Shri Piyush Goyal calls upon the global community to ensure timely and equitable availability of vaccines and medicines for COVID-19, in sufficient quantities and affordable prices;

Minister stresses on preparing a long-term roadmap on reforming an ailing and imbalanced global trading system

Posted On: 27 OCT 2020 7:25PM by PIB Delhi

The Union Commerce and Industry Minister Shri Piyush Goyalh as called upon the global community to ensure timely and equitable availability of vaccines and medicines for COVID-19, in sufficient quantities and affordable prices. In his intervention at the virtual informal meeting of WTO Ministers held today, he said that India and South Africa have proposed TRIPS waiver to address the challenges that countries with limited manufacturing capacity will face, in accessing these medical supplies. He called upon all Members to support the proposal, in order to have a decision on it by MC12, if not earlier.

Shri Goyal said that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the inherent weaknesses and inequalities in the global economic & trading system. The need of the hour is to take effective measures to address the immediate challenges, and also prepare a long-term roadmap on how to reform an ailing and imbalanced global trading system.

Shri Goyal said that India believes that every crisis presents big opportunities for new and innovative pathways to progress. He said that meaningful and equitable reform requires us to re-imagine the multilateral trading system and fix what has not worked in the last 25 years. “We are always ready to engage constructively with other WTO Members to protect human life and work towards restoring inclusive and sustainable global economic growth.”, Shri Goyal mentioned.

On the heightened challenges of food and livelihood security due to pandemic, the Minister suggested that an immediate response to the food security challenge would be to deliver an effective outcome on the mandated issue of a permanent solution for Public Stockholding for food security purposes (PSH) at MC12.

Shri Goyal said that the pandemic has also highlighted the need for easier cross-border movement of health care professionals. A multilateral initiative that provides for easier access to medical services under mode-4 needs to be launched immediately and we should aim to deliver this outcome by MC12.

On the issue of ongoing fisheries subsidy negotiations, the Minister stated that the negotiations should address the problem of industrial fishing by some nations that has led to a major depletion of the global fish stock. Shri Goyal said that members, who have provided and continue to provide large subsidies, must make the highest contributions in line with the ‘Polluter Pays” principle. “We should not repeat the mistakes made during the Uruguay Round negotiations, that allowed unequal and trade-distorting entitlements for select members, while unfairly constraining the less developed member countries who did not have the capacity to support their farmers at that point of time”, he said.

Shri Goyal said that the mandate of both SDG 14.6 and the MC11 decision on fisheries, regarding appropriate and effective Special & Differential Treatment for developing countries, is clear and cannot be disregarded.  He said that India will not accept any attempts to restrict the flexibilities and policy space that developing countries need to better integrate with the global trading system. “In fact, we should open more opportunities for the less developed and developing countries, taking into account the contrasting levels of prosperity, unequal levels of economic development and vast disparity in human development indicators amongst nations, so that global trade is fair and sustainable.”, the minister added.

Source: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1667937

On September 3, the Union government put into effect a historic decision taken last December towards the much-awaited corporatisation of Indian Railways. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet formally reconstituted the Railway Board, the 165-year-old organisation’s apex decision-making body, appointing chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav as the board’s first CEO. The 114-year-old, eight-member board, which governs the public transporter, was replaced by a new one that has four members, with clearly defined roles of handling infrastructure, rolling stock, finance and operations. They are led by CEO Yadav, who will be responsible for human resources. Unlike the chairman, who was a first among equals, the board’s CEO has powers to overrule members and take decisions should consensus elude any matter.

The board’s new corporate structure is a critical part of reforms undertaken by the Piyush Goyal-led railways ministry to make the Indian Railways a modern, efficient and profitable public mover. The restructuring is on the lines of railways’ peers in Europe and the US. Goyal’s other bold move of transforming the railways by infusing private capital is also being keenly watched. On July 1, his ministry invited requests for qualifications (RFQs) from investors to not just design, build, finance and operate private passenger trains but also to own them. Since the nationalisation of railways in 1951, passenger trains had been a government monopoly. In October 2019, as a pilot project, the railways allowed its subsidiary IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) to own the Tejas Express train and have private operators run it on the New Delhi-Lucknow route. But the concept achieved limited success. Now, the proposal for passenger trains both operated and owned by private players promises to be a game-changer.

