Provident Financial News

food grain programme will not have a major impact on the fiscal deficit in the financial years 2023/24 and 2024/25, an Indian government source said on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that his government would extend a welfare scheme, which provides free grain to more than 800 million people and was due to end in December, by five years. The move aims to shield consumers from the rising prices of cereals ahead of a general election early next year, but could lead to higher government spending and require New Delhi to procure more wheat and rice from farmers to sustain the scheme. Before the extension, the free food grain program was estimated to cost the government around 2 trillion rupees ($24.04 billion) this year. The costs would broadly remain the same, a second government official said, but added that an increase in grain prices could lead to limited additional spending for 2023/24 of between 50 billion to 70 billion rupees.

The UK Treasury Treasury is currently considering making changes to the payments legislation to enable retail payments for goods and services to be made using fiat-backed stablecoins. This includes an option the Treasury are exploring to allow certain stablecoins which are issued outside of the UK to be used for payments. The FCA’s Discussion Paper explores the proposed regulation around the issuance and custody of fiat-backed stablecoins under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the use of these stablecoins as a means of payments under the Payment Services Regulations. Sheldon Mills, executive director, consumers and competition, FCA, says: “Stablecoins have the potential to make payments faster and cheaper for all, and that’s why we want to offer firms the ability to utilise this innovation safely and securely.

Bankers servicing one of the world’s biggest ESG debt markets are now actively seeking legal protections to guard against the potential greenwashing allegations that may be ahead.In the handful of years they’ve existed, sustainability-linked loans have mushroomed into a $1.5 trillion market. SLLs let borrowers and lenders say that a loan is tied to some environmental or social metric.

Snap Co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said here on Monday. In a fireside chat with Snap APAC President Ajit Mohan during the company's 'APAC AR Day' event here, Spiegel said that to see the explosion of creativity that's been empowered by Snapchat in India — at a time when the country is changing so rapidly — is really exciting to him.

rural India. Moreover, this partnership will contribute to heightened health insurance awareness across the entire country, as well as raise awareness about insurance in rural India.

electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in India now have the opportunity to access a tailored insurance offering designed exclusively for their vehicle batteries. Magma HDI General Insurance (Magma HDI) has introduced the ‘Battery Secure Add On’, an insurance product explicitly crafted to protect the batteries of EVs and HEVs.

OpenAI introduced the capability to upload various file formats, including PDFs, and implemented automatic tool switching within the platform. Now a fresh leak suggests that ChatGPT might soon enable users to create their own chatbots. As reported by The Decoder, user CHOI shared a list of leaked features that OpenAI is set to unveil at its developer conference today, November 6.

Supreme Court Monday directed the Centre to lay down a national model for building toilets commensurate with the number of girl students in all government-aided and residential schools across the country. A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud also asked the Union government about the policy it has formulated for distribution of sanitary napkins to female school students nationally.

Narendra Modi on Sunday announced that PMKAY would be extended to the end of December 2028. It was earlier set to end on December 31, 2023. The subsidy has been included in the overall food subsidy of around ₹197,350 crore provided in the 2023-24 budget, of which ₹95,149 crore or 48% has been used as of September, as per CGA data.

Last week, the White House issued an executive order for command and control of artificial intelligence, strangely invoking the Defense Production Act. President Biden apparently got nervous after watching the latest “Mission: Impossible" movie. Really.

Inox Wind Ltd gained more than 11% in intraday trades on Monday scaling 52 week highs. The move was propelled NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd. (NTPC REL), the customer of Inox Wind Ltd announcing the successful commissioning of 50 MW out of 150 MW Dayapar Wind Energy Project Phase-I in Gujarat.

Kevin Lisle, who has been teaching high-school chemistry at Marist School in Atlanta for 23 years, now has an assistant on call 24/7 to help his students. His new assistant sometimes spouts misinformation, but is good at explaining concepts and suggesting possibilities that students may have overlooked. Lisle’s assistant is better known as ChatGPT—the most prominent of a new breed of artificial-intelligence chatbots.

Bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocurrency, has experienced a slight dip of nearly 1% amidst a broader market rally, drawing the attention of investors and analysts alike. As it navigates through the tumultuous tides of the financial markets, Bitcoin‘s trajectory is influenced by a myriad of factors.

Tesla plans to build a 25,000-euro ($26,838) car at its factory near Berlin, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Monday, in a long-awaited development for the electric vehicle maker which is aiming for mass uptake of its cars. The source, who declined to be named, did not say when production would begin. Tesla declined to comment.

Reliance Jio has introduced a new OBD (on-board diagnostics) device — JioMotive-- that can transform any car into a smart vehicle. This pocket-size device is easy to install and simply needs to be plugged into the car's OBD port, commonly found under the dashboard. By using an e-SIM, the device connects to the Jio network, eliminating the need for a separate SIM card or data plan.

Investing.com — European stock markets traded in a subdued fashion Monday, consolidating after last week’s strength as investors looked to central bank speakers for guidance.

BERLIN (Reuters) — The German service sector slipped back into contraction in October amid persistent weakness in demand, a survey showed on Monday.

increasingly common sight in America. According to a recent survey by researchers at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, about a quarter of police departments now use them. Even more surprising is where the technology is coming from.

₹33,643 crore as compared to ₹25,684 crore recorded in the same period of last year. Looking at the H1FY24 performance, the 12 PSU lenders posted a net profit of ₹68,061 crore, an increase of 66% over H1FY23's net profit of ₹40,991 crore. Leading the pack is Punjab National Bank, which has demonstrated the highest net profit growth in Q2FY24.

As the digital currency market continues its dynamic ebb and flow, Solana (SOL) has recently captured the spotlight, surging past the pivotal $42 zone. This impressive momentum has sparked a flurry of speculation and analysis within the crypto community, leading many to ponder a tantalizing question: Could Solana’s robust performance herald its ascent to the coveted $100 mark within 2023?

The country’s largest childcare provider, Goodstart Early Learning, has slid deeper into loss and called for a government-backed wage subsidy to resolve a major shortage in workers and the sector’s poor financial performance.