Business

New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) India's retail inflation, which is measured by consumer price index (CPI), fell to 4.70 per cent in April 2023 as food prices came down. In March, it was 5.66 per cent.

Food inflation too slid to 3.84 per cent in April from 4.79 per cent in March.

According to the data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, retail inflation was at a high of 7.79 per cent in April 2022, while food inflation was 8.31 per cent during the period.

This is the second consecutive month when CPI-based inflation has remained below the RBI's tolerance level, which is between 2 per cent to 6 per cent.

The index of industrial production (IIP), which shows the growth rates of different sectors, fell to 1.1 per cent in March from 5.6 per cent in February.

"The price data was collected from 1,114 urban markets and 1,181 villages," the government said in a statement.

Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist, Head - Research & Outreach, ICRA Ltd., said: "The April 2023 CPI inflation eased to an 18 month low of 4.7 per cent, benefitting from the high base as well as cooler than normal temperatures, which delayed the seasonal rise in prices of perishable items."

She noted that April 2023 was marked by above-average rainfall and lower than normal temperatures, which helped to keep prices of some vegetables in check.

"Notwithstanding the mixed month-on-month trends across food items, the YoY CPI food inflation is likely to remain subdued in May 2023 aided by the sustained high base (+ 8.0 per cent in May 2022). With El Nino expected to materialise only in the second half of the monsoon season as per the IMD, kharif sowing may not be impacted. However, any subsequent deficiency in monsoon rainfall could affect kharif yields and winter sowing, and thereby food inflation, which poses a risk to the CPI inflation trajectory," she said.

Nayar further said that although the impact of a favourable base effect related to escalation of geopolitical conflict is likely to have peaked in April 2023, ICRA foresees the CPI inflation to remain range-bound at 4.7-5 per cent in May-June 2023.

"With a dip in the CPI inflation below 5 per cent and surprisingly subdued IIP growth, we foresee a high likelihood of a pause from the MPC at its next meeting. However, a pivot to rate cuts appears quite distant.

"The timeliness and intensity of the monsoon onset would be known when the MPC meets at its next scheduled meeting in June 2023, which would feed into whether its CPI inflation projection of 5.2 per cent for FY2024 needs to be modified.

"We expect a rise in the supply of state government securities in May-June 2023, closer to the indicated amount, to prevent G-sec yields from easing meaningfully in the near term," she added.

Further, on IIP, Nayar said: "Most of the available high frequency indicators recorded a deterioration in their YoY performance in April 2023, relative to March 2023, partly on account of the unseasonal rainfall seen during the month. Accordingly, ICRA expects the YoY IIP growth to remain sub-2 per cent in that month."

--IANS
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Chennai, May 12 (IANS) Diversified engineering company Greaves Cotton closed FY23 with a net profit of Rs 115.10 crore and has declared a dividend of Re 0.90 per share.

In a regulatory filing, the company said it had closed FY23 with a net profit of Rs 115.10 crore (compared to previous year's Rs 27.08 crore) on a total income of Rs 1,592.29 crore (against last year's Rs 1,209.18 crore).

According to Greaves Cotton, it hopes to conclude definitive agreements with Runal Developers LLP for the sale of its land and building at Pune for Rs 284 crore.

--IANS
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By IANSlife
New Delhi, May 12 (IANSlife) Designer Amit Aggarwal opened his third store, this one at Delhi's DLF Emporio, setting a new record. For the opening, attendees were treated to Aggarwal's unique world, where fashion and art converged to create a mesmerising experience, and set out on an enchanted voyage.


His collections have always been built around innovation, and the shop is no different. A clean and contemporary ambiance is created by the store's elegant minimalist design, which combines charcoal and metal materials. The goal was to infuse the store's merchandise with a feeling of adaptability and timelessness as well as an understanding of the ways in which fashion and art may interact with one another and affect one another.

