Budget 2018-19

  The combined net worth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos approached $500 billion on Wednesday The combined net worth of  Elon Musk  and Jeff Bezos approached $500 billion on Wednesday, fueled by the unrelenting rally in Tesla Inc. shares and a broad surge in tech stocks that sent the Nasdaq 100 to an intraday record. The value of the two fortunes — a sum bigger than the market value of Johnson & Johnson and about equal to that of America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co. — is yet another watershed moment in what’s shaping up to be a historic week for billionaires. A groundbreaking proposal from Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden to tax billionaires on unrealized gains was released in detailed form Wednesday morning only to be dropped in negotiations hours later. Wyden insists the billionaires’ tax plan isn’t dead, but talks have instead moved on to a possible 3% surcharge — on top of the highest income tax rate — for those earning more than $10 million. The combined ne...

  The proposal is part of a package of bipartisan bills that would impose significant new constraints on how tech companies operate, restricting acquisitions and forcing them to exit some businesses Apple Inc. would be prohibited under antitrust reform legislation introduced last week from giving its own apps an advantage by preventing users from removing them on Apple devices, said Democratic Representative David Cicilline, who is leading a push to pass new regulations for U.S. technology companies. Cicilline told reporters Wednesday that a proposal prohibiting tech platforms from giving an advantage to their own products over those of competitors would mean Apple must let consumers decide which apps to use or remove. “It would be equally easy to download the other five apps as the  Apple  one so they’re not using their market dominance to favor their own products and services,” the Rhode Island Democrat said. The proposal is part of a package of bipartisan bills that wo...

 India, which is suffering severe shortages of medical equipment, on Thursday reported 412,262 new virus cases and 3,980 deaths, both daily records Amazon .com Inc. is pausing plans for its annual sale Prime Day in Canada and India due to concerns about Covid-19, the company confirmed on Thursday. The pause won’t affect Prime Day in the U.S., which is scheduled for an undisclosed day in June, according to an email reviewed by Bloomberg. “Based on the increasing impact of Covid-19 in Canada, and the importance we place on protecting the health and safety of our employees and customers, we will pause plans for Prime Day 2021 in Canada,” said the email, sent to Amazon sellers Thursday. The Seattle-based company, in an email, confirmed Prime Day would also be postponed in India, which was reported earlier by CNBC. Covid-19 cases have risen in Canada in recent months amid a slower-than-expected rollout of vaccinations. Less than 3% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to th...

  The National Labour Relations Board has found that two outspoken Amazon workers were illegally fired last year The National Labour Relations Board has found that two outspoken Amazon workers were illegally fired last year. Both employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, worked at Amazon offices in Seattle and publicly criticised the company, pushing it to do more to reduce its impact on climate change and to better protect warehouse workers from the coronavirus. Cunningham shared with The Associated Press an email from the NLRB, which said it found that Amazon violated the rights of the two workers. The government agency also confirmed on Monday that it found merit in the case. The news was first reported by The New York Times. In a statement,  Amazon  said it fired the employees for repeatedly violating internal policies, not because they talked publicly about working conditions or sustainability. We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s workin...

  The world’s largest retailer is permeating the complex tapestry of the only billion-people-plus market open to it If it wasn’t for last year’s extraordinary events, there would be nothing even remotely remarkable about Jayshri Hodkar’s struggle to survive as a single mother of two on the earnings of her tailoring shop, a single machine in one room of a rented house. It’s one of those tens of millions of tiny businesses you see everywhere in India. Most are so nondescript it’s hard to imagine that together they supply the wheels on which the $2.7 trillion economy runs. Their value only became clear when the wheels came off. This week last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a sudden, complete lockdown. And that’s when the Mahi tailoring center in Indore, a historic city of 3 million in central India, become important to one of the world’s richest men — 7,000 miles away in Seattle. With no customers coming to get blouses stitched, Hodkar came to a conclusion: Her shop coul...

