreneurial venture.

Jaimini will be joining Pesto Tech, a career accelerator start-up, as their co-founder, Swiggy said in a statement.

He will continue to be a shareholder and board member of Swiggy, it added.

Functions currently led by Rahul, including platform engineering, analytics, IT and labs, will be realigned to Dale Vaz, Head of Engineering and Data Science, who has been with the company for close to two years, the statement said.

"Technology was crucial to what we set out to build when we started Swiggy. Nandan (Reddy) and I could not have asked for a better partner to handle this aspect of the company," Swiggy co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety said.

It was Rahul's immense passion to 'build for the billions' that drove technological innovations that set Swiggy apart as we grew phenomenally over the years, he added.

"Working with technology that has large scale impact is what excites me, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do just this at Swiggy and grow tremendously over the years," Jaimini said.