< Back PayPal, Cashfree to apply for RBI license for cross-border transactions Ishita Nigam 6 Nov 2023 These payment aggregators must inform RBI of their cross border transactions within 60 days of applying for the license to continue their services. In a related move, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that foreign payment aggregators like PayPal, Paymate, and Cashfree will need a license from the central bank. Such companies awaiting the permit will have to keep RBI informed of all Payment Aggregator-Cross Border (PA-CB) guidelines. These guidelines rule the cross-border payments in and out of India. Till now, an authorised dealer or a sponsor bank facilitated these cross-border payments on foreign platforms. But as per RBI’s latest guidelines, a PA-CB can face penalties if they fail to abide. UPI payment channels like Google Pay and PhonePe may face similar regulations in the future. UPI transactions are at an all-time high. The overall transaction volume crossed 11 billion worth ₹17.16 lakh crores in October compared to 10.56 billion in September. Peer-to-merchant transactions comprised 25% of the total value and 60% of the total volume. Previous Next

< Back Jio launches open AI telecom platform 5 Mar 2025 Jio collaborated with Nokia, Cisco, and AMD to create the platform. During the Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelon Jio Platforms launched an Open Telecom AI Platform. This platform will have Jio as the first customer and serve global telecom operators. Its enhanced network efficiency, operational capabilities, and security features will facilitate collaborations and enable telecom providers to improve revenue streams. Jio’s platform integrates AI and network automation, employing the advanced Radio Access Net (RAN), routing, security, and AI data centres. It’s a multi-domain intelligence framework that aims to optimise performance and streamline operations. It’s a multimodal orchestrated workflow model that leverages open APIs and supports large and small language models for flexible applications. Cisco’s AI Defense and Agile Services, Ericsson’s AI-Powered Network Solutions, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Platform, and Nokia’s AI-Driven Network Optimization are open AI platforms to enhance network capabilities. Jio Platforms offers telecom, digital payments, broadband, ecommerce, entertainment, IoT and Blockchain solutions, AI and ML platforms, and cloud services. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp , LinkedIn , Facebook , X , and Instagram . Previous Next

< Back New Unified Pension Scheme to co-exist with National Pension Scheme 27 Aug 2024 The new scheme will come into effect from April 1st, 2025. Responding to the demand to reinstate the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) before assembly polls, the Union Cabinet announced on August 24th a refined Union Pension Scheme (UPS) that will co-exist with the National Pension Scheme (NPS). This means all NPS-enrolled government employees will be able to switch to UPS from the financial year 2025. Employees must serve at least 25 years in central or state government to be eligible for the pension under UPS. The monthly disbursement under UPS will begin at the age of 60, calculated as 50% of the average monthly salary earned in the twelve months leading to retirement. For service tenure between 10 and 25 years, eligible employees will receive a minimum monthly pension of ₹10,000. Employees retiring before March 31, 2025, choosing UPS will receive arrears. The pension will be adjusted for inflation. Private employees cannot use UPS, but their employers can opt for NPS. Previous Next

< Back Reliance planning to buy a 29.8% stake in Tata Play 15 Feb 2024 If all goes well, it will be the first deal between Tata Group and Reliance Industries. It will allow Reliance to offer all JioCinema content on Tata Play. Reliance Industries plans to buy Walt Disney’s 29.8% stake in the subscription-based television and video streaming platform Tata Play. Besides Walt Disney, Tata Sons owns 50.2% of Tata Play, and Temasek, a Singapore-based fund, owns 20%. The Mukesh Ambani-led group is also about to merge its India business with Walt Disney, with the deal expected to be finalised this month. Reliance will acquire a 51% stake in the merged entity, and Walt Disney will hold around 40%. The remaining 9% will be owned by Bodhi Tree, a joint venture between James Murdoch and former Disney top boss Uday Shankar. Walt Disney plans to sell its TV content and OTT to Reliance for around $3.9 billion. Its valuation dipped after Zee Entertainment withdrew from a cricket rights deal worth $1.4 billion. With this, Reliance aims to strengthen its share in the $28 billion Indian media industry and TV distribution market. Previous Next