Each pod constructed with distinctive handcrafted textiles is reminiscent of a nucleus that contains the blueprint for how we live, grow, reproduce, and regenerate. This is in keeping with the brand's language and values about perpetual evolution, narrating the tale of peace attained in a place of newfound optimism, creation, and the feeling of the absolute and infinite.

The evening witnessed conversations, an array of eclectic cocktails courtesy GreyGoose and a delectable culinary experience. The event kicked off with a magical tour of the store brought to life with whimsical floral arrangements by Interflora. Some of the prominent names that were present at the event included the ever so iconic and timeless Zeenat Aman wearing one of the most captivating designs of Amit Aggarwal. Guests from the evening included people from varied fields of fashion, design, art, bollywood and business included Uorfi, Kusha Kapila, and cast from the popular netflix show Class - Ayesha Kanga, Chayan Chopra, Moses Koul, Anjali Sivaraman and Naina Bhan.

Also present at the event were members from Indian Art Fair and Serendipity Arts festival.

Speaking on the occasion Amit Aggarwal adds "The idea was to have a space which speaks of brand narratives that transcends the boundaries of clothing and art and we needed an extension of the same to speak about the deeper, more thoughtful aspects of the brand that gets lost in retail."

(IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in)

--IANS
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Jalna (Maharashtra), May 10 (IANS) The Jalna Municipal Council in Maharashtra's Jalna district - famed for its mosambi fruit and steel industries - has been upgraded as the 29th Municipal Corporation of the state, officials said on Wednesday.

After a report of the District Collector, a notification to the effect was issued by the Urban Development Department, fulfilling a long-pending demand of the locals.

Jalna town MLA Kailash K. Gorantyal said that though the decision is welcome, there are many other issues pertaining to civic schemes, financial grants, etc. on which clarity is needed after the upgradation.

The Congress lawmaker said that Jalna town has an estimated population of around 350,000 and it is growing gradually over the years owing to various reasons including a thriving local economy.

Simultaneously, the state government has appointed the CIDCO to construct a new town in Jalna-Kharpudi area, as per an official statement.

CIDCO will prepare a financial feasibility report and submit it to the state government for the 11th proposed new town in Maharashtra.

Jalna is also famed as the home district of Minister of State for Railways Raosaheb Danve, an ex-Bharatiya Janata Party state President.

The luscious 'mosambi' fruit produced in Jalna orchards, has a ready market not only elsewhere in the state but also in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and other states, say local traders.

The town and surroundings have several big and small steel industries producing the specific requirements of the building construction sector all over the country.

The other 28 Municipal Corporations in the state are: Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Ulhasnagar, Mira-Bhayander, Vasai-Virar, Panvel, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Ahmednagar, Nashik, Malegaon, Aurangabad, Latur, Jalgaon, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Dhule, Ichalkaranji, Miraj-Kupwad, Nanded-Waghala, Chandrapur, Akola, Amravati, and Nagpur.

--IANS
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New York, May 9 (IANS) Google will give around $100 million to The New York Times over three years as part of a broad deal to use its content on some of its platforms, the media reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Alphabet company will use the NYT content on Google News Showcase and some other platforms.

The NYT in February this year announced an expansion of its agreement with Google.

It "described as an expanded agreement that included content distribution and subscriptions, as well as using Google tools for marketing and ad-product experimentation."

The NYT and Google did not immediately comment on the WSJ report.

The deal covers distribution, subscriptions, marketing and ad products.

In late 2020, an online news experience called Google News Showcase was launched. This platform helps participating publishers share their expertise and editorial voice through an enhanced storytelling experience.

The platform is also a global content licensing programme. Google pays participating publishers to curate quality journalism for an improved online news experience that benefits readers and publishers.

To help readers discover new content, Google News Showcase offers no-charge access to select paywalled articles on a participating publisher's site that would otherwise only be available to subscribers.

--IANS
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New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) Tata-owned Air India on Monday extended a voluntary retirement offer for its non-flying staff till May 31. This is the third such offer by the group after it took control of the airline in January last year.

