UPS Financial News

Local officials in Hawaii plan to open an office that will speed up Maui County’s notoriously slow processing of building permits to help the town of Lahaina to recover from last year’s deadly wildfire

Hundreds of giant papier-mâché bulls stuffed with fireworks are erected in the front yards of the Mexican town of Tultepec every year in the first week of March

Wall Street pulled back from its record heights following a shaky day of trading, putting at least a temporary halt to its huge rally since Halloween

consumer affairs ministry is unlikely to lift the ban on onion exports despite a fall in prices as the government does not want to take any decision that will make onions expensive before the general elections, an official privy to the development said. «There are instructions from the top to not touch onions before the elections,» the official told ET. This comes amid requests from traders to open up onion exports now that prices have moderated. Following India's ban on export of onions imposed on December 8, wholesale onion prices had crashed to ₹5-10/kg, leading to widespread protests of the farmers in the growing regions. The export ban also increased the global shortage of the kitchen staple at a time when the demand is at its peak, due to the upcoming Ramadan festival, industry insiders said.

HUL) has introduced a foster/kinship caregiver leave policy, offering up to four weeks of leave to employees who opt for pre-adoption foster care or become legal guardians as per their familial requirements. This policy acknowledges diverse familial arrangements and expands the scope of family caregiving beyond the immediate family, the company said.

Arun Goel's resignation as election commissioner, although a surprise, was preceded by simmering differences with chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar. The issues appeared to have escalated over the last few weeks following Anup Pandey's retirement on February 15. ET has learnt that most disagreements were not about major policy issues. However, differences continued and involved issues such as the composition and size of EC teams heading to states for poll preparation reviews and the formats of press briefings in states, among others. Insiders said that despite such disagreements, there was no recorded case of 'dissent' between the duo at Nirvachan Sadan. The differences were rather «expressed verbally».

Private sector investment in clean energy, especially in countries like India, is pivotal for the course of energy transition, said Riccardo Puliti, regional vice president, Asia and the Pacific, at International Finance Corporation. India continues to be the key destination for IFC, including in energy transition, and the World Bank Group member is looking to push up its investment in the country in the ongoing fiscal, which runs from July through June. In FY23 (July-June), IFC committed $3 billion across 30 projects, more than doubling its lending year-on-year. «This year we will do substantively more than that [FY23]. India is a country willing to move the needle on the energy mix,» he said. Financing that brings in private sector investment is vital to scaling India's climate solutions, he said. «The rule of the game is really to mobilise the private sector,» he added. India is IFC's largest investment destination with 10.4% of its global portfolio. It will help expand and diversify capital sources for critical power infrastructure, as done through its investment in IndiGrid, he said. IFC is also looking at sustainability-linked finance, enabling issuers to build a strong pipeline of green projects, Puliti said. IFC's focus is to leverage private capital to up support for sustainable infrastructure, industrial decarbonization, and green finance.

Indian farmers gaze at passing clouds to predict rains. Spin bowlers toss up blades of grass to detect whether they’re bowling into or against the wind. Conversations at autumn-end usually veer towards the approaching winter.

NLC India Limited on Sunday signed an MOU with the Government of Rajasthan for the formation of a Joint Venture to set up a 125 MW Lignite Based Power Plant and 1000 MW Solar Power Plant. The MoU between NLC India Limited and Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (RVUNL) entails a staggering investment of more than Rs 7,000 crores, according to an official statement. Among the notable projects, the MoU outlines the establishment of a 125 MW Lignite Pit-head Thermal Power Plant in Bikaner district and a massive 1,000 MW Solar Power Plant, further reinforcing NLCIL's commitment to renewable energy initiatives.

solar power project in Madhya Pradesh's Chhatarpur district was laid on Sunday. Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy, RK Singh, and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Virendra Kumar, together laid the foundation stone for Barethi Solar Power Project of NTPC Renewable Energy Limited. Joining the event through video conferencing, Singh said that the government's work in the power sector under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been historic, with capacity almost doubling in the last 10 years. The Power minister said that the government has provided electricity connections to every village in the country.

