Business

New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) The government on Friday issued clarifications on certain media reports regarding functioning of designated 1600 series and 140 series, which could potentially lead to misinformation or misinterpretation of operation of these designated series.

According to the TRAI, the 1600 series numbers are mandated for service and transaction calls by regulated entities of BFSI sector.

These calls are for entities regulated by RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA to their existing customers and by government entities for government to citizen communication.

“A key objective of assigning designated series for these important communications is to make such calls trustworthy for the customers/ citizen. Under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), any tagging, blocking or filtering of the calls originating from 1600 series numbers is not permitted,” the TRAI said in a statement.

Moreover, the use of 140xx series numbers has been mandated for making promotional calls by entities of any sector.

“Entities desirous of availing 140 series number for making promotional calls must register with Telecom Service Providers under the TCCCPR framework and comply with the provisions of the regulation. The customers have the right to allow or block promotional call originating from 140 series numbers from entities of any or all sectors by registering their preference on the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry,” informed the telecom regulator.

It further stated that a customer who has blocked any or all sectors from receiving promotional calls on the DND registry will not receive any calls from 140 series originating from entities of the blocked sectors.

The statement said that the customer can register his/her DND preference through multiple means including through TRAI DND App.

Any tagging or filtering of calls from 140 series numbers is not allowed except for blocking on the DND registry, as any tagging can mislead a customer who has otherwise allowed receipt of such calls from a sector on the DND registry, it added.

--IANS

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Mumbai, July 10 (IANS) Domestic equity benchmarks ended about 1 per cent higher each on Friday, extending their gains on the back of strong buying in information technology (IT), financial stocks, and realty stocks.

Nifty settled at 24,206.90, up 244.10 points or 1.02 per cent. Similarly, Sensex climbed 827.57 points or 1.08 per cent to close at 77,569.39.

The rally was led by IT and realty stocks, with the Nifty IT index rising around 2 per cent to emerge as the top-performing sector. Financial stocks also witnessed broad-based buying, lending further support to the market rally.

Nifty Realty index jumped over 3 per cent, followed by Nifty PSU Bank, which surged 3 per cent.

Nifty Chemicals, Nifty Metal, Nifty Cement and Nifty Oil & Gas indices advanced up to 1.66 per cent.

Meanwhile, Nifty FMCG was only major sectoral gauge to close marginally lower, slipping 0.08 per cent.

According to market experts, positive business updates from banks and an encouraging outlook for the IT sector, supported by stable earnings estimates, a likely recovery in global technology spending and opportunities arising from artificial intelligence (AI), have boosted investor confidence at the start of the June quarter earnings season.

"If first-quarter earnings continue to beat expectations, concerns over future earnings growth could ease further, supporting the ongoing market uptrend. The rally has also broadened, with sectors such as real estate and metals witnessing strong participation," the experts said.

The experts further noted that easing crude oil prices and a recovery in global technology stocks have improved sentiment towards Indian equities, helping revive foreign institutional investor (FII) inflows.

International benchmark Brent crude declined more than 1 per cent to $75.41 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 1.27 per cent to $71.16 per barrel.

--IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) Mutual fund systematic investment plan (SIP) inflows touched a three-month high of Rs 31,781 crore in June -- an increase of 3 per cent month-on-month and 17 per cent from a year ago -- despite volatile market conditions amid West Asia conflict.

In addition, SIP contributions increased by Rs 827 crore from Rs 30,954 crore in May.

On a year-on-year basis, inflows rose by Rs 4,512 crore from Rs 27,269 crore recorded in June 2025.

According to data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) witnessed a sharp turnaround, attracting net inflows of Rs 3,443.23 crore in June, up 570 per cent against an outflow of Rs 725 crore in May.

Meanwhile, other ETFs also remained in demand, receiving net inflows of Rs 13,237.76 crore during the month.

Moreover, the equity-orientated mutual fund schemes also witnessed robust investor interest, with net inflows rising nearly 26 per cent month-on-month to Rs 28,973.41 crore in June from Rs 22,907.77 crore in May, according to the AMFI data.

The equity mutual fund category mobilised Rs 67,600.90 crore during the month, while redemptions stood at Rs 38,627.49 crore.

Among equity schemes, mid-cap funds attracted the highest net inflow of Rs 6,090.17 crore, followed by small-cap funds at Rs 5,601.96 crore and flexi-cap funds at Rs 5,231.31 crore.

Large and mid-cap funds received net inflows of Rs 4,321.32 crore, while multi-cap funds attracted Rs 3,070.26 crore. Large-cap funds saw net inflows of Rs 2,067.48 crore.

Sectoral and thematic funds garnered net inflows of Rs 1,469.26 crore, followed by focused funds at Rs 1,118.18 crore and value/contra funds at Rs 686.79 crore.

The assets under management (AUM) of equity-orientated schemes stood at Rs 37.34 lakh crore as of June 30, while Gold ETF average AUM stood at Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

The industry's total assets under management stood at Rs 82.22 lakh crore at the end of June, while the total number of mutual fund folios rose to 27.86 crore.

--IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) Nearly 500 Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India are apparently not realising their full potential and have begun to plateau, warranting a strategic reset that prioritises enterprise value, leadership and AI capability over cost savings, a report said on Friday.

The GCC model in India has reached an inflection point and the centres that define the next phase, will be the ones that get the foundational choices governance model, talent strategy, technology backbone right early, according to the report from UnearthIQ and Embark.

Around 30 per cent of GCCs established after 2020 have already plateaued, representing nearly 140–150 centres, and when combined with an estimated 360–370 centres set up before 2020, the total approaches a count of 500–520.

The report added that India's GCC sector continues to witness strong momentum and the country is expected to host about 2,500 plus GCCs by 2030.

The surge in GCC count is driven by strong global demand, policy tailwinds, and the rapid rise of next-gen nano GCCs anchored in AI, digital, and innovation-led functions.

However, as enterprise expectations shift from cost efficiency to business impact, ownership, and innovation, not all GCCs are evolving and maturing at the same pace, the report added.

"The plateau is not a sign of failure; it is a sign that the GCC model in India has reached an inflection point. Most GCCs are built to scale delivery. Few are designed to sustain relevance. The difference lies in design strength and execution discipline,” said Gaurav Vasu and Shail Maniar, Co-founders of UnearthIQ.

The plateauing is often driven by structural factors rather than operational performance alone, the report noted.

Execution-focused mandates, limited leadership autonomy, weak alignment with evolving enterprise priorities, underinvestment in AI and platform capabilities, and fragmented technology and data foundations are preventing some GCCs from moving to higher-value roles within the enterprise.

“The centres that define this next phase, will be the ones that get the foundational choices right early, from the right governance model, the right talent strategy, and the right technology backbone to scale on”, said Aravind Maiya, Co-founder and CEO at Embark.

—IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) Elecon Engineering Company Ltd on Friday reported a sharp 60 per cent year-on-year decline in its consolidated net profit for the first quarter of FY27, as margin pressure weighed.

The company's consolidated net profit stood at Rs 70.4 crore during the April-June quarter, compared with Rs 175 crore in the corresponding period of the previous financial year, according to the exchange filing.

On a standalone basis, the company's net profit declined 75.5 per cent year-on-year to Rs 58.57 crore in the April-June quarter from Rs 238.92 crore in the corresponding period last year.

While revenue from operations rose 6.11 per cent year-on-year to Rs 521 crore, up from Rs 491 crore in the year-ago quarter.

At the operating level, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) declined 16.3 per cent to Rs 109 crore from Rs 130 crore a year earlier.

Total income rose 4.9 per cent year-on-year to Rs 542.47 crore in the April-June quarter, from Rs 517 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Moreover, the EBITDA margin contracted to 21 per cent in the reporting quarter from 26.6 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year, indicating higher operating cost pressures despite growth in revenue.

Following the announcement of earnings, shares of Elecon Engineering fell nearly 6 per cent to an intraday low of Rs 482.30 on the BSE at around 2:55 pm on Friday. The stock has touched a 52-week high of Rs 682.90 and a 52-week low of Rs 352 on the exchange, while saw a gain of about 6 per cent year to date.

Additionally, the stock has declined more than 20 per cent over the past 12 months.

Apart from that, the company said its Board of Directors had recommended a final dividend of Rs 1.50 per equity share of face value Re 1 each.

--IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) India is shifting from foundational digitisation toward more integrated, accessible and AI‑ready citizen services, with a Digital Government Index score of 58.2, a report said on Friday.

