World Bank predicts India will remain fastest growing economy in 2019-20

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.

The ILO has warned that if another Covid-19 wave hits in the second half of 2020, there would be global working-hour loss of 11.9 percent - equivalent to the loss of 340 million full-time jobs.

According to the 5th edition of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Monitor: Covid-19 and the world of work, the recovery in the global labour market for the rest of the year will be uncertain and incomplete.

The report said that there was a 14 percent drop in global working hours during the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to the loss of 400 million full-time jobs.

The number of working hours lost across the world in the first half of 2020 was significantly worse than previously estimated. The highly uncertain recovery in the second half of the year will not be enough to go back to pre-pandemic levels even in the best scenario, the agency warned.

The baseline model – which assumes a rebound in economic activity in line with existing forecasts, the lifting of workplace restrictions and a recovery in consumption and investment – projects a decrease in working hours of 4.9 percent (equivalent to 140 million full-time jobs) compared to last quarter of 2019.

It says that in the pessimistic scenario, the situation in the second half of 2020 would remain almost as challenging as in the second quarter.

“Even if one assumes better-tailored policy responses – thanks to the lessons learned throughout the first half of the year – there would still be a global working-hour loss of 11.9 per cent at the end of 2020, or 340 million full-time jobs, relative to the fourth quarter of 2019,” it said.

The pessimistic scenario assumes a second pandemic wave and the return of restrictions that would significantly slow recovery. The optimistic scenario assumes that workers’ activities resume quickly, significantly boosting aggregate demand and job creation. With this exceptionally fast recovery, the global loss of working hours would fall to 1.2 per cent (34 million full-time jobs).

The agency said that under the three possible scenarios for recovery in the next six months, “none” sees the global job situation in better shape than it was before lockdown measures began.

“This is why we talk of an uncertain but incomplete recovery even in the best of scenarios for the second half of this year. So there is not going to be a simple or quick recovery,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said.

The new figures reflect the worsening situation in many regions over the past weeks, especially in developing economies. Regionally, working time losses for the second quarter were: Americas (18.3 percent), Europe and Central Asia (13.9 percent), Asia and the Pacific (13.5 percent), Arab States (13.2 percent), and Africa (12.1 percent).

The vast majority of the world’s workers (93 per cent) continue to live in countries with some sort of workplace closures, with the Americas experiencing the greatest restrictions.

During the first quarter of the year, an estimated 5.4 percent of global working hours (equivalent to 155 million full-time jobs) were lost relative to the fourth quarter of 2019. Working- hour losses for the second quarter of 2020 relative to the last quarter of 2019 are estimated to reach 14 per cent worldwide (equivalent to 400 million full-time jobs), with the largest reduction (18.3 per cent) occurring in the Americas.

The ILO Monitor also found that women workers have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, creating a risk that some of the modest progress on gender equality made in recent decades will be lost, and that work-related gender inequality will be exacerbated.

The severe impact of Covid-19 on women workers relates to their over-representation in some of the economic sectors worst affected by the crisis, such as accommodation, food, sales and manufacturing.

Globally, almost 510 million or 40 percent of all employed women work in the four most affected sectors, compared to 36.6 percent of men, it said.

The report said that women also dominate in the domestic work and health and social care work sectors, where they are at greater risk of losing their income and of infection and transmission and are also less likely to have social protection.

The pre-pandemic unequal distribution of unpaid care work has also worsened during the crisis, exacerbated by the closure of schools and care services.

Even as countries have adopted policy measures with unprecedented speed and scope, the ILO Monitor highlights some key challenges ahead, including finding the right balance and sequencing of health, economic and social and policy interventions to produce optimal sustainable labour market outcomes; implementing and sustaining policy interventions at the necessary scale when resources are likely to be increasingly constrained and protecting and promoting the conditions of vulnerable, disadvantaged and hard-hit groups to make labour markets fairer and more equitable.

“The decisions we adopt now will echo in the years to come and beyond 2030. Although countries are at different stages of the pandemic and a lot has been done, we need to redouble our efforts if we want to come out of this crisis in a better shape than when it started,” Ryder said. 

Panaji, Feb 9: RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi on Saturday said that anybody who wants to work (in India) will have to do so with the Hindu community and for their empowerment.

Addressing a lecture on the topic "Vishwaguru Bharat, an RSS perspective" at Dona Paula in Panaji, Mr Joshi referred to his communication with an intellectual who had said that India should become a "supre-rashtra" in the year 2020.

"Anybody who wants to work (in India) will have to work with the Hindu commumnity by taking them along and for their empowerment. Hindus have witnessed the rise and fall of India since the time immemorial. India cannot be separated from (the) Hindu (community). Hindus have always been at the centre of this nation," Mr Joshi said in Marathi.

He also added that since Hindus are not communal or antagonist, "nobody should be reluctant to work for the Hindu community".

The RSS leader further said, "The world says India will become a superpower in 2020, but I remember my conversation with an intellectual who had said that India should become a super-rashtra (super nation) in 2020".

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant was among those who attended the lecture.

"To create awareness and unity amongst Hindus does not amount to (taking) an action against others (community). No one should feel it that way. We can say with utter self confidence before the entire world that Hindus becoming strong won't result in destructive activities, but (such proposition) will work for the society and humanity," he added.

Invoking history, Mr Joshi said Hindus never invaded other countries. "Whatever wars (they had fought) were for self defence. Everyone has the right to self defence," he said.

"It is India's duty to teach the world to walk on the path of ''samanvay'' (coordination). Nobody else other than India and Hindus can do this," Mr Joshi said.

He said some communities in the world keep preaching that only their path is "great".

"But we are from the (Hindu) community which says that we have our own path so as you. When the world will accept this ideology, then all the issues would get solved. It is the duty of India to take the world on that path," he added.