  Tata Group-owned electronics store chain Croma has entered into a partnership with Amazon to launch a new range of smart TVs with built-in Fire device Tata Group-owned electronics store chain Croma has entered into a partnership with  Amazon  to launch a new range of smart TVs with built-in Fire device for customers in India. The new smart LED TV range will come with a built-in Fire TV device and through this strategic partnership, Croma aims to offer an intuitive, simple, and customised experience, the companies said in a joint statement. It brings together all streaming content from across over 5,000 apps, including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, Disney + Hotstar, Zee5, SonyLiv and many more. “The proliferation in OTT apps and the consequent fragmentation in viewership is creating a demand for a more seamless browsing experience. The Alexa voice search and the intuitive soft-touch remote control supported by the Fire TV OS offers a different and to my mind, bet...

The companies are part of four consortia preparing to apply for licenses to operate retail payments and settlement systems in the country Technology giants Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google and credit-card providers Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are among those vying for unprecedented access to India’s burgeoning digital retail payments market. The companies are part of four consortia preparing to apply for licenses to operate retail payments and settlement systems in the country, people familiar with the matter said. More companies could band together before a March 31 application deadline. In a market where cash is still king, digital payments are quickly gaining ground as India’s 1.3 billion people are starting to embrace online shopping and services such as online gaming and streaming. With Credit Suisse Group AG predicting $1 trillion in online payments in India in 2023, the companies chosen to enable such transactions stand to reap lucrative commissions. “India’s mobile d...

  Amazon internal documents show 35 of more than 400,000 sellers in India accounted for around two-thirds of its online sales in early 2019 It was early 2019, and senior Amazon.com Inc executive Jay Carney was preparing for an important meeting. The former press secretary to U.S. President Barack Obama, Carney was scheduled to talk with India’s ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C. In Delhi, the Indian government had just announced foreign direct investment regulations that threatened to disrupt Amazon’s business in the world’s second most populous country. Before the meeting, Amazon employees prepared a draft note for Carney. The note, reviewed by Reuters, advised Carney what to say – and what not to say. He should highlight the fact that Amazon had committed more than $5.5 billion in investment in India and how it provided an online platfForm for 400,000-plus Indian sellers. But he was cautioned not to divulge that some 33 Amazon sellers accounted for about a third ...

  A New Delhi court this week dealt a blow to the U.S. firm by revoking a previous court decision that effectively blocked the deal Amazon.com Inc has mounted a legal challenge against its partner Future Group’s $3.4 billion retail assets sale in India’s Supreme Court, three sources told Reuters on Thursday, marking the US firm’s latest effort to block the deal. Amazon, locked in legal disputes with Future, alleges the Indian firm violated contracts by agreeing to sell its retail assets to Reliance Industries last year. Future denies any wrongdoing. A New Delhi court this week dealt a blow to the US firm by revoking a previous court decision that effectively blocked the deal, and Amazon has filed an appeal against it in the Supreme Court in the capital city, the three sources said. Amazon and Future did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The legal fight over Future’s assets has embroiled two of the world’s richest men –  Amazon ‘s Jeff Bezos and Reliance’s Mukesh...

  health ministry signed a contract Monday for 400,000 doses of Sputnik V that will arrive this month. That is still a tiny amount for Mexico”s 126 million people Mexico approved the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V for use Tuesday, just hours after the publication of early results of an advanced study saying it is about 91 per cent effective. Assistant Health Secretary Hugo Lpez-Gatell, the government’s pandemic spokesman, said the health ministry signed a contract Monday for 400,000 doses of Sputnik V that will arrive this month. That is still a tiny amount for Mexico’s 126 million people. It couldn’t come a moment too soon. Mexico has been hit so hard that hospitals in the capital were 87% full, and ambulance drivers waited hours to find an open bed for patients. Mexico has reported about 159,500 test-confirmed deaths related to  COVID-19 , but excess-death estimates place the real toll at well over 195,000. Unfortunately, because of the saturation of the hospitals and...