Towards this, top railways officials held their second round of virtual meetings with the prospective investors on August 13. According to the RFQ document, 151 private passenger trains are planned on 109 routes (slotted into 12 clusters) across the country. Investors will have market freedom to not only set fares but also generate additional revenue from, say, letting out space for advertisements. If all goes according to plan, the first batch of 12 private trains is expected to start running by March 2023, and by end-2027, all 151 trains will be on the tracks. The operators, who will be selected through a bidding process, will be allowed to run trains, with a minimum of 16 coaches, for a period of 35 years. The private trains will give direct competition to the 2,800 express and mail trains run by the railways.

The move couldn’t have come at a more critical juncture. Indian Railways, the world’s fourth-largest rail network that runs 13,523 trains and ferries over 23 million people every day, is severely cash-strapped. Passenger business is a loss-making vertical for the railways. On average, the railways meets about 57 per cent of its operational costs through the sale of passenger tickets. The rest is cross-subsidised through earnings from freight. Last year, the government said the railways would need Rs 50 lakh crore over the next decade to upgrade its creaking infrastructure.

The staggering sum is double the government’s total expenditure across all sectors at present and cannot be sourced from the exchequer alone, private capital is desperately needed. Indian Railways is showing considerable flexibility to attract this investment, which will open up capital for infrastructure upgrades and running more passenger trains. After the first round of pre-application meetings with the prospective investors on July 21, it eased the norms in the bid document to allow operators to lease trains instead of a mandatory purchase of locomotives and coaches, removed the cap on bidding in a maximum of three clusters and also rationalised fee structures.

The private trains plan

It has been a promising start, with the August 13 meeting attracting 23 companies. Among them are French major Alstom’s India arm, Spanish player CAF, Canadian coach-builder Bombardier Transportation, Bharat Forge, GMR Infrastructure, L&T Infrastructure Development Projects, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, BEML and IRCTC.

Four of the 12 clusters will be based in Mumbai and Delhi (two each) and the remainder in Jaipur, Howrah, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Patna, Secunderabad, Prayagraj and Chennai. Sixty per cent of rail traffic is on these routes. The railways expects to free up a lot of capacity for introducing more passenger trains once the first two dedicated freight corridors (DFCs), Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai (western) and Ludhiana to Dankuni, near Kolkata (eastern), are commissioned by December 2021, shifting about 70 per cent of the freight traffic. Top railway officials say there has been a 4-6 per cent year-on-year rise in passenger traffic and freight movement. While the DFCs will help in decongestion, the passenger trains will need to run at higher speeds to make the most of track availability. Each new line, the officials say, increases capacity by about 1.6 times.

The railways will be looking to tap this potential with the help of the private operators, who will have to pay haulage charges, a levy for using railway infrastructure, and energy charges as per consumption, as well as give the railways a share of their gross revenues. Yadav told india today that the goal is to issue letters of acceptance by March 2021 so that private trains can start running by 2023.

The railways estimates that private train operators will bring in a capital investment of at least Rs 22,500 crore and boost passenger capacity. A railways report says 50 million passengers could not get train reservations in calendar year 2019, most of them in the 12 clusters identified for private trains. The larger goal is a mega private capital push in railway operations with private freight trains being introduced at a later stage. A group of secretaries, led by Yadav, is working out the modalities. All this also promises to boost private sector manufacturing of locomotives and coaches, setting up a healthy competition with the railways, which has 11 units for producing locomotives, wagons and coaches.

