After a gap of over three months since his kidney transplant surgery, Arun Jaitley resumed charge as the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs. All finance ministry secretaries, except Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg briefed Jaitley. Though Jaitley has resumed charge, a team of doctors is monitoring the entry of visitors in his office, a government official said. All visitors are required to sanitise themselves before entering Jaitley's office. Jaitley had undergone a kidney transplant surgery on May 14. Railways and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal was looking after the ministry in the absence of Jaitley.
RCom sells assets worth £200 mn to Reliance Jio
Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) said it has completed the sale of its media convergence nodes and related infrastructure assets worth £200 million to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. The company said 248 MCNs covering about 5 million sq.ft of area used for hosting the telecom infrastructure were transferred to Reliance Jio. RCom had in December 2017 signed a pact with Reliance Jio for sale of wireless spectrum, tower, fibre and MCN assets, the proceeds of which were to be used to reduce debt. The deal packed in 122.4 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 800/900/1800/2100 MHz bands, over 43,000 telecom towers, 178,000 km of fibre and 248 media convergence nodes.
Alibaug bungalows of Nirav & Choksi to be razed
Maharashtra environment minister Ramadas Kadam said that he has ordered the demolition of illegal bungalows of fugitive diamond traders and PNB scam accused Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in Raigad district. The diktat comes days after the Bombay high court expressed its displeasure over the government not acting against the buildings. “The government has written to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has attached the bungalows, asking it to allow their demolition. The action will happen after we get the ED’s go ahead,” an official from the collector office’s said. Kadam said 121 “illegal” bungalows, including those built by Modi and Choksi, had been identified in Alibaug. After a meeting with Raigad collector, Kadam said that he had ordered the demolition of all illegal bungalows belong to Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and other celebrities.
Tea from Arunachal fetches record price of ₹40,000/kg
The Guwahati Tea Auction Centre for the second time in less than a month, fetched a world record price - Rs 40,000 - for 1kg of Golden Needles tea variety produced by the Donyi Polo Tea Estate in Arunachal Pradesh. On July 24, the auction centre fetched a price of Rs 39,001 for 1kg of specialty boutique quality orthodox tea from the Manohari Tea Estate in Assam’s Dibrugarh district. “On Thursday, the GTAC broke its own world auction record when Golden Needles of the Donyi Polo Tea Estate was sold at Rs 40,000 per kg through pan-India auction by Contemporary Tea Brokers,” sources said. The tea was sold to Assam Tea Traders, which is one of the oldest tea shops in Guwahati. The owner of Assam Tea Traders, Lalit Kumar Jalan, said, “There is a rising demand for good tea and we are selling specialty tea regularly. This Golden Needles will be sold through Absolutetea.in, an online platform.”
Gujarat slips to third spot in investment rankings
Gujarat slipped two places, to rank third overall in the latest investment ranking report released by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, NCAER. The rankings states that the state lagged on several competitive fronts in a year to lose its position to Delhi - now at the helm - and Tamil Nadu. NCAER’s Investment Potential Index (N-SIP) has based competitiveness of Indian states on six pillars: land, labour, infrastructure, economic climate, political stability and governance and business perceptions. In 2017, Gujarat was ranked third when it came to infrastructure. This year the state slipped to the eighth position.
