The decision was taken following the BJP's parliamentary board meeting attended by party president Rajnath Singh and senior leader L.K. Advani among others.
Mumbai, Jun 16: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, is all set to pick up a stake in Jio Platforms, which would complete 25% of Jio’s equity dilution to the investors, said a report by the Gulf News.
Jio Platforms is part of the Reliance Industries empire owned by Mukesh Ambani. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) will acquire 2.33% for an estimated $1.5 billion, the report said.
So far, Jio Platforms has raised investment from 10 different global investors in seven weeks, the latest being TPG Capital buying 0.93% equity for Rs 4,547 crore and private equity firm L Catterton picking up a 0.39% stake for Rs 1894.50 crore.
Jio Platforms has raised a total of Rs 1.04 lakh crore so far from leading global investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG and L Catterton since April 22.
With PIF coming on board, Jio Platforms would have diluted 25% of its equity. That's the maximum they intend to dilute to financial investors, which includes Mark Zukerberg's Facebook.
Any new investors coming on board in future will have to be "strategic investors, a tech giant, for instance," said a source who was part of the deal-making process, the report said.
In recent days, Jio Platforms, which will merge telecom, content streaming, gaming and ecommerce features into its app, has seen Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and ADIA pick up significant stakes amounting to $1.2 billion and $750 million, respectively.
Reliance Industries' owner, Ambani, Asia's richest man, has been on an investor acquisition spree, with the likes of Facebook and private equity majors such as KKR and Silver Lake Capital investing in Jio Platforms.
The contours of the deal with Saudi Arabia's PIF was finalised during Ramadan. "It was always Mukesh Ambani's wish to have a special relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE," said Anshuman Mishra, a London-based confidante and family friend of the Ambani family of longstanding, Gulf News quoted as saying.
He has also worked extensively with Gulf sovereign wealth funds over the years.
"Saudi Arabia's coming in to close the financial investor round in Jio is indicative of the special nature of the relationship. This is also indicative of the multi-billion-dollar partnership announced last year with Saudi Aramco.
"This is a major success for the present Indian government's foreign policy initiative in the gulf and symbolic of India's significance in the GCC," it said.
Mar 28: A 69-year-old patient, hailing from Chullikal in Ernakulam District, passed away at Kalamasserry Medical College at 8:00am.
The patient had come from Dubai recently and was quarantined.
He arrived in Kerala on March 16 and was tested positive for Coronavirus on March 22, Medical College nodal officer A Fathahudeen said.
He was undergoing treatment for heart ailment and blood pressure. He had earlier undergone a bypass surgery.
Forty nine passengers in the flight he came are under quarantine.
A close relative and the driver who picked him up from the airport are coronavirus positive.
Since the deceased had no contact with any others in the state since his arrival, his route map was not processed.
Kerala reported 39 fresh cases of coronavirus on Friday, taking the total number of people under treatment to 164. The total number of confirmed cases from the state is 176, but, of this, 12 had recovered.
Of the 39 cases, 34 are from the worst affected northernmost district of Kasaragod, two from Kannur and one each from Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kollam.
With a positive case being reported from Kollam, all 14 districts in the state have been affected by the pandemic.
The worst affected Kasaragod has 76 positive cases, the highest and most of the affected are Non Resident Keralites from the Gulf.
A total of 1,10,299 people are under surveillence and 616 are in isolation wards of various hospitals.
New Delhi, Jun 11: India on Thursday rejected a US government report that voiced concerns over alleged attacks and discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities in the country.
"Our principled position remains that we see no locus standi for a foreign entity to pronounce on the state of our citizens' constitutionally protected rights," Spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivastava said.
He was replying to a question on the report at an online media briefing.
Mandated by the US Congress, the '2019 International Religious Freedom Report' that documents major instances of violation of religious freedom across the world was released by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday.
"India's vibrant democratic traditions and practices are evident to the world. The people and government of India are proud of our country's democratic traditions," the spokesperson said.
"We have a robust public discourse in India and constitutionally mandated institutions that guarantee protection of religious freedom and rule of law," he added.
The India section of the report said that US government officials underscored the importance of respecting religious freedom and promoting tolerance and mutual respect throughout the year with the ruling and opposition parties, civil society and religious freedom activists, and religious leaders belonging to various faith communities.
The report referred to the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir last August and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Parliament in December as major highlights for India last year.
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