Month: February 2019

Cabinet approves National policy for software products

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Cabinet on Thursday approved a national policy on software products that aims to position India as a hub for software products development and creating 65 lakh jobs by 2025.

“India’s IT revenue is $168 billion but most of it is services. Software product component is less, it is just $7.1 billion. Most of the software products are imported. The software product policy is designed to make India a big centre of software products by 2025,” IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said after the Cabinet briefing.

This policy has a scope of giving employment to nearly 65 lakh people and will have enormous revenue benefit, he added.

The nod to the software products policy comes just days after the Cabinet cleared a new national electronics policy, and underscores India’s aggressive attempts to position itself as a global player in the tech domain that is gearing up for Artificial Intelligence, big data, Internet of Things and robotics.

The minister said the new policy seeks to nurture 10,000 technology start-ups working on software products, including 1,000 in tier II and III towns as well as upskilling 10 lakh IT professionals that includes one lakh school and college students.

“A cluster-based ecosystem will be developed in the country, where software products will be developed. For this, Rs 5,000 crore software product development fund (SPDF) will be set up. Indian government will put in Rs 1,000 crore and the remaining will come from the industry,” he said.

According to sources, the government expects this policy intervention to help propel the software products industry to grow at a CAGR of about 40 per cent, reaching $70-80 billion by 2025.

The policy, which has been formulated after various stakeholder consultations, aims to provide a level-playing-field to Indian software product companies and facilitate ease of doing business, they added.

The sources said the intent of the policy is to create an enabling environment for innovation, Research and Development (R&D), IP creation and protection, as well as create talent pool for the industry.

Through the policy, the government aims to create a sustainable Indian software products industry, driven by IP, they added.

Besides, the government will also set up a National Software Products Mission with participation from Government, academia and industry to promote India as a global software product hub.

Another programme, evinced under the policy, seeks to promote R&D and innovation for software products that solve societal challenges/problems. The aim of the said programme is to encourage IP driven software product entrepreneurship and has a budgetary outlay of Rs 500 crore, sources said.

The programme will provide financial support to MSMEs and have matching contribution from the government and industry, they added.

The policy will also focus on tapping into emerging technology areas like Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, smart sensors, big data, and robotics that are being used in smart cities, healthcare, agriculture, fintech, e-learning and transport, amongst other domains, sources said.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Cabinet approves Aadhaar Ordinance to allow its use as ID proof for bank accounts, SIM connection

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Cabinet on Thursday approved the promulgation of an Ordinance to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar as identity proof for opening bank account and procuring mobile phone connection.

The Ordinance was necessitated as a bill, passed by the Lok Sabha on January 4 but pending in the Rajya Sabha, would have lapsed with the dissolution of the current Lok Sabha. The Ordinance will now give the effect to the changes in the Aadhaar Act such as giving a child an option to exit from the biometric ID programme on attaining 18 years of age.

Briefing reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Cabinet has approved the promulgation of an Ordinance to give effect to the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill.

The amendment provides for stiff penalties for violation of norms set for the use of Aadhaar and violation of privacy. It bans storing of core biometric information as well as Aadhaar number by service providers in cases of individuals who have voluntarily offered the national ID as a means of authentication.

“Aadhaar can be used as KYC on a voluntary basis under the Telegraph Act and PMLA rules. Any entity using Aadhaar will have to adhere to privacy guidelines,” Prasad said.

The amended law makes it clear that anyone not offering Aadhaar cannot be denied any service, be it opening of a bank account or obtaining a mobile phone SIM card.

The amendments will “provide for 12-digit Aadhaar number and its alternate numbers to be generated” in a manner so as to conceal the actual Aadhaar number.

The proposed changes also seeks to lay down the procedure for offline verification of an Aadhaar number holder, and confers enhanced regulator-like power on the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to give directions as it may consider necessary to any entity in the Aadhaar ecosystem.

It proposes that every requesting entity to whom an authentication request is made will inform the Aadhaar number holder of alternate and viable means of identification and shall not deny any service to them for refusing to, or being unable to undergo authentication.

The changes that were proposed included a civil penalty of up to Rs 1 crore on entities that violate the provisions of the Aadhaar Act, with an additional fine of up to Rs 10 lakh per day in case of continuous non-compliance.