< Back Yoga to be included in Asian Games as demonstrative sport 2 Jul 2024 Yoga will be a demonstration sport with no medals on offer in the Asian Games 2026, to be held in Nagoya, Japan. Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President PT Usha wrote a letter on June 26th to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) acting President Randhir Singh, requesting him to include Yoga in the Asian Games. This ancient Indian sport will not offer any medals in the Asian Games 2026; it will be added as a competitive sport in Doha Asiad 2030. India has also been trying to get Yoga included as a competitive sport for the Olympic Games 2036 if it secures the right to host the games. Yoga has been witnessing worldwide acceptance. The Louvre Museum in Paris plans to offer visitors Yoga sessions with instructors ahead of the Olympics, which start this month. The Sports Ministry-run Mission Olympics Cell intends to recommend six games for the Olympics, including Yoga, Kabaddi, T20 Cricket, Chess, Kho Kho, and Squash. Yoga is also a part of the Khelo India Games. Previous Next

< Back UAE to build world’s biggest AI campus outside of the US 19 May 2025 As a part of the US-UAE agreement signed during President Trump’s visit, the UAE will build the largest AI campus in the world. Government-backed firm G42 will build an AI campus in Abu Dhabi, with support from several American companies, like OpenAI. The campus will span 10 square miles with a 5-gigawatt power capacity that can support up to 2.5 million Nvidia B200 chips. The agreement will allow the UAE to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced chips, which will be used to power the AI campus. The agreement opens the doors for Microsoft and Oracle to establish data centres in the UAE. G42 had several investments in Chinese companies, including ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok) and Huawei. After the US expressed concerns, G42 divested from all. A 100% subsidiary of Kaynes Technology India, Kaynes Semicon has opened its chip design centre in Oman, in collaboration with and fully funded by the Omani government. It’s a very large-scale integration (VLSI) design centre that will work on front-end and back-end chip design processes. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp , LinkedIn , Facebook , X , and Instagram . Previous Next

< Back India to start locally manufacturing all mobile phones in this fiscal year 10 Oct 2024 Apple started making iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max phones in India last week. Google began manufacturing Pixel smartphones. Until the last fiscal year FY24, India’s smartphone imports comprised 2.5% of the mobiles sold by value and less than 1% by volume, especially Pro models of high-end phones, like Pixel and iPhone. With smartphone-oriented production-linked schemes (PLI), brands found new motivation to make their devices in India. Local manufacturing is further expected to reduce the iPhone Pro's price by ₹15,000 per unit. India now produces 99% of all smartphones locally. The domestic suppliers will soon cover the remaining 1%. Foreign brands like Samsung, Vivo, Oppo, Realme, Xiaomi, and Transsion Holdings now produce all devices here. Local smartphone manufacturing has risen from ₹18,900 crore in FY15 to ₹410,000 crore in FY25, around 30% of which is for exports. In the FY25 budget, the Indian government reduced import customs duty to curb the high-end mobile grey market. This motivated Apple to reduce iPhone prices by up to 4%. Previous Next

< Back Delhi, Mumbai airports may hike user fee up to 22X 1 Dec 2025 The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) and airlines have challenged the order in the Supreme Court. The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) redefined tariff calculations for FY09-14, revealing that around ₹50,000 crore is owed to the Mumbai and Delhi airports. If this goes through, for Delhi airport, the User Development Fee levied per passenger may increase from ₹129 to ₹1,261 for domestic travellers and ₹6,356 from ₹650 for international. For Mumbai, domestic travellers may have to pay ₹3,856 from ₹175 and ₹13,495 instead of ₹615 for international travellers. AERA sets airport charges for 5-year slots depending on investments made and the revenue earned by the operator. AERA was established in 2009, three years after ownership passed from the Airports Authority of India to DIAL and MIAL. For FY09-14, AERA fixed the charges based on the value of its aeronautical assets, such as infrastructure used for flight operations and passenger processing. DIAL and MIAL approached TDSAT, arguing that AERA must also consider the value of non-aeronautical assets. Check out my new book, THE BLACK FLAMES , on Amazon Kindle. A gripping, high-stakes mystery. ⭐⭐⭐⭐.6 stars on Amazon ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Goodreads Previous Next