The railways needs big funds to invest in its infrastructure and extend services in remote areas. Through the past decade, its operating ratio has been above 90 per cent, meaning an expense of over 90 paise to earn a rupee. The operating ratio in the last fiscal, ending March 2020, was 97.4 per cent. In comparison, the operating ratios of railways in the US, Russia, China and the EU are 55-60 per cent. But their structures are different, for instance, in most countries, freight and passenger businesses are segregated. Also, Indian Railways pays pensions from its annual earnings (a pension fund was introduced only in 2003), which has a huge bearing on its financial health.

Can private capital transform railways?

Experts say while private capital can create headroom by pumping in money to increase capacity and upgrade services, the real transformation of railways will only come through wide-ranging reforms. A former railway minister says reforming this complex organisation requires an attitudinal change among its 1.3 million employees. The railways will need to unbundle its multiple functions, running operations, framing policies and doubling up as a regulator, get leaner and run like a corporate entity. In the past three decades, at least 12 committees have presented reports on what ails Indian Railways, the most recent one being the Bibek Debroy panel report in June 2015. The Debroy committee recommended structural changes, making railways leaner and opening it up for private capital. Most other committees agree substantially on the basic problems, though they offer varying solutions.

Goyal, who took over from Suresh Prabhu in September 2017, has drawn up a broad vision for the railways. He picked up some of the toughest reforms to start with, such as merger of services, creating more space for private players and a corporate working structure. But to ensure a smooth entry for private players into passenger operations, Goyal will have to accelerate critical reforms, especially those of setting up a rail regulator, integrating the workforce, corporatising both operations and manufacturing, turning the railways from a departmental enterprise to a PSU, cleaning up the fiscal mess and executing infrastructure projects faster.

Needed: A level playing field

The private sector’s experience with the railways has been a bitter one since 2006, when the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led ministry opened up freight movement. Sixteen private players entered with an investment of around Rs 6,000 crore. Data from the Association of Container Train Operators shows that as of August 2020, they had suffered accumulated losses of Rs 600 crore. Operators cite the doubling of haulage charges in the past 14 years as the main reason for losses. Haulage charges now make up 60-70 per cent of their operating costs.

“Such factors (what happened with freight operators) create doubts in the minds of private players keen on investing in the passenger train segment,” says Rajaji Meshram, a partner at EY. For instance, operators want clarity on haulage charges. For private passenger trains, the railways fixed haulage charges at Rs 52.31 per train km for 2019-20, with inflation indexed. Investors are also concerned that revenues from passenger trains will depend on the allotted time slots, route congestion and the value-added features they can provide.

Yadav says that bid documents are being fine-tuned as per consultations with the stakeholders. But it is not clear how transparency would be ensured in the allotment of running slots. At present, trains run on an annual time-table. “In case of disputes, how will things be resolved?” asks a CEO, emphasising that time slots are key to traffic and revenue projections.

Bharat Salhotra, former MD of Alstom’s India and South Asia businesses, says things may remain unpredictable till the time a rail regulator is set up. In April 2017, Prabhu secured the Union cabinet’s approval for setting up a regulator, the Rail Development Authority, to rationalise fares and freight tariff, protect customer interests and set performance benchmarks. The authority is yet to see the light of the day. “We would have figured out the regulator concept by the time private trains start in 2023,” assures Yadav.

The regulator’s role encompasses the politically contentious issue of rationalising passenger fares and freight charges. In 2012, then railways minister Dinesh Trivedi lost his job over a proposal to increase fares by two paise per km. Every year, the government massively cross-subsidies passenger fares. In the previous fiscal, the railways reported total revenues of Rs 1.43 lakh crore, of which only Rs 56,000 crore came from passenger fares. It earned Rs 1.44 per km for moving an average tonne of freight, but only Rs 0.35 for a passenger. A rail regulator would be expected to fix such anomalies by cutting cross-subsidies. This January, Goyal increased passenger fares per km by a paisa for non-AC trains and two paise for AC trains, which is expected to bring in an additional Rs 2,312 crore.

