India has a huge potential for generation of renewable energy which stood at 21,09,655 megawatts (as on March 2024(, the government said on Saturday, adding that the country is experiencing a steady and healthy growth in both energy supply and consumption.

The potential of generating energy from wind power had the dominating share of 11,63,856 megawatts (around 55 per cent) which was followed by solar energy (7,48,990 megawatts) and large Hydro (1,33,410), according to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

More than half of the potential for generation of renewable energy has been concentrated within the four states — Rajasthan (20.3 per cent), Maharashtra (11.8 per cent), Gujarat (10.5 per cent) and Karnataka (9.8 per cent).

The installed-capacity for generating electricity (including Utility and Non-Utility) from the renewable resources has also experienced a significant growth over the past years.

After witnessing a tremendous growth in fruit exports in the last five years, the government is now exploring new markets for fruit exports.

According to Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jitin Prasada, the free trade agreements (FTAs) with the UAE and Australia have helped increase exports of fruits to the UAE and Australia by 27 per cent and six per cent, respectively.

“The free trade agreement has helped increase exports to the UAE, where there has been a 27 per cent increase in fruits export and with Australia where there has been a 6 per cent increase in export of fruits,” the minister informed the Rajya Sabha.

India’s fruit exports have surged by 47.5 per cent over the last five years.

Billionaire Elon Musk has announced his artificial intelligence company, xAI, has acquired social media platform X for an all-stock transaction of $33 billion.

The combination, which "values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt)," will "unlock the immense potential"

It will blend "xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach". X has more than 600 million active users.

Musk had in 2022, bought X -- originally Twitter -- for $44 billion.

In the last two years, the platform "has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth".

On the other hand, xAI, founded by Musk in March 2023, has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world.

A total of 171 food processing companies have been approved for assistance under the Production-Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Processing Industry (PLISFPI) and incentives worth Rs 1,155.296 crore has been disbursed, out of which Rs 13.266 crore has been disbursed to MSMEs in 20 eligible cases (as of February 28), the government has informed.

The PLISFPI scheme was approved by the Union Cabinet in March 2021, with an outlay of Rs 10,900 Crore. The Scheme is being implemented over a six-year period from 2021-22 to 2026-27.

According to data reported by the scheme's beneficiaries, an investment of Rs 8,910 crore has been made across 213 locations.

As of October 31, 2024, the scheme has reportedly generated employment of over 2.89 lakh.

Major chipmaker SK hynix was the top pick for foreign investors in the first quarter of the year, data showed on Saturday.

The foreign investors scooped up a net 1.88 trillion won (US$1.28 billion) worth of SK hynix shares during the January-March period on hopes for a turnaround in the sector, according to the data compiled by the Korea Exchange, reports Yonhap news agency.

Defence firm Hanhwa Aerospace and internet portal operator Naver came in next with their net buyings of 733 billion won and 434 billion won, respectively.

In contrast, they heavily sold shares worth 1.18 trillion won worth of shipbuilder Hanhwa Ocean in the first quarter, followed by top automaker Hyundai Motor with 790 billion won and leading banking group KB Financial with 548 billion won, the data showed.

In the first three months of the year, they sold a net 4.73 trillion won worth of local stocks.

State-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) on Friday said it has secured a major contract worth Rs 11,800 crore from the Chhattisgarh State Power Generation Company (CSPGCL).

The company announced in a stock exchange filing that it has received a Letter of Intent (LoI) for the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) package of the 2x660 MW Korba West Supercritical Thermal Power Plant (STTP).

“BHEL has received the LOI for an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) package of two 660 megawatt 'Supercritical' thermal power plants at Hasdeo Thermal Power Station, which is located in the Korba District of Chhattisgarh,” the company said in its exchange filing.

As part of the contract, BHEL will supply advanced supercritical equipment, including boilers, turbines, and generators, along with auxiliary systems.

The company will also handle electrical systems, control and instrumentation (C&I), and balance of plant (BoP) packages.

Hyundai Motor Group on Friday outlined a roadmap to implement advanced autonomous driving technology across its vehicle lineup, aiming to apply Level 2+ features by the end of 2027.

The goal was announced during the group's Pleos 25 developer conference, held at COEX in Seoul, where Hyundai invited domestic and global software developers to showcase its latest innovations in software-defined vehicle (SDV) technology, reports news agency.

According to Song Chang-hyeon, head of the group's autonomous vehicle platform (AVP) division, Hyundai is enhancing its in-house autonomous driving systems using artificial intelligence (AI) deep learning, high-performance neural processing units (NPUs) and lightweight model architectures tailored for on-vehicle performance.

India’s express parcel market is set for exponential growth, adding 24-29 billion shipments to the logistics sector by FY2030, a report showed on Friday.

This is likely to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) growth of 19-23 per cent from FY2024’s scale of 8-9 billion shipments.

In the current fiscal (FY25), the market is estimated to reach 10-11 billion shipments, fuelled by the expanding e-commerce sector, especially non-horizontals and the rise of hyperlocal/quick commerce, according to the report by Redseer Strategy Consultants.

E-commerce (not including hyperlocal) accounted for more than 50 per cent of the express parcel market in FY2025, with approximately 4.8-5.5 billion shipments. This is expected to grow to 15-16 billion shipments by FY 2030, contributing to 55-60 per cent of the express parcel market by that time.

The report mentioned that India’s express parcel market is shifting from traditional couriers to e-commerce and hyperlocal shipments, driven by digital adoption, demographic shifts and urbanisation.

When it comes to the ratio of goods exports to GDP in the wake of US trade tariffs, India and Japan are the least exposed economies owing to domestic demand strength, a Morgan Stanley report said on Friday.

The ratio of goods exports to GDP is the most important metric; it determines the extent of trade orientation of the economies. This allows global research firms to assess which economy will face more downward pressures on growth.

“India and Japan — these economies have robust tailwinds from domestic demand strength as an offset and relatively lower ratios of goods exports to GDP,” the report mentioned.

The US has also implemented 25 per cent tariffs on auto imports. The report said that the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on auto and auto parts will affect Japan and Korea the most, as auto exports to US account for 7 per cent of their exports.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), in collaboration with IIIT-Hyderabad has launched a large-scale competition to test fingerprint-based authentication solutions in biometric algorithms, said the Ministry of Electronics and IT.

The competition invites global researchers and developers to enhance their biometric models using UIDAI's unique, field-collected dataset to improve accuracy in real-world conditions.

The first phase of the Biometric SDK Benchmarking challenge focuses on fingerprint authentication. It calls for testing 1:1 matching algorithms for children aged 5-10 years, with updates after 5-10 years.

The competition will enable the participants to understand the performance of their algorithms -- evaluated against a large anonymised biometric dataset within a secured UIDAI sandbox.