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India once again makes remarkable progress in Ease of Doing Business, jumps 23 ranks

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India has improved its rank in six out of the 10 indicators and has moved closer to international best practices on seven out of 10 indicators.

India jumped 23 ranks from last year to get 77th rank in the World Bank’s latest Ease of Doing Business rankings, a news that is likely to bring cheer for the Narendra Modi-government in an election year.

The jump is significant, as it comes after last year’s 30-rung climb when India moved into the top 100 rankings among 190 countries.

The report also recognises India as one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment, for the second successive time. India is the only large country this year to have achieved such a significant shift.

India has improved its rank by 53 positions in the last two years, and 65 positions in the last four years (2014-18).

When the NDA came to power in 2014, India stood 142nd in World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ list.

“We have made progress in leaps and bounds, probably the most significant in the history of Ease of Doing Business,” Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, underscoring that to make significant progress, one has to “literally crack the code” and work on the bottlenecks.

The latest jump comes in an election year, as the government is under opposition attack for the rise in petrol prices, the fall of the rupee and the differences with the Reserve Bank of India. Besides, the Congress has persistently pointed to what it calls the failure of PM Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has consistently attacked the government, saying instead of Make in India, “Everything is made in China”.

The improved ranking will boost the sentiment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government ahead of the general election, at a time it’s facing flak for rising fuel prices and falling rupee. Last year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said Modi wanted various ministries to target the top 50, which he thought was “doable”.

In this year’s assessment, on the “distance to frontier metric”, a measure to gauge how far an economy’s policies are from global best practices, India’s score improved to 67.23 from 60.76 last year.

This means last year India improved its business regulations in absolute terms – indicating that the country is continuing its steady shift towards global standards.

“India continued its reform agenda, implementing six reforms in the past year. India is now the region’s top-ranked economy,” the World Bank said, ahead of Bhutan (81) and Sri Lanka (100), Nepal (110), the Maldives (139), Pakistan (136) and Afghanistan (167) and Bangladesh (176).

India has improved its rank in six out of the 10 indicators and has moved closer to international best practices on seven out of 10 indicators.

The checklist includes ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency, reported news agency Press Trust of India.

The most dramatic improvements have been registered in the indicators related to ‘Construction Permits’ and ‘Trading Across Borders’.

In the ‘Grant of Construction Permits’ indicator, India’s ranking improved from 181 last year to 52 in this year’s report—a jump of 129 ranks in a single year.

In the ‘Trading Among Borders’ indicator, India’s rank improved by 66 positions, moving from 146 in 2017 to 80 in 2018.

India reduced the time and cost to export and import through various initiatives, including the implementation of electronic sealing of containers, the upgrading of port infrastructure and allowing electronic submission of supporting documents with digital signatures, the World Bank said.

The other improvements come through the GST, which wasn’t included in last year’s ranking, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The GST made it easier to start businesses as it integrates multiple application forms into a single general incorporation form. World Bank said this speeds up the registration process.

India, the report said, has not only made paying taxes easier, but also made it less costly by reducing the corporate income tax rate and the employees’ provident funds scheme rate paid by the employer.

The amendements to the IBC also strengthened access to credit, the report said. “Secured creditors are now given absolute priority over other claims within insolvency proceedings.”

Marking areas where the country still needs to improve, Finance Minister Jaitley mentioned starting of business, in which the country ranked 137, paying taxes and enforcing of contracts, which he said “remains poor”.

Besides, in registering property, the country’s ranking fell to 166 from 92 when Modi took over, a report in BloombergQuint added. It takes over two months in India to register for property and the procedures end up costing almost 8 percent of the property value.

India’s efforts in protecting minority investors also stagnated. Its rank fell from fourth in the world to seventh, with no improvement in reforms. Similarly, in paying taxes, the ranking slipped by two places to 121 this year.

Enforcing contracts still remains a huge problem, with the country’s rank at 163. The World Bank report shows that it takes more than three years to enforce a contract and it ends up costing a third of the claim value itself.

In the World Bank Group’s annual ease of doing business rankings, the top 10 economies are New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark, which retain their first, second and third spots, respectively, for a second consecutive year, followed by Hong Kong SAR, China; Republic of Korea; Georgia; Norway; United States; United Kingdom and FYR Macedonia.

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Google restores delisted Indian apps after government intervention

Google on Saturday restored all Indian apps it had removed.

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Google has started to restore all the delisted Indian mobile apps on Play Store agian, which they had removed due to a disagreement over service fees. After a discussion between company representatives and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the decision was made, according to sources.

The step was taken in response to Vaishnaw’s strong statement in which he said that it is not allowed for apps to be removed from the Google Play Store. The minister had said, India is very clear, our policy is very clear…our startups will get the protection that they need.

Vaishnaw  continued saying that he has already given Google a call. They will be speaking with the app developers who were delisted this week. This is not acceptable. The minister said this kind of delisting cannot be permitted.