A key issue for private operators will be how accommodating the railways is to their needs. By one estimate, running 151 private trains would require a timely supply of at least 3,000 new coaches and 400 locomotives. This is another area where the railways eyes private investment.

setting its house in orderFor the railways, revenues have not been increasing at the envisaged pace. Its consistently high operating ratio worryingly indicates poor capability in achieving operational surplus. In 2019-20, the railways generated a surplus of Rs 3,774 crore only. Around 65 per cent of the capital expenditure is made through extra-budgetary funds, which the railways sources from the market. These are projects in which the railways’ projections of return on investments would be in double digits. Now, with a restructured board in place, Indian Railways needs to sooner or later evolve into a PSU as this will not only open up avenues for more funds but also boost transparency, efficiency and competitiveness.

Yadav says investment in new tracks, gauge conversion and electrification has been ongoing. The railways had identified 58 projects as super-critical and prioritised them, 21 projects have been completed and another three will be over by December. While Covid brought passenger movement to a crashing halt, the lockdown gave the railways a window to complete various projects, such as yard remodelling, repair and regirdering of bridges, doubling and electrification of rail lines and renewal of scissor crossovers.

Of the 12 clusters, private players are most keen on the busiest Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Mumbai routes. For the past two years, these are being upgraded, with budgetary allocations of Rs 6,000 crore for each. “Corporates are confident of traffic [volumes] on these routes. With revamped infrastructure, it should get a good response,” says Meshram. All of this should count as the Indian Railways works to put private trains on its tracks. Goyal wants to see the railways becoming an efficient entity running on commercial principles in the next five years. It’s a goal that will require fast-paced and continuing reforms.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/special-report/story/20200921-changing-tracks-1720884-2020-09-12

There were trains in India before 1853, even commercial. But officially, the birthday of the railways is 16 April 1853, with that passenger train from Bori Bunder to Thane, carrying 400 invited VIP passengers. Years ago, economic historians of the Marxist variety used to debate the relevance of the Asiatic mode of production for India. In that context, there is a familiar Karl Marx quote from “The Future Results of British Rule in India”.

“The railway-system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry.” People will probably not readily recall when this essay was first published. Marx wrote it on 22 July 1853 and published it on 8 August 1853. Karl Marx must have known of the Bori Bunder to Thane train and reacted to the news. It is 166 years from 1853 to 2019. Most people probably don’t know that in recent years, the track record of Indian Railways (IR) on safety has been remarkably good.

This becomes evident if one normalises and divides absolute numbers by something like total passengers, or total kilometres travelled by trains. Irrespective of the indicator used, IR’s performance is superior to that of many so-called advanced countries. That record may be good, but 2019-20 was exceptional. For the first time in 166 years, there have been no deaths to passengers from consequential railway accidents. As a reaction, there has been skepticism and criticism.

What about those who die on Mumbai local trains? What about 20-year-old Dilshat Khan? In December 2019, near Kalyan station, he decided to perform a stunt on the footboard of a local train. He crashed into a pole and died. What about 19-year-old Abzad and 22-year-old Mohammed Matti? In September 2019, weren’t they killed near Bengaluru, trying to make a TikTok video on a railway track? Weren’t they run over by a train and killed? In Delhi, in July 2019, an Indian Army captain committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train.

Incidentally, as Bollywood evolved, trains featured in Hindi films. If you think of old black-and-white Hindi films, and not recent ones, you will recall trains figured in films because they were convenient ways of committing suicide. They provided that setting and no more. The NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) brings out a publication, “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India”. We have this for 2018. The 2019 version will probably be available in December 2020. In 2018, according to NCRB, there were 24,545 deaths because of railway accidents—1,507 at railway crossings and the remainder primarily due to people falling off trains or being run over by them.

There were also a few instances (with relatively fewer deaths) of derailments/collisions in UP. There may not have been derailments/collisions in 2019-20. Unmanned level crossings may have become manned. But what about people falling off trains or being run over by them? One can understand skepticism about the 2019-20 numbers. But this is because one has failed to understand what the numbers signify. Since every statement issued by IR uses the expression “consequential railway accident”, there must be some meaning attached to the word “consequential”.