Unauthorised use of identity information by a requesting entity or offline verification seeking entity would be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years with a fine that may extend to Rs 10,000 or in case of a company with a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh.

Punishment for unauthorised access to the Central Identities Data Repository as well as data tampering is proposed to be extended to 10 years each from the current three years. It also seeks to omit Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act relating to the use of Aadhaar by private entities.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Two women and a war: How ‘The Mother’ Mirra influenced Indira Gandhi in 1971

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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February 21 this year is the 141st birth anniversary of an extraordinary woman, a mystic and spiritual guru who created a whole new township based on a self-actualized model of humankind, and who perhaps had a hand in the creation of a whole new country as well. Born Blanche Rachel Mirra Alfassa in 1878 in Paris, France, she was 95 when she died in Pondicherry, India. By then, she was known simply as The Mother, but few know about her role in the birth of Bangladesh.

Mirra led an eventful life in France, having strange occult experiences even as a child. Born to Jewish parents (her Turkish father and Egyptian mother had migrated to France a year before her birth), she had all the weight of a bourgeois immigrant family on her shoulders. But she defied expectations by refusing to read until she was seven, and then suddenly learning to read within a week. She went on to excel at a number of skills — from tennis, fencing and shooting to art, singing and music — without ever specializing in any one, a sore point with her mother who aspired to raise a champion.

“Whatever I wanted to do, I could do, but after a time, I had experienced the thing and it didn’t seem to me important enough to devote a whole life to it,” she explained. Later, when Mirra met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, she asked him why she was so ‘mediocre’ in her life, why had she been able to do so many things but never in a ‘superior way’?

“That’s because it gives great suppleness — a great suppleness and a vast scope,” the spiritual reformer replied to her. His response made her realise that her ‘jack-of-all-trades’ quality was useful for someone on a path like hers: “The most important thing is not to have any fixity; nothing should be set, definitive — that means a dead stop in the march forward. The ideal is to have this suppleness and receptivity and surrender that is so total an  acceptance of the Influence that whatever comes, naturally, spontaneously and effortlessly, the instrument adapts itself instantly to express it,” she told a disciple in 1967.

As a young woman, Mirra rebelled against traditional religion and even declared herself an atheist. “I obey no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the Divine,” she announced later. She went on to meditate deeply, see visions, give talks on spirituality, marry, have a son, get divorced, marry again and travel to Pondicherry with her politician husband who aspired to win an election from the French territory in India. She got divorced again, gave up material pursuits, and finally joined Sri Aurobindo’s ashram in the early 1920s.

Despite complaints from other disciples about her ‘unsuitability’, Sri Aurobindo named her his spiritual successor, and gave her greater and greater control at his ashram. Though he was six years older than her, he began calling her ‘The Mother’ before he retired from public life and took to meditation and yoga. “She is the consciousness and force of the Divine — or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness-force,” he told his disciples.

The Mother was instrumental in founding Auroville 50 years ago, a community based on Sri Aurobindo’s ‘integral yoga’, or yoga in all aspects of life — spiritual and material. The Aurobindo ashram is now an entrenched part of Pondicherry, with centres and schools across India.

Convinced that India would show the world the way towards the ‘Supreme Truth’, the Mother also had another role to play in her lifetime: as another powerful woman’s spiritual guide.

Indira Gandhi first met the Mother in 1955 along with her father, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then prime minister of India. She visited a second time in 1969 while undergoing a crisis point in the Congress (she was expelled later that year), and then in February 1971 before the general elections. Some say the Mother’s blessings helped Indira win a landslide victory.

Almost immediately after Indira was sworn in as Prime Minister of India in March 1971, East Pakistan erupted in a crisis. Mother reportedly sent a message to Indira, which she received on 4th April: “The urgent recognition of Bangladesh is imperative.”

Indira convinced her cabinet and then Chief of Army Staff Sam Manekshaw that “instead of taking in millions of refugees into West Bengal, it was economical to go to war against Pakistan”. But the Indian Army was hesitant to be termed an ‘aggressor’ in the international community, and it would take many more months, and further provocation from Pakistan, for India to declare war. India’s victory was concluded in just 13 days.

Immediately, Mother sent a letter to Indira: “Again, it won’t be for this time. It won’t be done that way. I’ve seen how. It won’t be done through battle: the different parts of Pakistan will demand separation. There are five of them. And by separating, they will join India—to form a sort of confederation. That’s how it will be done.”