Ten Indian companies’ apps were banned by Google on Friday, causing outrage in one of its fastest-growing markets. With 94% of phones running on its Android platform, Google holds a large portion of the Indian market. Popular names like Naukri and Bharatmatrimony were on the list.

The main point of contention is Google’s in-app purchase fees, which range from 11% to 26%. Indian startups have long opposed the US tech giant’s actions, believing them to be unfair.

The founder of Bharat Matrimony, Christian Matrimony, Muslim Matrimony, and Jodii, Matrimony.com, expressed shock at the matchmaking apps’ removal from the Google Play Store.

Shaadi. Com CEO Anupam Mittal described it as a dark day for India’s internet, highlighting the possible broad effects on matchmaking services. He also called Google an evil.

While, Kuku FM Co-founder Vinod Kumar Meena in a statement had said that Google was behaving like a monopoly.

Meanwhile, Google temporarily withdrew the famous Indian payments app Paytm from the Play Store in 2020, claiming a few policy infractions. Due to this decision, the founder of the company as well as the larger startup community came together to build their own app stores and file lawsuits against Google.

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Anant Ambani says he is 100% lucky to get Radhika Merchant in his life

Anant Ambani said he was grateful to get Radhika as his life partner. He said he is 100% lucky to get Radhika Merchant in his life. He said every day he is falling more and more in love with her. He added although he had known Radhika for the last 7 years, it felt he had met her only yesterday. He thanked Radhika for everything.

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Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s grand three-day wedding celebrations began with a glamorous cocktail night on Friday in Jamnagar. During the celebrations, Anant Ambani also gave a speech wherein he thanked his late grandfather Dhirubhai Ambani and grandmother Kokilaben Ambani for inspiring him. Anant Ambani said he was grateful to get Radhika as his life partner. He said he is 100% lucky to get Radhika Merchant in his life. He said every day he is falling more and more in love with her.

He expressed his gratitude to his mother for pulling together the lavish three-day wedding celebrations in Jamnagar. Anant thanked his mother for all she had done. He said all the arrangements had been done by his mother and nobody else. He added his mother had gone all out and she had worked 18-19 hours a day and he was extremely grateful to her.

He also thanked all the guests who were present there at the pre-wedding celebrations. He said everyone had made it to Jamnagar to make him and Radhika feel special. He said both of them were honored and humbled to have all of them present there. Anant said he was sorry if they had caused an inconvenience to anyone. He asked for forgiveness. He hoped everyone is going to enjoy the coming three days. He also thanked his mother, father, sister, brother, his sister-law and his brother in-law for making this event memorable.

Anant said everyone has been sleeping for less than 3 hours a day for the last 2-3 months and he was very happy to share this joy with everyone. The youngest Ambani talked about his personal struggles and how his parents had always supported him. He further added his life had not been entirely a bed of roses. He said he had also experienced the pain of thorns. He said he had faced many health crises.

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Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg shares pictures from 2nd day of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant pre-wedding celebrations

Zuckerberg shared pictures from the 2nd day of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s pre-wedding celebrations. In the photograph Mark Zuckerberg can be seen along with his wife Priscilla Chan. The couple is exuding happiness as they prepare for the event. He captioned the picture it is getting wild out here.

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Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan joined the star- studded pre-wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant in Jamnagar on Friday. The event was attended by many prominent figures from different fields. Zuckerberg took to his Instagram handle congratulated the couple and said he loved Indian weddings.

Zuckerberg shared pictures from the 2nd day of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s pre-wedding celebrations. In the photograph Mark Zuckerberg can be seen along with his wife Priscilla Chan. The couple is exuding happiness as they prepare for the event. He captioned the picture it is getting wild out here.

The theme of the opening day of the pre-wedding celebrations was Evening in Everland as the guests wore cocktail attire. The first day of the grand celebrations elevated the expectations of the guests for the following days. The theme of the 2nd day of the pre-wedding bash is known as a Walk on the Wildside and the guests can be seen in Jungle Fever attire.

Zuckerberg has opted for an animal print shirt with white trousers, Chan is complementing his look in a strappy one piece in black and golden. The Jungle theme is aligned to Vantara, Reliance’s animal welfare initiative undertaken and launched by Anant Ambani a few days back.

International pop star Rihana electrified the pre wedding celebrations on Friday with an amazing performance, marking her debut appearance in India. The chart topping artist engaged the audience with performances of her iconic hits which included Pour it Up, Work and Diamonds.

Zuckerberg graced the opening day, wearing a black-on-black firefly blazer and shoes from Alexander McQueen while his wife Priscilla wore a black gown with gold flower details and other accessories such as dainty chain bracelet, gold necklace and stud earrings. Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan are one of the Power couples invited from the global business community for the festivities currently underway at Jamnagar.

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