Other than the NCRB, the Commission of Rail Safety (CRS), under the Civil Aviation Ministry because of historical reasons, also provides numbers on such deaths. That too is for “consequential” and the latest numbers are for 2017-18. “Consequential” is defined in the following way. “For the purpose of Railway working, accident is an occurrence in the course of working of Railway which does or may affect the safety of the Railway, its engine, rolling stock, permanent way and works, fixed installations, passengers or servants or which affect the safety of others or which does or may cause delay to train or loss to the Railway.” These are railway-related and are included if they are above a certain threshold.

We think IR’s figures are about all accidents. No, they are only about consequential or serious accidents and it is those that have been eliminated in 2019-20. These are also incidents where IR has implied culpability and is responsible. To make it clearer still, CRS states, “Cases of trespassers run over and injured or killed through their own carelessness or of passengers injured or killed through their own carelessness” are excluded. IR then statistically classifies these accidents from A to R.

Take for example L2, “no tension in OHE (overhead equipment) for more than three minutes”. This may not fit with our usual perception of accidents, but the effect on IR can be disastrous. Alternatively, there are also F (averted collisions), G (breach of block rules), H (a train passing a signal at danger), J (equipment failures), K (failure of permanent way), L (failure of electrical equipment), M (failure of signaling and telecommunication), Q6 (blockade to train services due to agitation).

IR accident data are for a specific purpose and do not, and need not, reflect our passenger-based and citizen-based perceptions of death on the tracks. It isn’t the case that other types of deaths (Dilshat Khan, Abzad, Mohammed Matti, the Army captain) aren’t captured by the system. They are classified as trespassing and untoward incidents and fed into the system through the NCRB. As I said, we will know the 2019 numbers in December 2020. The railway crossing ones will certainly be fewer. Going by 2018, I think numbers for falling from a train and getting run over on a track will not be more than 20,000, perhaps lower. 

Source : https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2020/sep/05/railways-accidents-and-death-on-the-tracks-2192701.html

The government has selected nearly 24 companies as winners in nine categories under a first-of-its-kind innovation challenge to promote homegrown applications.

These apps under ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’ were shortlisted from about 7,000 entries by a jury comprising both government as well as industry representatives. Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog actively collaborated and supported MyGov in conduct of the Challenge along with Meity Startup Hub and National e Governance Division, under Digital India Corporation of Ministry of Electronics and Information technology. The government is also planning a second phase of the contst, where it will provide significant handholding and mentorship to the applications, which will be in the areas of web browser, search etc.

IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has also launched a series of other grand contests in categories such as video conferencing and semiconductor chips over the last few months to build and nurture home grown technologies. The latest contest will support close to 300 startups in small towns and has an outlay of Rs 95 crore.

ET profiles the winners of the first contest . These are in categories such as business, eLearning, entertainment, games, health, news, office and Work from Home, Others and Social.

ENTERTAINMENT

1. CaptionPlus
   The app shows users contextual captions and hashtags to images. It was founded by Rahul Maurya, Anurag Kumar and Jitendra Yadav in 2018. The startup wants to create a search engine of the most trending and catchy Instagram captions to complement photos of users. It has a team of writers who come up with “sassy” captions. Its AI-powered caption generator makes it easy for a person to find likeable captions. Users can upload the photo and get caption suggestions. It has been downloaded by more than one million social media users and influencers.
2. Meme Chat: The app is a community for people who love watching and sharing memes. The platform also has a Meme social network, Meme Keyboard and Meme maker and free meme templates among other offerings.
3. FTC Talent: It has created a platform which connects talent providers to talent seekers and helps artists find suitable roles in films, television, advertisements, theatre and live events.

NEWS

1. Logically
   The app uses a team of fact-checkers alongside artificial intelligence (AI) and digital forensics to analyse media stories and conspiracy theories to help the public separate facts from falsehoods and misinformation. The startup’s technology can also track sources of disinformation. Lyric Jain, a Cambridge University engineering student originally from Mysuru, set up Logically in 2017. It is based in the UK and has employees in Bengaluru as well. The app has already been used successfully in the Indian general and regional elections last year, in which it detected thousands of pieces of misleading content. It is now looking to establish itself as a partner for governments, businesses and consumers around the world.
2. IsEqualTo
   IsEqualTo is an education and news app for the family, especially targeted towards kids with its promise of safe content, which is constantly moderated.