Indira wrote back: “Through these critical months I have thought constantly of you. I can find no words with which to express my gratitude for your support. Your blessings are a great source of strength. Our difficulties are not over. The American administration is most upset that its calculations were so completely wrong, and they will use their power to try to humble us and specially to create division between Bangladesh and ourselves. I think our nation has taken a step towards maturity. Yet there are many who look only to today. If India is to be great we must improve the quality of the minds of our people. I know that this is your desire. In my humble way, I am trying to do what I can.”

When the Mother died in November 1973, Indira said of her: “She was young in spirit, modern in mind but most expressive was her abiding faith in the spiritual greatness of India and the role which India could play in giving new light to mankind.”

Of course, instead of actualizing the Mother’s vision, Indira plunged India into darkness, announcing Emergency two years after the Mother’s death.

And of course, the confederation of India-Pakistan-Bangladesh was not destined to be in either woman’s lifetime, and looks just as improbable in today’s tempestuous times as well.

But one can never say what the future holds.

First published in eShe magazine

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NREGA workers try to file FIR against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over non-payment of wages

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Hundreds of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers across 50 districts in nine states tried to file FIRs against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over non-payment of wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme.

They stated that no Fund Transfer Orders (FTOs) were processed between October 2018 and February 1 2019, in many states due to non-availability of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGA).

As of February 2018, payments of Rs 9,573 crore is due on material and labour employed, according to the MGNREGA portal. The workers have filed FIRs in 150 police stations under Section 116 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Budget 2019 had allocated Rs 55,000 crore for the scheme and an additional sanction of Rs 6,084 crore was made in January 2019. However, Rs 5,745 crore spent on paying liabilities pending before October. Therefore, there are practically no funds to fulfill new demands of January-March 2019 said activist group NREGA Sangarsh Morch.

Anuradha Talwar of the West Bengal Farm Workers Union said, “As funds dried up, the system has stopped accepting any more fund transfer orders. So the payment dues are adding up. Apart from labour payments, in many states even material payments have not been made.”

Workers have petitioned to the ministry of rural development that the government release Rs 25,000 crore to be utilised till June 2019, till the full term budget is announced by the new government at the centre.

Pending liabilities for certain states is quite huge. For Rajasthan alone, Rs 778 crore is pending liabilities of NREGA workers. Of this, FTO of Rs 668 crore was passed but payments have not been processed by banks owing to non-availability of funds. Rs 40 crore NREGA payment orders were also rejected in Rajasthan.

Activists and expert claim the delays are at the centre’s end. According to a study done by Azim Premji Foundation that assessed 9 million NREGA transactions across 10 states in 2017-18, the centre alone is causing a delay of more than 50 days in disbursing wages. This delay is not even counted as a delay by the centre.

A report by People’s Action for Employment Guarantee group quoted sample independent studies stating the actual wages paid on time in 2017-18 is likely to be around 32 percent instead of the figure of 85 percent presented by the government of India.

Rajendran Narayanan, professor at Azim Premji Foundation said, “Besides fund availability issue, delays also happen due to technical glitches and at the Aadhar payment bridge.”

Ground level activists across States have claimed that ground level officials are denying to even register work demands by villagers now. Even for the work demand registered, the groundwork is not provided.

“Since it is mandatory to provide demanded work or else the government needs to pay wages to those who demanded work, that’s another set of pending liabilities for the government that is currently not even getting counted as pending dues,” Narayanan added.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

The day a film on menstruation shot in an Indian village made it to the Oscars

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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What do students at a Los Angeles school, village women in Hapur, a female Indian film producer, a man from Tamil Nadu who invented a machine to produce low-cost sanitary napkins, and the ultra-conservative chief minister of Uttar Pradesh have in common?

They’re all excited about the film Period. End of Sentence winning an Oscar award in the Documentary Short Subject category, beating the other nominees Black Sheep, End Game, Lifeboat and A Night at the Garden for the honour.

Executive produced by Guneet Monga and co-produced by Guneet’s Sikhya Entertainment, which has backed sensitive, critically acclaimed films like The Lunchbox, Gangs of Wasseypur and Masaan, the Oscar win is a (very large) feather in Guneet’s cap.