The report from US tech giant Adobe said that India's digital government journey entered a new phase. where focus expanded beyond digitising services, to making them more intuitive, accessible and AI-ready.

“By improving discoverability, personalisation and content quality, ministries can deliver better citizen experiences while ensuring trusted government information remains visible in an AI-first world," said Venu Juvvala, Head, Customer Experience Orchestration business, Adobe India.

India's digital transformation continues to be shaped by initiatives such as Digital India, India Stack and Gati Shakti, the report said.

"While progress varies across ministries, mobile experience improved by 1.1 per cent, reflecting India's mobile-first approach and the growing adoption of platforms such as UMANG and DigiLocker," it added.

Customer experience eased 3.7 per cent, highlighting opportunities to strengthen accessibility, readability and overall usability.

Digital Self‑Service was the strongest dimension at 62.2, up 2 per cent, driven primarily by advances in multilingual access and language translation.

The 2025 Digital Government Index for India evaluated government websites across customer experience, site performance and digital self‑service, and introduced new assessments of AI readiness and personalisation capabilities.

The study, which combined user testing, third‑party technical audits and content assessments, found accessibility eased 4.1 per cent and readability dropped 23.7 per cent, underscoring the need to simplify content and improve structure.

The AI readiness among assessed ministries scored between 51.1 and 73.1.

Official government websites demonstrated strong trust and authority, and improvements in technical structure and discoverability will help ensure reliable public information remains visible in AI-powered search and digital assistants, the report said.

The report also highlighted Indian Railways’ integration of Bhashini, the national AI-powered language platform, to support conversational chatbots that help citizens navigate services and enquiries across Indian languages.

—IANS

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Seoul, July 10 (IANS) South Korea's finance ministry said on Friday it has decided to impose anti-dumping tariffs on polyvinyl chloride (PVC) paste resin products from four European nations starting next month on grounds they were imported below fair prices.

Under the decision, South Korea will impose anti-dumping tariffs of 25.79 percent to 31.55 percent from next month to August 2031 on the products imported from Germany, France, Norway and Sweden, according to the Ministry of Finance and Economy.

PVC paste resin refers to fine-particle resin widely used in interior building materials and other industrial goods, such as wallpapers and gloves, reports Yonhap news agency.

The decision came after South Korean chemical firm Hanwha Solutions Corp. filed a complaint against a number of European exporters in July last year.

The country's trade commission launched an investigation the following month and recommended the finance ministry impose anti-dumping duties in June of this year.

"The government plans to continue monitoring products imported at low prices that cause disruptions in the domestic market, protect our industries from dumping activities and establish a fair competition environment," the ministry said.

Meanwhile, South Korean stocks closed higher on Friday, extending their winning streak to a second consecutive session, as semiconductor shares rallied following overnight gains on Wall Street. The local currency gained ground against the U.S. dollar.

After choppy trading, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 184.03 points, or 2.52 percent, to close at 7,475.94.

Trade volume was moderate at 449.53 million shares worth 31.16 trillion won ($20.73 billion), with gainers far outnumbering losers 799 to 92.

Institutions purchased a net 1.13 trillion won worth of shares, while individuals and foreigners sold a net 772.82 billion won and 322.56 billion won, respectively. Foreign investors turned net sellers after two consecutive sessions of net buying.

--IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) provided access to its Traditional Knowledge Digital Library to IP Australia under an agreement signed during the 3rd India–Australia Annual Summit in Melbourne, an official statement said on Friday.

The TKDL Access Agreement is one of eighteen key outcomes of the summit and will allow IP Australia to consult the database to identify relevant prior art while examining patent applications in accordance with Australia's patent laws and examination procedures, the statement from the Ministry of Science & Technology said.

The agreement was concluded in the presence of the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese MP.

The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), a first-of-its-kind prior art database, has been developed by India to prevent the misappropriation of its rich traditional knowledge through the erroneous grant of patents.

The agreement will facilitate more informed and efficient patent examination while helping prevent the grant of patents on knowledge that is already part of India's documented traditional heritage, the statement noted.

India and Australia are both home to rich indigenous knowledge systems, traditional practices and cultural expressions that have evolved over centuries and are vulnerable to misappropriation.

The signing of the agreement reflects the shared commitment of both countries to safeguarding traditional knowledge and strengthening intellectual property systems through effective use of documented prior art, the statement said.