GAMES

1. Hitwicket Superstar
   Hitwicket Superstar is an immersive cricket application for Android and iOS users. The game, which was launched in the beta mode by Octathorpe Web Consultants Pvt Ltd in April 2019, has more than three million users from 109 countries now. Hitwicket aspires to build the first mobile e-sports IP from India. Nearly one-third of its users are from outside India. The Hyderabad-based startup plans to organise virtual IPL-like tournaments with global participants in 2023.
2. ScarFall: The Royal Combat
   ScarFall is a multiplayer battle game that competes with PUBG. The game has good graphics and is also available for low-end mobile devices.
3. World Cricket Championship 2:
   World Cricket Championship 2 or WCC2 is a cricket simulation game. Developed by Nextwave Multimedia, the game has intense 3D graphics and offers a near real gaming experience virtually.

OFFICE & WFH

1. Zoho Workplace and Cliq
   Zoho Workplace is a suite of software applications that allow users to create an office setup on the Cloud. It was created as a bundled offering to provide an alternative to Google and Microsoft’s cloud office and productivity suites and is used for creating documents, spreadsheets, sending emails, among basic functions. The suite includes tools like Mail, Connect, Chat, Writer, Show, Sheet, Docs, and others.

Zoho’s Cliq was developed as an alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams. It is a team messaging tool that integrates into various Zoho business applications. The tool helps in team communication and has remote work tools like remote check-in, group calling and role-based security, among other features.

1. SureMDM
   SureMDM is a mobile-based device management software that helps manage mobile, PC and other devices. Developed by 42Gears, it is used by enterprises to protect and monitor devices that access company data.

HEALTH:

1. StepSetGo:
   The two-year-old company was set up to make it easier for users to get fit by providing rewards and additional motivation. The app tracks how many steps users take, allowing them to earn SSG coins which can then be redeemed in their in-app marketplace. Set up by Shivjeet Ghatge, Abhay Pai and Misaal Turakhia, StepSetGo has over 5 million users who have taken over one trillion steps within the first year. Interestingly, the app found a mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest Mann ki Baat address.
2. iMumz:
   iMumz is a week-by-week pregnancy program specifically for women, providing holistic and personalised lifestyle and health advice. It has been conceptualised by a team comprising gynaecologists, meditation experts and IIT graduates.

RE-LEARNING:

1. Disprz:
   Disprz provides skilling and learning solutions for enterprises, aimed at both office and blue-collar workers. The app tracks and recommends skills that apply to a person’s day-to-day requirements and also allows for building career advancing skills through customised modules. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven platform tracks ongoing employee skilling and identifies when they are ready for career advancement. Disprz works with over 180 companies across 66 countries and has trained over 6,50,00 employees already. The company was set up by Subbu Viswanathan and Kuljit Chadha in 2016.
2. Kutuki Kids
   Kutuki is a pre-school learning app that teaches through videos, rhymes, games and activities. The company also creates picture books that highlight the cultural diversity of India.
3. Hello English:
   Hello English claims to be Asia’s largest English learning app with a community of 50 million learners worldwide. It offers English speaking lessons for individuals and enterprises.

BUSINESS

1. Zoho Invoice, Books and Expense
   Part of Zoho’s cloud suite of software applications, Zoho Invoice is an online invoicing software that helps companies make professional invoices, automatically send payment reminders, and receive payments faster online.

Zoho Books is a GST compliant, cloud-based accounting software that processes accounting transactions and manages accounts. The tool has features like raising sales orders and uploading expense receipts, among others.

Zoho Expense is a GST-compliant online expense reporting software, made primarily for Indian businesses to automate the expense report creation process. It automates the recording of expenses from receipts to avoid manual data entry.