Ecstatic about the news, 35-year-old Guneet tweeted: “WE WON!!! To every girl on this earth… know that you are a goddess… if heavens are listening… look MA we put @sikhya on the map”.

Guneet had also earned an Oscar nomination for Kavi, a short film on child labour in 2010, and a BAFTA nomination for Irrfan Khan-starrer The Lunchbox in 2015. Her films have won numerous other awards.

The making of Period. End of Sentence all began when a group of schoolgirls from Oakwood School in North Hollywood realised that women in Indian villages had no access to sanitary products and were using cloth, leaving them vulnerable to disease. Inspired to do something about it, they, along with their class teacher Melissa Berton, tied up with an NGO, Action India, to raise money to donate a low-cost sanitary napkin machine to the village. They called their venture ‘The Pad Project’.

Along with the NGO, they connected with Guneet to create a film about the initiative, and she assured them that their shoot in India would be taken care of.

The 26-minute film, directed by award-winning Iranian-American filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi, takes a humanistic look at how Indian women fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. It also delves upon the work of Arunachalam Muruganathan, a social entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, who invented the low-cost sanitary napkin manufacturing unit and who was the subject of the Akshay Kumar-starrer Padman.

After the historic Oscar win – this is the first documentary on menstruation to win the coveted prize – accolades poured in for Guneet, including one by the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, in whose state the film was shot, and Hollywood actress Priyanka Chopra.

In her acceptance speech, Rayka said, “I’m not crying because I’m on my period or anything. I can’t believe a film on menstruation won an Oscar.” She also gave a nod to Guneet, saying, “Guneet Monga – know that you have been empowering women all over the world fight for menstrual equality.”

The fact that a documentary on a subject as ‘taboo‘ as menstruation, directed and produced by women, featuring real-life women protagonists from a village in one of India’s poorest states, has won an Oscar, is an idea that is rich with symbolism and a game-changer for the Indian film industry. One hopes it will give a fillip to women filmmakers and the need for more films that see the world through ‘the female gaze’.

The film is available on Netflix.

First published in eShe magazine

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Oil prices ease as trade talks drag, China’s economy shows weakness

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Benchmark Brent oil fell while US crude futures steadied on Thursday as US-China trade tensions persisted, the Chinese and Indian economies showed signs of slowing and news of surging US production undermined OPEC-led output curbs.

Brent was down 43 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $65.96 a barrel by 10:54 a.m. ET (1554 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 12 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $57.06.

Factory activity in China, the world’s biggest oil importer, shrank for a third month in February as export orders fell at the fastest pace since the financial crisis a decade ago.

India’s economy lost momentum in the final quarter of 2018, reducing the annual rate of growth to 6.6 percent, the slowest pace in five quarters and much less than expected.

“The energy complex will require major assistance from a renewed up-trend in the equities and/or some sustainable weakening in the US dollar if WTI is able to lift much above the $58 mark,” Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, said in a note.

A Reuters survey of 36 economists and analysts indicated growing pessimism about prospects for a significant price rally this year, forecasting Brent would average $66.44 in 2019, slightly lower than the January forecast.

“In the short-term, oil markets are going to be characterised by supply tightness on international markets,” said Emirates NBD’s Edward Bell. “Over the rest of 2019, though, the rising oil price sits incongruously with slowing economic growth in major markets.”

The United States is working to hammer out a detailed trade agreement with China that will include specific structural commitments, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC in an interview from London, citing progress in recent talks and hopes for the weeks ahead.

Earlier, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer dampened expectations of a swift resolution to the dispute. He said issues were “too serious” to be resolved merely with promises from Beijing to purchase more U.S. goods.

Crude prices have also been dragged by news that U.S. oil production surged more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) in the past year to a record 12.1 million bpd.

Prices have been supported since January by supply cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia – a group known as OPEC+. That helped drive down US commercial crude inventories by 8.6 million barrels in the latest week.

“Crude imports into the US fell 1.6 million bpd last week, to a two-decade low,” ANZ bank said on Thursday.

Shipments from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela dropped sharply, weekly data showed.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Wall Street dips after early end to Trump-Kim summit, bleak earnings

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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US stocks slipped on Thursday as a US-North Korea summit ended abruptly without an agreement, with a clutch of weak earnings adding to the downbeat sentiment.