< Back Recipient-initiated transactions to stop from Oct 1 13 Aug 2025 The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will shut down pull transactions to curb fraud. UPI payments work two ways. The ‘push’ system allows users to scan a QR code or input the recipient’s ID and make the payment. Via the ‘pull’ transactions, or ‘collect’ requests, the recipient generates the QR code with the payment amount fed in, and the user inputs their PIN to approve the payment. In 2019, the NPCI had capped the recipient-initiated ‘pull’ transactions at ₹2,000. At most, 50 such transactions are allowed in a day. These will be stopped altogether from October 1 st . India recorded 7 billion Person-to-Person (P2P) transactions in July, with 19.4 billion transactions recorded by NPCI overall. A year ago, the figure stood at 14 billion transactions overall, of which 5 billion were P2P. Several fraudsters pose as merchants to extract money from customers. RBI data reports 29,000 frauds occurred in FY2025 worth ₹1,457 crore. In FY2024, only 12,516 fraud cases worth ₹520 crore were reported. Never miss another post from SalestorsNews150. Follow Salestors on WhatsApp , LinkedIn , Facebook , X , and Instagram . Previous Next

< Back Powerful solar flares put India on high alert 6 Feb 2026 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued alerts for high-altitude areas in the US and Canada as well. India and several high-altitude regions in the US and Canada are on heightened alert after the Sun released a series of powerful solar flares. It raised concerns about radio blackouts, satellite disruptions, and potential impacts on aviation navigation and power systems. ISRO is closely monitoring over 50 operational satellites, with ground stations issuing alerts and keeping contingency plans ready. NASA observed repeated explosive activity between February 1 and 2. The Indian region widely uses high frequency radio. Its growing satellite infrastructure makes it particularly sensitive to space weather disturbances. Canada has a history of major geomagnetic storm-related blackouts, including the 1989 Quebec blackout and the 2003 disruptions. Scientists note that the Sun is currently in its solar maximum, an 11-year cycle marked by heightened sunspot activity and increased likelihood of solar storms. Indian researchers had anticipated this surge and issued early warnings based on magnetic field analysis. Check out my new book, THE BLACK FLAMES , a gripping, high-stakes mystery. Previous Next

< Back Indian IAF Pilot lands SpaceX Dragon on Int’l Space Station 26 Jun 2025 It has been 41 years since an Indian was part of a spaceflight program. Today, Shubhanshu Shukla, the Indian Air Force Group Captain, became the first Indian to visit NASA’s orbiting lab on the International Space Station. He piloted SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft carrying four crew members, including himself. NASA’s mission involved private firms SpaceX and Axiom Space. The craft took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, on June 25th at 12:01 pm IST and landed on June 26th around 4:30 pm IST. Born in 1985 in Lucknow, Shukla joined the Indian Air Force in 2006. He’s flown over 2,000 flight hours and was selected as a member of a team of four for India’s Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission. Besides Shukla, Commander Peggy Whitson from the US, Slawosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland, and Tibor Kapu from Hungary are part of the team. They are conducting many India-sponsored experiments for long-duration missions, including microalgae cultivation, human health in space, and plant biology. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp , LinkedIn , Facebook , X , and Instagram . Previous Next

< Back Sun Pharma rises to global top 25 firms with Organon deal 6 May 2026 Sun Pharma’s USD 11.75 billion acquisition of Organon marks its biggest deal and elevates it into the top 25 global pharma companies. Organon, with strong roots in women’s health and notable contributions like the research lineage behind Keytruda and Sun’s own Ilumya, brings valuable brands but a heavy debt burden. Organon was spun off from Merck with a massive USD 9.5 billion debt, which later reduced to USD 8.6 billion. It depressed its valuation and made the acquisition risky. Sun had acquired Ilumya from Merck for USD 80 million while the drug awaited FDA approval. This became its flagship product for treating moderate‑to‑severe plaque psoriasis. Analysts had called it risky and wrong as Sun had entered a market dominated by Novartis, J&J, and Elli Lilly with a non-approved drug. Sun expects USD 350 million in synergies within 2–3 years. Shanghvi has a long history of turning around distressed acquisitions, such as TDPL, Caraco, Taro, and Ranbaxy. The Organon deal offers scale but demands exceptional execution in a highly competitive landscape. Check out my new book, THE FLAMES TURN WHITE – THE BLACK FLAMES series book II . A gripping, high-stakes mystery. Previous Next