According to Air India, the permanent general cadre officers who have attained the age of 40 years or above and completed a minimum of five years of continuous service at the airlines are eligible for the offer.

Also eligible will be clerical and unskilled categories of employees who have completed a minimum of five years of continuous service.

"This is in reference to the organisational announcement dated March 17. In this regard, please note that the last date to apply for voluntary retirement in terms of the above organisational announcement for all the eligible employees has been extended till 31 May 2023," read a notice issued on Monday.

"However, the acceptance of application and the date of release will continue to be subject to management's discretion. In case of any queries or concerns, please reach out to the HR representatives for clarification," it added.

--IANS
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New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) Domestic coal imports went up by 30 per cent to 162.46 million tonnes in 2022-23, as against 124.99 million tonnes during the corresponding period of last year, according to an e-commerce platform mjunction's report.

The report further said that coking coal imports also rose by 5.44 per cent to 54.46 million tonnes in 2022-23 as against 51.65 million tonnes in 2021-22.

The publication went on to add that in March, non-coking coal imports were at 13.88 million tonnes as against 12.61 million tonnes during corresponding period of last year.

Coking coal imports though were down to 3.96 million tonnes in March 2023 as against 4.76 million tonnes in March 2022.

India is among the top five coal-producing countries in the world, though it depends on imports also owing to higher consumption of dry fuel.

The e-commerce platform mjunction is a 50:50 joint venture, which is promoted by Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Tata Steel.

--IANS
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By Animesh Singh
New Delhi, May 7 (IANS) With sugar production expected to be 9 per cent lesser than last year, prices of the sweetener have already started rising, as they have gone up by Rs 1.25 per kg in the last one month in the retail market.


From Rs 41.05 per kg on April 2, the retail price of sugar rose to Rs 42.30 per kg on May 2.

Similarly, wholesale prices too have risen by Rs 124 per quintal during the past one month.

From Rs 3,805 per kg on April 2, wholesale prices of sugar have risen to Rs 3,929 per quintal as on May 2.

Last year sugar production was 357 lakh tonnes and the government had exported 100 lakh tonnes, sources said.

This year too, the production was expected to be high, however, suddenly production estimates fell and now it is expected that this year's output could be around 9 per lesser than last year and may be around 327 lakh tonnes.

Sources informed that due to fall in estimated output, sugar prices are rising.

They added that in order to provide relief to consumers, the Food and Consumer Affairs department is expected to release extra quota of sugar in the coming days.

--IANS
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San Francisco, May 7 (IANS) The losses of Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the developer behind highly-successful AI chatbot ChatGPT, reportedly swelled to nearly $540 million last year and are likely to only keep rising.

According to The Information, OpenAI's losses doubled as it developed ChatGPT and hired key employees from Google.

"The previously unreported figure reflects the steep costs of training its machine-learning models during the period before it started selling access to the chatbot," the report noted.

OpenAI in February this year launched the new subscription plan, ChatGPT Plus, that is available for $20 a month.

However, the report mentioned that even if the revenue picks up, OpenAI's losses are likely to keep rising as "more customers use its artificial intelligence technology and the company trains future versions of the software".

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has "privately suggested OpenAI may try to raise as much as $100 billion in the coming years to achieve its aim of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is advanced enough to improve its own capabilities".

Elon Musk, Twitter CEO and an early investor in OpenAI, tweeted late on Saturday: "That's what he (Altman) told me".

Musk, who has criticised OpenAI several times, last month created a new company called X.AI which will promote AI in the ChatGPT era.

It was Musk who initially invested $100 million in OpenAI, but later exited the company.

In recent months, ChatGPT and GPT-4 have become a rage worldwide.

OpenAI recently closed a more than $300 million share sale at a valuation between $27-$29 billion, according to reports.

--IANS
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By Venkatachari Jagannathan
Chennai, May 7 (IANS) The Wadia group's low cost airline Go Airlines (India) Limited will look at all legal options, including that of freezing/attaching the Indian assets of the US-based aircraft engine maker Pratt & Whitney, said a top airline official.