President Donald Trump said he had walked away from a nuclear deal at his summit with Kim Jong Un in Vietnam because of unacceptable demands from the North Korean leader to lift US-led sanctions.

“After the lack of results from the North Korean summit, there could be some nervousness about the possibility of similar results coming out of China tariff negotiations,” said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“But the biggest factor is that we’ve had a sharp rise since the Christmas Eve lows. A lot of people are just nervous that we’ve come too far too fast.”

The S&P 500 index is set to record its third straight day of losses, after being boosted in the recent weeks by optimism around trade and dovish signals from the Federal Reserve. The benchmark index is about 5 percent away from its September record closing high.

Bleak earnings reports added to the gloom, with HP Inc sinking 16 percent, weighing the most on the technology sector, down 0.25 percent. The company’s revenue fell short of analysts’ estimates.

Booking Holdings Inc fell 8.78 percent after the company missed quarterly earnings expectations and was among the biggest drags on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite.

At 11:31 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 21.16 points, or 0.08 percent, at 25,964.00. The S&P 500 was down 2.81 points, or 0.10 percent, at 2,789.57 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 11.89 points, or 0.16 percent, at 7,542.62.

Of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, seven were lower. The energy sector was the biggest loser, with a 1.05 percent fall, as crude prices eased.

Offering investors some comfort was data that showed the U.S. economy slowed less than expected in the fourth quarter amid solid consumer and business spending.

This comes ahead of the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) data for December, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, due on Friday.

Among other stocks, Celgene Corp fell 8.24 percent after activist investor Starboard Value LP said it will vote against drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co’s $74 billion acquisition of the biotech. Bristol-Myers was up marginally.

Monster Beverage Corp jumped 9.75 percent, the most on the S&P, after the beverage maker beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue and profit.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.27-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.42-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 28 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 40 new highs and 23 new lows.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Cabinet clears transfer of Air India’s Rs 29,464 crore loans, 4 subsidiaries to SPV

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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As a precursor to the sale of Air India, the Cabinet Thursday approved setting up of a special purpose vehicle — Air India Assets Holding– to transfer Rs 29,464 crore worth loans of the national carrier and its four subsidiaries.

“The Union Cabinet has given ex-post facto approval for the creation of the SPV and associated activities for the disinvestment of Air India and its subsidiaries or JV,” an official statement said.

The four subsidiaries which have been transferred to the SPV are Air India Air Transport Services (AIATSL), Airline Allied Services (AASL), Air India Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL) and Hotel Corporation of India (HCI).

Also, non-core assets – painting and artefacts – as well as other non-operational assets of the national carrier too will be transferred to the SPV.
These subsidiaries and assets are not part of the Air India strategic disinvestment, which is being planned by the government.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation had issued an order for creation of a new SPV, which was incorporated on January 22. “The board of the SPV includes Air India CMD, Joint Secretary in the Civil Aviation Ministry, Expenditure department, Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and Air India Director (Finance),” the statement said.

As on date, one subsidiary AIATSL has been transferred to AIAHL. The government has initiated the process of the strategic sale of AIATSL on February 12 and the last date for submission of Expression of Interest is March 26.

“The Government has decided to transfer following to the newly created SPV — Debt of Air India amounting to Rs 29,464 crore, subsidiaries which are not part of the AI strategic disinvestment and non-core assets, painting and artefacts and other non-operatonal assets of Air India,” the statement added.

The move is a precursor to the strategic disinvestment of Air India as it would help in selling some of its subsidiaries and monetise assets.

Air India has a debt burden of Rs 55,000 crore. In November last year, a ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had approved transferring Rs 29,000 crore debt to the SPV — Air India Asset Holding Company.

After a botched attempt to sell Air India in May last year, the Jaitley-led panel in June decided to scrap the stake sale plan for the time being. It was decided to infuse more funds into the carrier and cut down debt by raising resources by selling land assets and other subsidiaries.

The government had initially planned to offload 76 per cent equity share capital of the national carrier as well as transfer the management control to private players. The buyer was required to take over Rs 24,000 crore debt of the carrier along with over Rs 8,000 crore of liabilities.

However, the stake sale failed to attract any bidders when the bidding process completed on May 31.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow