Aware Financial News

Rishi Sunak's team are in New Delhi this week to add momentum behind the ongoing round of negotiations for an India-UK free trade agreement (FTA), according to a UK media report on Saturday. 'The Guardian' newspaper reports that while there is no official comment from either side on such a visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is keen to finalise the FTA by the end of February before Modi sets off on an expected general election campaign trail. Both countries are heading into an election year in 2024 and signing off on a trade agreement with India will bolster Sunak's electoral pitch to voters showing signs of anti-incumbency towards his governing Conservatives.

India has had an «exceptionally difficult» challenge along the northern borders in the last three years and the country responded to it very resolutely and has been maintaining the kind of military deployment necessary for national security, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday on the lingering row in eastern Ladakh with China. He said this in an address at the FICCI, while explaining how the Modi government makes choices after choices with confidence however difficult and tough they may be. «It could even be what happens at our border.

At a time when so many families are struggling to get by, compassion and empathy can go a long way.

digital public infrastructure (DPI) in India in the last decade has steered the growth of startups in the country, industry leaders said on Saturday. Addressing FICCI's annual general meeting and annual convention Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder of Info Edge India Ltd, said that research and development in India is currently in a better position than it was a decade ago, which has spurred a cluster of startup IPOs in the Delhi-NCR region.

India vs South Africa: Suryakumar Yadav-led Team India is all set to start its South Africa tour from Sunday with the first T20 international scheduled at Hollywoodbets Kingsmead Stadium in Durban. The young Indian cricket team will enter the fields with some high confidence as they comprehensively defeated world champions Australia 4-1 in the 5-match T20 series in India. But, the team is well aware that conditions will not favour them abroad and the T20 series is going to crucial ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024.

BJP's stellar performance in the recent Assembly polls is an acknowledgement of the tremendous welfare work Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has done for the people in nine years, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said on Saturday. In Assembly polls held in five states between November 7 and 30, results of which were declared on December 3, the Bharatiya Janata Party retained power in Madhya Pradesh emphatically and unseated the Congress in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

₹2.5 lakh. The retired official, named SP Sinha, resided in Kolkata's Thakurpukur lost his life savings to a treacherous call deceiving to be from the bank where he held an account. The agent called Sinha and disguised as bank official stationed at “table number 3" of the same branch where Sinha held his pension account, reported Metro.

IMD Weather Update: In Bihar, dense fog will engulf most of the state in the next two days, according to the IMD, which issued a yellow alert on Friday. As a result of rains in several districts of Bihar, dense fog is likely to develop in 33 of them, except for Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Munger, Banka, and Jamuni, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), according to a PTI report. According to the state Disaster Management Department, the fog alert was issued until 8.30 am on December 10.

Tata Motors subsidiary, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd. (TPEM), signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) to install 7000 Electric Vehicle (EV) charging points across India by 2024 on December 8, 2023. The location of these EV charging points is going to be determined by using the insights collected from over 1.15 lakh Tata EV users on Indian roads and BPCL's fuel station network.

The bread supplier that admitted to price-fixing earlier this year says in new court filings that any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods.

RBI) Friday tweaked a mechanism to enable banks to better manage their funds in a 24x7 payments landscape that compels lenders to store away large amounts of funds as a precautionary measure, a practice that exacerbates stress when overall liquidity is in a deficit. «With regard to the standing facilities of the Reserve Bank under the LAF (Liquidity Adjustment Facility), we have noticed simultaneous high utilisation of both MSF (Marginal Standing Facility) and SDF (Standing Deposit Facility) by the banks,» RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said while detailing the central bank's monetary policy statement on Friday. «We propose to address this situation and have decided to allow reversal of liquidity facilities under both SDF and MSF even during weekends and holidays with effect from December 30, 2023. It is expected that this measure will facilitate better fund management by the banks,» Das said, adding that the measure would be reviewed after six months or earlier if required. The central bank's latest step provides banks with the flexibility to borrow or lend out funds on weekends and holidays instead of borrowing heavily from the market or the RBI's lending windows ahead of non-working days. The RBI's move comes after months of unusual liquidity distribution in the banking system, with lenders persistently storing large amounts of money in the central bank's absorption facility, which offers the least remunerative rate of interest. «Earlier there was no provision for an automatic sweep-in for banks' funds during the weekend.

Squid Game: The Challenge, Mai Whelan is still waiting to get the money in her bank account. Commenting on her situation, the 55-year-old immigration adjudicator said: “I feel like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Show me the money!”

Vedanta Resources, the London-based parent of India's oil-to-metals conglomerate Vedanta, is close to finalizing a $1.25 billion loan availed jointly from Standard Chartered Bank and Cerberus Capital Management that could help it avert a default on bonds due in January, said people aware of the matter. Standard Chartered Bank will underwrite $950 million of the $1.25 billion financing while New York-based Cerberus Capital will cover the remaining $300 million, the people said requesting anonymity. Other credit investors could join as Standard Chartered Bank is expected to distribute or «sell down» its share of the loan, they added. The loan could have a tenor of about three years with interest rate in the 'high teens', the people said. Standard Chartered Bank is in talks with Davidson Kempner, Ares Management and Varde Partners to distribute a portion of its $950 million loan commitment. Vedanta Resources confirmed to ET that it was close to finalising the financing arrangement. «We are in the process of finalising the raising of $1.25 billion for the purposes of refinancing and managing our upcoming maturities,» said a spokesperson for Vedanta Resources.

C3 AI CEO Tom Siebel provides insight on the unimaginably powerful technology on The Claman Countdown.

Real estate investment is one of the best investments in the current times provided you choose the right property. A wrong property investment decision can take a toll on your financial health as a huge amount of money is involved in procuring this asset. Hence, it is important to be aware of all facts about a property before going in for purchase.

The Financial Planning Standards Board India (FPSB India) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Association of Registered Investment Advisors (ARIA) to advance the practice of financial planning in India and foster a culture of financial well-being in the country, as per the press release. 

By Lisa Baertlein

Netflix to obtain the official rights for producing merchandise for the movie 'The Archies'. The movie was released on Netflix on December 7th. UNIREC's merchandise will be crafted using sustainable fabrics, and initiative and the company has also pledged to plant a tree for every garment sold.

Canadian companies are now paying more than $1 million in ransomware attacks, according to a new study.

Life Insurance Corp (LIC) is stepping up activity in a space where banks are wary of a hawkeyed regulator and higher capital needs, with the country's biggest institutional investor in tradable securities recently buying debt issued by highly rated non-banking financial companies and corporates, including Reliance Industries. LIC subscribed to a lion's share of Reliance's ₹20,000-crore bond sale last month, while also taking up a major portion of a bond sale earlier this week by Tata Capital Financial Services (TCFSL), a subsidiary of Tata Capital, sources aware of the developments told ET. LIC had bought ₹13,000 crore of RIL's bonds, the sources said. The insurance sector giant is also said to have deployed funds in a September bond sale by another highly-rated NBFC — L&T Finance, the sources said. An email sent to LIC did not receive a response by the time of publication.

An Oregon judge says an ex-Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to cut the engines of a passenger flight can be released from jail pending trial