  The announcement ends a long-running question about who would succeed the world’s second- richest person at the company’s helm Amazon.com Inc on Tuesday said founder Jeff Bezos would step down as CEO and become executive chairman, as the company reported a third consecutive record profit and quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time. This summer, Bezos, 57, will hand the keys of the world’s largest online retailer to Andy Jassy, head of its cloud computing division. The announcement ends a long-running question about who would succeed the world’s second-richest person at the company’s helm. Jassy, 53, joined Amazon in 1997 after Harvard Business School, founding Amazon Web Services (AWS) and growing it to a cloud platform used by millions, the company’s website said. He had been a clear contender for the top job since  Amazon  created two CEO roles reporting to Bezos, the other held by recently retired consumer CEO Jeff Wilke. Tom Johnson, chief transformati...

  The world’s largest online retailer has an agreement with a healthcare provider to administer vaccines at its facilities, Dave Clark, chief executive of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business said Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday offered to help with the United States’ efforts involving the Covid-19 vaccine, according to a letter addressed to President Joe Biden, seen by Reuters. The world’s largest online retailer has an agreement with a healthcare provider to administer vaccines at its facilities, Dave Clark, chief executive of Amazon’s worldwide consumer business, said in the letter. He added, “We are prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts.”..

  The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allowed the deal with some riders, five months after it was announced last August Market regulator SEBI gave a go-ahead on Wednesday to Future Group’s scheme of arrangement and sale of assets to Reliance, based on which the Bombay Stock Exchange also granted its “no adverse observation” report to the Rs 24,713-crore deal. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allowed the deal with some riders, five months after it was announced last August. ALSO READ:  Delhi HC rules Amazon’s attempt to control Future violative of FEMA FDI The SEBI has said the litigation pending before the Delhi High Court and arbitration proceedings by the global e-commerce major Amazon contesting the deal should be specifically mentioned by Future Group while seeking shareholders or the National Company Law Tribunal approval, the BSE stated in its observation letter. It has also held that SEBI’s go-ahead on the draft scheme of arrangement would...

  Companies like Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google could face fines of as much as 10 per cent of their revenue US and other major tech platforms that treat their own services more favorably, at the expense of rivals, could be forced to sell businesses and pay billion-dollar fines under strict rules unveiled by the European Union. Under the EU’s new Digital Markets Act, companies deemed to be so-called “gatekeepers” won’t be allowed to rank their offerings above rivals on their own platforms, or use competitors’ data to compete with them, according to the new regulation released on Tuesday. Companies like Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google could face fines of as much as 10 per cent of their revenue in Europe if they don’t comply, while a company that has repeatedly breached the rules could face orders to divest businesses, confirming a Bloomberg report on Monday. Gatekeepers will also need to inform regulators about smaller acquisitions that woul...

  By seeking to stall Ambani’s purchase of Future, Bezos may be signaling that he would rather remain a rival A vanilla commercial dispute is setting the stage for a clash between the world’s No. 1 and No. 6 richest men. But the legal wrangling is a sideshow. What Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani are really fighting over is pole position in the only billion-plus-people consumer market available to both of them: India. The ostensible battleground is a $3.4 billion deal Indian tycoon Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. stitched up in August to acquire assets of debt-laden local retailer Future Group. Bezos’s Amazon.com Inc. is trying to block the transaction. That, in itself, is a bit of a dampener. Expectations were building for the two billionaires to work together. In September, Bloomberg News reported that Ambani had given  Amazon  an option to buy as much as 40% of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd., seeking to repeat the success he had earlier this year in bringing in Facebook I...

  RedSeer said the first few days of this year’s online sale season saw a more explosive start compared to the last year- and is on track to meet its forecast of $4 billion by end of the event E-commerce giants Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal have witnessed blockbuster festive season sales. The pandemic accelerated the shift to e-commerce, with an increasing number of consumers shopping online at a higher frequency. The online festive sales received a strong response from October 15-19. New estimates by RedSeer Consulting on Wednesday showed that $3.1 billion (Rs 22,000 crore) of goods were sold from brands and sellers in the first 4.5 days of the event. This means 77 per cent of RedSeer’s projected online sales were already achieved during the said timeframe. The firm had earlier projected total festive sales of e-commerce firms to cross $7 billion. RedSeer said the first few days of this year’s online sale season saw a more explosive start compared to last year — and was on track ...