Ramadan starts, ANI reported on Sunday citing an Express Tribune report The report said the people of the neighbouring country are already facing a two to three-fold increase in the prices of essential kitchen items like vegetables, sugar, edible oil, ghee, meat, eggs, and pulses. This substantial increase in prices of essential commodities has added to the economic sufferings of low- to middle-income consumers. Experts see a further hike in commodity prices during the holy month of Ramadan, with a general surge of 31.5% in recent months.

₹60,000 crore to expand the seven existing airports in its portfolio over the next 5-10 years, Karan Adani, MD of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, said. About half of the investment would be pumped into terminal and runway capacity over five years, and the rest would be invested in city-side development of the airports over a period of 10 years, Adani said on the sidelines of an event. These investments will be in addition to the ₹18,000 crore that the group plans to invest in Navi Mumbai airport.

₹76,000 crore, as it expects a mushrooming of chip fabs and testing units in the country in the years ahead. India will emerge as one of the top five semiconductor ecosystems in world in the coming five years, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in an interview. This will be backed by investments by global majors that are increasingly considering India for setting up fabrication or other units, the minister said.

government could tweak the policy for setting up medical colleges in order to increase the intake of students and address the problem of shortage of doctors in the country, a senior official told ET. The changes being considered include relaxing the norms for setting up medical colleges, enhanced fiscal and infrastructure support, and speedy approvals. Government support will help them become viable at lower fee levels, making medical education more affordable.

NEW DELHI : New Delhi: British art auction house Sotheby's is attempting to cater to young Indian art collectors, who are now more comfortable about art and about spending on them, through different initiatives. The auction house is also proactively introducing new artists to its platform to provide more choices to the young collector, a senior official of the company said in an interview.

mega trade deal between New Delhi and the four-nation European bloc EFTA will not only open up broad market access for Swiss businesses in India but is set to improve the legal framework and predictability for them, the Swiss government said on Sunday. The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) States — Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland — signed a Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) with India that came after around 16 years of negotiations. Under the mega trade pact, the four European countries are looking at making an investment of USD 100 billion in India over the next 15 years. The trade deal will provide a window to Indian exporters to access large European and global markets besides allowing companies from the four EFTA countries to expand businesses and investment in India.

NTPC Ltd, it's arm NTPC Green Energy, Coal India and NLC India on Sunday signed separate memoranda of understanding with Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd for setting up thermal and renewable energy projects. The MoU between NTPC & RVUNL was signed to explore opportunities for adding supercritical units to the existing Chhabra thermal power plant. The companies aim to implement measures to enhance efficiency and reduce the generation cost of the plant's existing units.

car industry has for the second time revised upwards its growth projections for this fiscal to more than 8%, nearly twice the rate projected at the start of the year. Passenger vehicle sales in the local market are expected to grow by 8.1-8.2% to 4.23 million units in FY24, buoyed by better-than-expected economic growth especially in the last two quarters, favourable monsoons despite the El Niño conditions, and effective monetary policies that helped rein in high inflation without affecting domestic consumption buoyed demand, industry insiders said. Earlier in the year, the industry had estimated sales of 4 million units and 4.13 million units.

free trade pact with a four-member European bloc, Norway on Sunday said it will eliminate customs duties for almost 98 per cent of the imports from India under the framework of the pact. The ambitious trade pact, signed between India and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) comprising Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, aims to expand trade across a range of areas including pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, new technologies and machinery. After the EEA (European Economic Area) agreement, this could become one of the most important trade agreements Norway has ever entered, said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere. At a media briefing, Norway's Minister of Trade and Industry Jan Christian Vestre described the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) as a major result-oriented milestone that would not only boost two-way trade but also promote a rules-based trading system.

Los Angeles Lakers will host Minnesota Timberwolves in NBA game at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday night. The regular NBA game is scheduled to tip off at 9.30 pm (EDT) on Sunday, March 10. Live telecast of the game will be available on ESPN. One can catch live streaming of the game on fubo TV, NBA TV on a free trial basis, as per a report in USA Today.

Egypt was in contact with senior Hamas and Israeli figures as well as other mediators on Sunday in an effort to restart negotiations for a truce in the Gaza Strip during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Monday or Tuesday, two Egyptian security sources said. Egypt's contacts with Hamas and Israeli intelligence agency Mossad on Sunday were carried out under a mandate from the Egyptian presidency in an effort to bring the two sides' divergent positions together, the sources said, without providing further details.