He also categorically said the airline filing an insolvency petition with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is not a ruse to get loan write offs but mainly to safeguard/retain the aircrafts so that the lessors do not repose them.

"We have started the steps for the execution of the award. We have filed a case in the US," Kaushik Khona, Chief Executive Officer told IANS in an interview.

Khona said the airline is also identifying jurisdictions in Japan, Singapore, Europe and the US to file cases against Pratt & Whitney which is refusing to comply with an award issued by an emergency arbitrator appointed in accordance with the 2016 Arbitration Rules of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC).

Asked whether the company is looking at filing a case in India against Pratt & Whitney to attach its properties here, Khona said the company will evaluate that option as well.

He said the airline is to get the engines for the 27 aircrafts that are now grounded due to engine faults and legal action will be taken in the jurisdictions where Pratt & Whitney has the engines.

According to Khona, we need the engines and for that the arbitration award has to be enforced and Pratt & Whitney does not have an MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) set up in India.

Go Airlines has filed a case in a court in Delaware in the US against Pratt & Whitney to enforce the arbitration award, and Khona said the case will be decided soon.

"That order (arbitration award) directed Pratt & Whitney to take all the reasonable steps to release and dispatch without delay to Go First at least 10 serviceable spare leased engines by April 27, 2023 and a further 10 spare leased engines per month until December 2023, with the objective of Go First returning to full operations and achieving its financial rehabilitation and survival," Go Airlines said.

Dismissing the Pratt & Whitney's charge that Go Airlines has a lengthy history of missing its financial obligations to it as false, Khona added that if that is the case why would the emergency arbitrator order that the engine maker should not ask for any deposit from the airline and give the engines without any cost.

On the issue of approaching the NCLT, Khona said it is not an insolvency petition but a petition for resolution as the business is viable.

Khona said the aircraft lessors were taking an irrational action of repossessing the aircrafts and approaching the NCLT is the only way to protect the assets as we will seek moratorium under the Insolvency Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

He said under this process, the airline can retain its assets and come back to normal levels as it is a viable business.

Khona said there is no pressure from the bankers as all the facilities are more or less working capital and non funded. The company has to pay only the interest and the interest rates are also not so high.

In the last six months the banks have sanctioned Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) which have a two year moratorium and there is no repayment pressure except for Rs 50 lakh which the company got in 2021 where payment has started, Khona said.

Adding further he said, all the assets are charged to the bank and on the top of it, the promoters have given 94 acre land in Bombay and Thane as security the value of which two years back was about Rs 3,000 crore. The filing of the NCLT petition is not aimed at the bankers.

Terming a news report in a leading financial daily that the airline has asked the bankers to write off a portion of the loan as wrong, Khona said the airline has not approached any bank to write off the loan and "we have no such intention".

He said the bankers are being updated on the situation and in the last one year there had been more than 12 consortium meetings and the company promoters also met the bank Managing Directors several times in the last three months.

The decision to file the petition with NCLT had to be taken in three days as the aircraft lessors were taking coercive action to take over the aircraft.

The airline has 54 aircrafts out of which 27 are operational and 27 are grounded due to engine problems. As of now no aircraft has been deregistered and taken back by the lessors, he said.

On the issue of defaults, a petition under Section 10 can be made only if there is a default. The airline had defaulted with creditors, lessors and others. As regards the bankers, interest to be debited on May 2 became overdue. However, the account is not an NPA, Khona said.

On the question of low cost airline a viable business proposition as several airlines have crash landed, Khona said Go Airlines has been profitable since 2009-10 till 2019-20. Only from January 2020 the Pratt & Whitney engine problem aggravated and the company faced problems as an airline has a huge fixed cost.

According to him, only low cost airline business could be profitable and Go Airlines has the lowest cost structure till December 2022. Our costs were either at par or better than the industry leader. Go Airlines have been operating our aircrafts for 14 hours a day.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

--IANS
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