The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (CSIR-TKDL), was developed to prevent the erroneous grant of patents based on Indian traditional knowledge.

The CSIR-TKDL currently contains information on over 5.2 lakh formulations and practices from Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Yoga, translated into five international languages—English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish—for use by patent examiners worldwide.

With the signing of the agreement with IP Australia, eighteen patent offices now have access to the database under Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs).

—IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) India can turn its vast agricultural waste and low-cost green hydrogen into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through a power-and-biomass-to-liquids industry, according to a report co-authored by India Energy and Climate Centre, the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Energy Innovation Policy and Technology.

India faces several threats from its rapid development, including increasing reliance on imported crude oil, worsening air pollution from agricultural residue fires, and rising greenhouse gas emissions from its aviation sector. However, India also has emerging advantages in its world-leading low-cost green hydrogen and development of large-scale agricultural residue supply chains, the report states.

The Power-and-Biomass-to-Liquids ((PBtL) pathway gasifies surplus crop waste, like rice and wheat straw, and combines it with green hydrogen, converting the synthesis gas into liquid jet fuel via the Fischer-Tropsch process.

The report states that India’s PBtL route can produce SAF at costs up to roughly 40 per cent below global SAF benchmarks, driven by record-low green hydrogen prices and low agricultural residue costs.

Its results suggest that until Indian PBtL SAF can compete directly with fossil jet fuel, it can economically serve rising international SAF demand while hedging against crude oil price spikes.

The report also states that PBtL SAF has an enormous market size and could feasibly satisfy all of India’s 2050 aviation demand; that PBtL SAF production costs can fall below fossil jet fuel prices in the 2030s or earlier depending on market conditions and policy developments; and that domestic PBtL SAF has less monetary risk exposure than fossil jet fuel.

It provides a vision for how India can leverage these advantages to develop a power-and-biomass-to-liquids (PBtL) sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry that can deliver a domestic cost-competitive drop-in alternative to imported crude oil-dependent fossil jet fuel, create value from agricultural residue that is currently burned, and decarbonize India’s aviation sector.

The report states that PBtL is ready for commercial demonstration and growth, outcompetes other SAF technologies on cost, carbon intensity, and resource efficiency, and delivers a range of co-benefits such as avoiding premature deaths from local air pollution.

It provides a spatially detailed, district-level assessment showing that surplus agricultural residue availability and low green hydrogen costs align in the areas surrounding the Delhi, Pune, and Mumbai airports, suggesting they may be best suited for supporting the PBtL industry’s near-term growth.

The report concludes that if India can drive early investment and use smart policy to overcome first-of-a-kind deployment barriers and protect against unintended consequences, it can unlock a virtuous cycle of scale and cost reduction that boosts India’s self-reliance, public health, and global climate leadership.

--IANS

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New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) The Central government has made it mandatory for all operating Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) to route settlement of invoices for goods and services procured from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) through TReDS platforms authorised by the Reserve Bank of India, an official statement said on Friday.

The notification requires CPSEs to disclose details of MSME invoices routed and settled through TReDS as specified by the RBI and to obtain a statutory auditor’s certificate of TReDS registration and compliance during their annual audit.

The move is intended to position Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) as role models for timely payment discipline for large corporate buyers across the country.

The move will also help end long payment delays faced by MSMEs and provide them working capital within a short span of time at competitive rates of interest.

With every CPSE invoice flowing through TReDS, MSME suppliers can convert approved invoices into cash well before the due date. Further, financing on TReDS is collateral-free and without recourse to the seller, with banks and NBFCs bidding competitively to discount invoices.

"By making TReDS the settlement route for all CPSE purchases from MSME, public sector procurement will now work actively for the small supplier: procurement by CPSEs gets captured on TReDS, and timely payment to MSME will be ensured through invoice financing from banks and financial institutions," the statement noted.

The notification, issued on June 30, 2026, gives effect to a key announcement of the Union Budget 2026–27.

MSMEs function as the backbone of the Indian economy, with over 8.70 crore enterprises registered on the Udyam portals, and employ over 38 crore persons.

TReDS is an RBI-regulated electronic platform, operational since 2017, for financing and discounting the trade receivables of MSMEs due from corporate buyers, government departments and public sector undertakings, through competitive bidding by multiple financiers.

—IANS

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