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MUMBAI : Five years since Zee Entertainment persuaded lenders not to classify its debt as default, the media giant is facing pressure to oust its promoter family, after an aborted merger with Sony Pictures in India. In an interview, founder Subhash Chandra said his son Punit Goenka, who heads Zee, is the right person to lead it in the future as well, as he aims to raise the family’s stake in Zee from 4% to 26%. Edited excerpts: As you know, the 25th of January was the fifth anniversary of our failure in the capital market, when Zee’s shares fell almost 40%.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) ended on a bitter note last week, few in the industry were surprised. Given Zee parent Essel group’s debt problems, a probe by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) into its promoters, as well as disagreements between Sony and Zee, the split was long anticipated. Sony Group had agreed to merge its India unit with Zee late in 2021, combining their television networks, digital assets, libraries and streaming platforms to create the country’s largest broadcaster.

₹20 crore Osamu Suzuki made in the company in 1981, ‘staking his reputation’ on a company that was almost ‘guaranteed to fail’, according to Bhargava, because he was one of the few people who believed in the potential of India’s car market. Suzuki also helped Maruti break out of the mould of a traditional PSU and prioritize profitable growth and competitiveness.

By Jamie McGeever

GenAI) and projected to nearly triple spends on this technology to USD 3.4 billion in 2024 across Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India, and Singapore, according to Infosys Research. While the spending trails North America, APAC's adoption, effectiveness, and growth are among the highest globally, it said. «Companies across Asia-Pacific are quickly ramping up investments in generative AI and entering a higher stage of maturity,» the IT major's research arm, Infosys Knowledge Institute (IKI), said in the research.

Beijing has confirmed that a longtime British businessperson in China was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 on an espionage charge

The International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates substantial increases in energy consumption from crypto mining and artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years, with projections suggesting a more than 30% surge by 2026.

₹12,000 crore, the people cited above said on the condition of anonymity. FAME-II, which expires on 31 March 2024, doles out demand-side cash subsidies on the sale and purchase of hybrid and electric four-wheelers for commercial use if they meet certain price and performance criteria.

India matches the international standards, they said. «The long-term plans are comprehensive and strategically aligned to national priorities, including initiatives such as Make in India, green hydrogen, drones, semiconductors, smart mobility, electronics, defence and space,» a senior government official told ET. «Besides, the government is putting in place a robust quality assurance mechanism to ensure that skill development initiatives meet international benchmarks.»

Rittner left Ardevora in December 2023 and on 15 January 2024, the firm announced that it will be shutting down after 14 years

Sony’s India arm, but there is a new threat for the company, given the precariously low promoter holding in the Indian broadcaster, per a TOI report. Punit Goenka, the Managing Director and CEO of Zee owns a 4 per cent stake in the company. A merger between Sony and Zee would’ve created a $10 billion broadcasting entity, India’s largest. Rules say that any person with or without holding any shares in a listed target company, may offer to acquire shares of the entity subject to a minimum offer size of 26 per cent. Furthermore, any shareholder or group of shareholders holding at least 10 per cent in a listed company may move a resolution to change its directors. Zee's major institutional investors include ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund (7 per cent), Nippon India Mutual Fund (6 per cent), HDFC Mutual Fund (5 per cent), and LIC (5 per cent). Sony Pictures Network India, now known as Culver Max Entertainment Private Ltd, had signed an agreement to merge with Zee in December 2021.

Investing.com-- Most Asian stocks retreated on Friday as a stimulus-driven rebound in Chinese shares stalled, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 slid further away from 34-year highs as growing bets on a Bank of Japan pivot spurred more profit-taking.

Republic Day 2024 LIVE updates Besides, Ambassador Sibi George unfurled the tricolor in front of the Indian Embassy in Japan. Happy Republic Day 2024: Wishes and quotes to mark the 75th Gantantra Diwas Embassy of Russia in India held celebrations on 75th Republic Day. Ukraine Embassy in India also wished 'Happy Republic Day' on the X platform.

Mississippi, its latest capacity expansion amid growing demand for cloud services as more firms adopt new artificial intelligence technologies. Businesses are doubling down on AI development and majority of that traffic is expected to be managed on the cloud infrastructure from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft's Azure — the top three vendors globally.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan held broadly steady and was on track for a weekly gain of 2%. Trading was thinned with Australia out on a holiday. Chinese stocks looked set to end the week on a strong footing as a wave of policy support from Beijing restored fragile investor confidence and put a floor under its sliding stock market. The blue-chip index rose 0.03% and was eyeing a 2% weekly gain, while the Shanghai Composite edged 0.3% higher, putting it on track for a 3% weekly rise, its largest since July 2023. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index eased 0.41%, but was still more than 5% higher for the week, also its best performance since last July. In an attempt to shore up its fragile economic recovery, China's central bank announced a deep cut to bank reserves on Wednesday, in a move that will inject about $140 billion of cash into the banking system. Those came a day after Bloomberg News reported Chinese authorities are seeking to mobilise about 2 trillion yuan ($278.98 billion), mainly from the offshore accounts of Chinese state-owned enterprises, as part of a stabilisation fund to buy shares. «We remain cautious on China, in line with our view for several years,» said John Pinkel, a partner and portfolio manager at Indus Capital. «We see evidence of selling induced by structured 'snowball' products, especially from onshore China sources.

World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 13th ministerial conference to refrain from extending a moratorium on imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions would impact the semiconductor design ecosystem in India, industry bodies told ET. The moratorium expires in February-March this year. WTO members had agreed against imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions since 1998 and the moratorium has been periodically extended at successive ministerial conferences, which is the highest decision-making body of the 164-member organisation.

The International Monetary Fund recently raised a note of caution about India’s rising public debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio as part of a standard process of assessing country risks. Today, there is a burgeoning cottage industry of storied institutions that are compiling lists of risks arising not for specific countries, but at a global level across the domains of economics, politics, geopolitics and society.

A Japanese court has sentenced a man to death after finding him guilty of murder and other crimes over an arson attack on an anime studio in Kyoto that killed 36 people

Mint explores the Centre’s options to keep infra investment going. In the 2016-17 budget, the Centre allocated just ₹2.47 trillion for infrastructure. In 2023-24, this had quadrupled to ₹10 trillion.

₹8-11 lakh, whereas a master’s programme costs ₹15 lakh," said Ankur Dhawan, the president of upGrad’s international arm, upGrad Abroad. “Canada has also upped the guaranteed investment certificate (GIC) from CAD $10,000 ( ₹6 lakh) to CAD $20,635 ( ₹12 lakh). Students will have to look at more options in Europe now." A GIC acts as a proof that the student has the means to live and pay for expenses in Canada.

Optimism sweeps across India’s urban-rural divide as consumers turn more confident about their prospects in the days ahead, multiple surveys showed, despite inflation remaining a niggling concern. The positive sentiment portends good news for businesses, as they look to tap rising spending in an election year. At a time confidence fell in key Asian markets, Indian consumers turned upbeat in the December quarter, a McKinsey & Co.