1. Mall91
   Mall91 is a community commerce app designed to cater to rural India’s online shopping needs. The app has features like group discount buying, live host demonstrations of products and social gaming.
2. Gimbooks
   It is a platform that helps SMEs create and manage documents like GST-compliant invoices, waybills, quotations, purchase orders and delivery challans. It comes in handy while managing inventory and expenses.

SOCIAL

1. Chingari
   Chingari, a made-in-India alternative to the popular Chinese short video app TikTok, has seen a massive spurt in users over the last two months after the government banned several Chinese apps over security concerns. The work on Chingari app started in November 2018 but it took the company almost two years to get the product right, its founders said. It is the only Indian app to have a creation tool. It also allows people to interact with new people and provides trending news, entertainment news, love quotes and more. Interestingly, the app found a stamp of approval from M&M group chairman Anand Mahindra who tweeted that he had started using the app.
2. YourQuote: Created in 2016, it is currently used by over 4 million writers globally to create original content in over 14 languages. The app claims to host over 100 million original posts on the platform.
3. Koo: A micro-blogging platform, it is designed to share news and opinion in local Indian languages and claims to have a strong knit local Indian community. Discussions are largely around reigning new headlines of the day with top experts on the subject.

OTHERS

1. MapmyIndia Move:
   MapmyIndia offers digital map data, telematics, location-based software as a service (SaaS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) services. It offers a detailed house number level map search, compatibility with India’s own satellite imagery service from ISRO’s Bhuvan, real-time traffic and safety-based navigation. The company was founded in 1992 by Rakesh and Rashmi Verma and is headquartered in New Delhi. Rohan Verma is its CEO and Executive Director. MapmyIndia capitalised on the growing digital apps market and monetised its map offerings through consumer apps, navigation devices, licensing, map APIs, tracking, and analytics, etc. It has sold its solutions to industries such as automobile, e-commerce, banking, insurance and space tech.
2. AskSarkar:
   The artificial intelligence tool helps users navigate through various government services and offerings like RuPay cards, Aadhaar, PAN etc. The app was launched by Bengaluru-based conversational artificial intelligence (AI) startup CoRover in October 2019.
3. Myitreturn
   It is an authorized e-return intermediary registered with the Income-tax Department, which eases the process of filing income-tax returns for individuals. The platform has over 2 million users in India and abroad.

Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sme-sector/innovation-on-the-tap-meet-the-winners-in-9-categories-of-govts-mobile-app-challenge/articleshow/77922970.cms

Despite Covid-19 pandemic, the goods loading in August is over 4 per cent higher than the last corresponding period as the Railways has undertaken a series of steps to boost freight operations.

The total freight loading up to 27 August was 81.33 million tonnes (MT) as against 77.97 MT for the same period last year, an increase of 4.3 per cent.

Since freight operations has a direct bearing on the economic situation, the public transporter has taken up the challenge on a mission mode with several key measures in tariff and mon-tariff fields.

Utilising the Covid-19 period as an opportunity, Indian Railways substantially increased the speed of freight trains as well.

In order to boost freight operations, Railways has offered a 5 per cent discount on loaded containers in addition to 25 per cent on empty containers from 3 August this year.

The transporter has also announced a discount for pond ash/moisturised ash in the open wagon — 40 per cent for power plants, and cement in this month.

Besides revising the classification of industrial salt for the chemical industry, stabling charges for private containers and automobile trains was waived off till 31 October 2020 for containers and automobiles from 3 August.

In a major step, all private sidings/good sheds/private freight terminals (PFT) opened up for parcel traffic for parcels from 18 August.

The other tariff rationalisation initiatives include withdrawal of Busy Season charge — 15 per cent for all sectors except coal, iron ore and containers from 1 October 2019.

Withdrawal of 5 per cent surcharge of two point/mini rakes for cement, iron and steel, foodgrains, fertilizers, from October 2019 was also offered to increase bulk loadings.

Railways has extended time-tabled parcel express till December end for parcels from 19 June 2020.

