India and the US have a fundamental stake in each other’s success “for the sake of our values and our many shared interests”, wrote Modi in an Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal.

The article appeared Friday, a day when Modi arrives in the US to begin a five-day sojourn.

Modi said that it “is also the imperative of our partnership”.

“And it will be of great value in advancing peace, security and stability in the Asia and Pacific regions; in the unfinished and urgent task of combating terrorism and extremism; and in securing our seas, cyber space and outer space, all of which now have a profound influence on our daily lives,” he said.

The Indian prime minister said that the complementary strengths of India and the US can be used for “inclusive and broad-based global development to transform lives across the world”.

“Because our countries’ values and interests are aligned, though our circumstances are different, we are in a unique position to become a bridge to a more integrated and cooperative world. With sensitivity to each other’s point of view and the confidence of our friendship, we can contribute to more concerted international efforts to meet the pressing global challenges of our times,” he added.

Modi noted that this is “a moment of flux in the global order”.

“I am confident in the destiny of our two nations, because democracy is the greatest source of renewal and, with the right conditions, offers the best opportunity for the human spirit to flourish,” he said.

It is the first time, when all the top 100 richest tycoons in India are billionaires, as per the latest Forbes rich list. The net worth of India’s 100 wealthiest altogether is $346 billion, which up over a third from $259 billion in 2013.
Naazneen Karmali, India Editor of Forbes Asia said that India’s position has stimulated very fast from gloom to boom in 2014. The newly elected played a pivotal role in escalating wealth generated in stock market trading.

The top 10 richest in India are:

1) Mukesh Ambani; $23.6 billion

2) Dilip Shanghvi; $18 billion

3) Azim Premji; $16.4 billion

4) Pallonji Mistry; $15.9 billion

5) Lakshmi Mittal; $15.8 billion

6) Hinduja brothers; $13.3 billion

7) Shiv Nadar; $12.5 billion

8) Godrej family; $11.6 billion

9) Kumar Birla; $9.2 billion

10) Sunil Mittal; $7.8 billion

The 30-member delegation, comprising healthcare specialists and industry leaders, held talks with Startup Village representatives to establish business partnerships with young entrepreneurs here for finding innovative solutions to address the challenges faced by Britain’s healthcare sector.

The delegation was accompanied by British deputy high commissioner Bharat Joshi, who lauded the efforts of Startup Village in building an ecosystem for promoting entrepreneurial culture among youth in the state.

“It is really encouraging to see that our start-ups here are getting recognition from overseas markets. Technology products are accepted faster in developed markets and access to those markets are what we are trying to build for creating success stories at home,” said Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar.

The Kochi Startup Village is India’s first PPP(public private partnership) model technology business incubator.

-IANS

The bank in a statement said it has decided to cut the deposit rates by 25 basis points (0.25 percent) to 8.75 percent on deposits of 1-3 year duration.

On the other hand, the bank revised upwards the interest rates by 0.25 percent on deposits for 180-210 days.

According to SBI, the rate adjustment will continue to ensure that the savers are compensated adequately as the inflation rate is also going down.

The interest rates on other deposit durations remain unchanged.

The annual inflation rate stood at 5.19 percent for the previous month and 6.99 percent for August of 2013. Notably, the annual inflation rate for food articles in August fell to 5.15 percent from 19.17 percent in the like month of the previous year.

The decline was the sharpest for onions — from 272.54 percent in August of last year to (-)44.70 percent. The fall was also quite sharp, for vegetables — from 80.96 percent in to (-)4.88 percent.

The wholesale price index numbers also suggested a drop in the inflation rate for eggs, meat and fish from 20.15 percent to (-)5.87 percent. While for rice the drop was from 21.33 percent to 5.44 percent, for wheat it was 9.38 percent to 0.67 percent.

Manufactured products, however, showed an increase from 2.31 percent to 3.45 percent.

The reserves had grown by $60.5 million to $318.64 billion for the week ended Aug 29.

According to the RBI’s weekly statistical supplement, foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves, decreased by $1.02 billion at $290.36 billion in the week under review.

The foreign currency assets had increased by $75 million to $291.39 billion for the previous week.

The RBI said the foreign currency assets, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US currencies held in reserve such as the pound sterling, euro and yen.

India’s reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slipped by $16 million to $1.67 billion.

The value of special drawing rights (SDRs) was down by $41.6 million at $4.34 billion.

The value of gold reserves fell $240.7 million at $20.93 billion for the week ended Sep 5. The value of gold reserves had remained static at $21.17 billion since Aug 22.

The CPI urban inflation stood at 7.04 percent in August, while CPI rural inflation was at 8.35 percent.

Retail food inflation rose to 9.42 percent in August compared to 9.36 percent in July.

For rural areas, retail food inflation was recorded at 9.83 percent, while for urban areas it stood at 8.40 percent, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Industrial activity, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), grew 0.5 percent in the month of July over the same month of the previous year, government data showed.

India’s retail inflation slowed down to 7.8 percent in August from 7.96 percent in the previous month.

The July industrial growth compares unfavourably with the 3.9 percent recorded in the previous month, the Central Statistics Office data showed.

The cumulative growth for the period April-July of fiscal 2014 -15 over the corresponding period of the previous year stands at 3.3 percent.

The drop in July is mainly due to the lower output in consumer goods.

Consumer goods output contracted by 7.4 percent year-on-year, while consumer durables output declined by 20.9 percent. Consumer non-durables, however, grew 2.9 percent compared to 0.1 percent month-on-month.

While manufacturing activity contracted 1 percent, as against the growth of 1.8 percent in the previous month, the mining sector recorded 2.1 percent growth versus 4.3 percent.

The cumulative growth during April-July 2014-15 over the corresponding period of 2013-14 has been 2.8 percent in mining, 2.3 percent in manufacturing and 11.4 percent in electricity.

Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) slowed down to 7.8 percent in August from 7.96 percent in the previous month, helped by slower increases in fuel, light and clothes prices, government data showed here Friday.

The CPI urban inflation stood at 7.04 percent in August, while CPI rural inflation was at 8.35 percent.

Retail food inflation rose to 9.42 percent in August compared to 9.36 percent in July.

For rural areas, retail food inflation was recorded at 9.83 percent, while for urban areas it stood at 8.40 percent, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office.

Commenting on the data, industry chamber FICCI president Sidharth Birla said in a statement: “While we were hoping that slowdown in manufacturing had bottomed out, it appears from July numbers that manufacturing may not out be out of the woods.”

“It is worrying that deceleration in July is somewhat broad based extending to consumer durables and capital goods,” he added.

It was the lowest closing price since July 2012.

The new OPEC reference basket comprises Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (United Arab Emirates) and Merey (Venezuela). A barrel equals 159 litres.