Another important decision was to reduce the application fee for Greenfield PFT from Rs 10 Lakh to Rs 20,000 and completely waive off the conversion of siding to Brownfield PFT for all from 24 August.

In a new approach, the Railways has set up Business Development Units at all divisions, zones and Board level to closely monitor the situation and suggest ways to increase business.

While opening up export traffic to Bangladesh for parcels, containers and automobiles, Kisan Rail was introduced from Devlali in Nashik to Danapur in Patna in August with multiple stoppages and multiple commodities.

Link: https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/freight-loading-up-by-over-4-per-cent-despite-pandemic

Ministry of Commerce & Industry

Cooperation, Collaboration and Commitment will guide the strategic partnership between India and ASEAN countries, says Shri Piyush Goyal

India demonstrated itself as the trusted partner to the world, particularly in times of stress: Shri Goyal

Posted On: 27 AUG 2020 4:33PM by PIB Delhi

Commerce and Industry Minister Shri Piyush Goyal today said that 3Cs- Cooperation, Collaboration and Commitment, will guide the strategic partnership between India and ASEAN countries. Addressing the ASEAN-India Business Council virtual meet, Shri Goyal said the Covid-19 pandemic period provided a unique opportunity to India to demonstrate itself as the trusted partner to the world, particularly in times of stress. Shri Goyal extended a hand of friendship to the ASEAN region, which he described as deep and valuable partners, and partners in the progress.

The Minister said that Aatamnirbhar Bharat connotes a self-reliant country which is ready to engage with the world from the position of strength and confidence, and on equal and fair terms.  He said that India and ASEAN have not been able to harness the full trade potential, for various reasons, but now is the time to open matrix to expand trade, address concerns of all nations and businesses, and resolve the differences. He extended India’s friendship and partnership to ASEAN through businesses, so that together both the partners are able to succeed, secure future, work together, attain prosperity, and achieve a target of $300 billion trade. Shri Goyal said that the business council meeting is a good forum to discuss concerns and best practices, share ideas, and flag the problems.

Shri Goyal said that during the early days of pandemic, India went out to the world for its requirements to fight Covid-19, but didn’t get much traction, as everyone was holding on for their own requirements. But, India, on the other hand, with the ability to provide medicines, acted as the Pharmacy for the world. We supplied medicines to over 150 countries of the world, to every part of the world, particularly to the less developed nations. Restrictions were imposed initially but that was with the noble intent of ensuring that the poor nations are not deprived of the medicines.  All this showed that India is a resilient country, a trusted partner and a friend indeed.

Shri Goyal said that the country developed adequate capacity to manufacture PPE, masks, and ramped up our testing capabilities from under 1000 per day to about a million a day. “We have been self-sufficient under the leadership of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. During the period, Indians developed commitment and consciousness to maintain social distancing, to adequately take care of personal hygiene, wear a mask at all times and care for near ones.”, the Minister said. He said that India demonstrated its resilience, ability to overcome problems and our collective efforts ensured that we can protect lives and livelihoods. We enforced strictest lockdown to save lives, and then ensured quick unlockdown to bring take care of the livelihood issues, he added.

YB/AP
(Release ID: 1648949)
Source: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1648949

Railway minister Piyush Goyal has called for speeding up work on dedicated freight corridors (DFCs) and to make up for the loss of time due to Covid-19.

Goyal, who is also the minister for commerce and industry, on Monday reviewed the progress of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL).

It is expected that the western corridor connecting Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Mumbai and the eastern corridor starting from Sahnewal near Ludhiana (Punjab) to terminate at Dankuni in West Bengal will be completed by December 2021, the railway ministry said in a statement.

During the review meeting, it was decided that work of all contractors will be strictly monitored. Resolution of all issues, including coordination with the states, will be done on a “mission mode”, the statement said.

The eastern and western dedicated freight corridors (DFCs), which were estimated to be entirely operational by December 2022, have been setback by six months because of the outbreak of Covid-19, Railway Board chairman VK Yadav had said last week.

Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/speed-up-freight-corridor-work-says-piyush-goyal/articleshow/77729882.cms