Suzuki Motor, parent of India’s largest automaker Maruti Suzuki, announced on Sunday that it would invest Rs 10,440 crore to build a new electric car and battery factory in India. Maruti Suzuki, which sells one in every two cars on Indian roads, is expecting to roll out affordable EV models in both Japan and India as early as 2025.

The Japanese automaker intends to invest around Rs 3,000 crore for the new plant to increase production of electric vehicles in India, and Rs 7,300 crore to manufacture electric batteries. Sunday’s announcement is the first firm commitment on electrification by India’s largest carmaker, which has maintained that the Indian market isn’t ready for EV sales yet.

Maruti’s rivals, such as Hyundai and Tata Motors, have announced elaborate plans for electrification of their products. Sales of four-wheel EVs jumped in India in FY21, the impact of the pandemic notwithstanding.

The segment saw estimated 5,500-6,000 sales last financial year — a jump of 60-75 per cent over FY20 when the segment saw sales of 3,400 units.

But Suzuki through its global tie-up with Toyota has been gearing up to enter the non-IC engine vehicle business and India will be a key part of this plan. Their Indian subsidiaries are Suzuki Motor Corporation (Maruti Suzuki) and Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota Kirloskar Motors).

People aware of the development said that both companies are working to develop a mass EV product, which besides for the Indian market, will be exported to Europe and South Asian countries.

“Investing so much money in the Indian market is not justified as there are still doubts how much the domestic market will grow for EVs. It has to be for export, too,” said a person in the know. “Suzuki’s future mission is to achieve carbon neutrality with small cars,” said Toshiri Suzuki, president of Suzuki Motor Corporation.

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Paytm, the Indian digital payments startup whose stock has slumped 71% since its November market debut, had its price target reduced further by an Macquarie Capital Securities (India) Pvt. analyst who was early to predict the company’s market troubles.

Macquarie’s Suresh Ganapathy cut his price estimate to 450 rupees ($5.90) from 700 rupees, citing lower valuations for fintech companies globally. He didn’t change his earnings or revenue estimates for Paytm, which he rates underperform. The stock rose to 634.05 rupees on Wednesday.

Paytm pulled off the largest-ever initial public offering in India, but has since faced a number of challenges. Ganapathy cited fintech regulations and stricter compliance norms as potential headwinds — on Friday, the Reserve Bank of India barred the company’s Paytm Payments Bank venture from accepting new customers, adding pressure on the stock.

The average 12-month price target among nine analysts covering Paytm is 1,203 rupees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The initial public offering by One 97 Communications Ltd., the parent company for Paytm, had been touted by some as a symbol of India’s growing appeal as a destination for global capital, particularly for investors looking for alternatives to China.

Ahead of the listing, Macquarie analysts including Ganapathy initiated coverage with an underperform rating and a price target of 1,200 rupees. The IPO was priced at 2,150 rupees.

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Athletes from Russia and Belarus were formally banned from the multi-sport European Championships in August.

Organizers of the Aug. 11-21 championships in Munich, Germany, said they supported decisions by officials from the nine individual sports not to invite Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials. They have followed guidance from the International Olympic Committee.

We are united in our condemnation of Russia’s war on Ukraine, organizing committee chairman Libor Varhank said.

The sports are canoeing, cycling, gymnastics, rowing, sport climbing, table tennis, track and field, triathlon and volleyball.

Though swimming is an exception among Olympic sports in trying to let Russians continue competing, it is not part of the collective European Championships format launched in 2018.

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As NFTs are all the rage these days, Facebook chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg is planning to let Instagram users mint non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the social media platform.

As per The Verge, Mark made the announcement at the session at South By Southwest, but did not provide a specific date for when NFTs might drop on Instagram.

For the unversed, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a digital certificate of ownership of a piece of digital asset that can be bought and sold.

During his speech, Mark stated that he hopes one day that users will be able to mint the clothes of their digital avatars as NFTs, but admitted there is still work to do before that can happen.

Instagram won’t be the first major social network with an NFT integration. Earlier this year, Twitter introduced a feature that let some users set an NFT they own as their profile picture.

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Ace Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal began their All England Championships campaign with easy straight-game wins over their respective opponents in the women’s singles here on Wednesday.

Sixth seed Sindhu beat Zhi Yi Wang of China 21-18 21-13 in her first round match that lasted 42 minutes while Saina defeated Beatriz Corrales of Spain 21-17 21-19 in 38 minutes.

The world number 7 Sindhu will meet the winner of the first round match between Sayaka Takahashi of Japan and Supanida Katethong of Thailand in the second round.

Saina, who had reached the final here in 2015, will face the winner of the first round match between second seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan and Kristin Kuuba of Estonia in the second round.

If Sindhu and Saina win their respective second round matches, they will face each other in the quarterfinals.

In men’s singles, B Sai Praneeth lost to top seed and Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen 20-22 11-21 in the first round match that lasted 48 minutes.

H S Prannoy went down fighting to last week’s German Open winner Thai player Kunlavut Vitidsarn 15-21 22-24 in 56 minutes while Sameer Verma also lost to Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands 18-21 11-21 in a 41-minute opening match.

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Mid-sized motorcycle maker Royal Enfield on Tuesday launched its new bike model Scram 411 with introductory prices starting at Rs 2.03 lakh (ex-showroom Chennai).

The Scram 411 is built on Royal Enfield’s LS-410 engine platform and the Harris Performance chassis and combines agility on urban streets with competent rough-roading capabilities, said the company, a part of Eicher Motor group, in a statement.

Depending on the colour scheme, the bike will be available at prices ranging from Rs 2,03,085 to Rs 2,08,593 (ex-showroom Chennai), it added.

While it will be available immediately in India, the Scram 411 will make its debut in Europe and Asia-Pacific markets by the middle of this year, Royal Enfield said.

Eicher Motors Ltd Managing Director Siddhartha Lal said the contours of modern urban existence across the world are ever-changing.

“With our world increasingly becoming more fast-paced, life in the urban context has become about the weekday hustle and the weekend getaway, and everything in between. We wanted to build a motorcycle that could effortlessly navigate this entire gamut, and be the perfect ally for the young, modern day rider,” he said.

The new bike is powered by a 411 cc, 4-stroke single-cylinder engine which has a maximum power of 24.3 bhp at 6,500 rpm and max torque of 32 Nm at 4,000-4,500 rpm.

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In the end, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani settled the dispute over who gets to own the assets of beleaguered Future Retail Ltd. not in an arbitration tribunal in Singapore, or in a courtroom in New Delhi, but in a shopping aisle.

Future Retail had been subleasing store space from the tycoon’s Reliance Industries Ltd. Indeed, it was kept operating only on Ambani’s forbearance because Future couldn’t come up with the rent. But with Amazon.com continuing to block Reliance’s $3.4 billion purchase of Future’s assets, Ambani decided to make the acquisition a fait accompli: He terminated the leases and is taking control of the properties.

It was a dramatic denouement to a three-year-old saga. Amazon was Future’s original rescuer, investing $192 million into a gift voucher unit controlled by its founder Kishore Biyani so he could use the money to steady the debt-laden Indian retailer.

The condition of that 2019 deal was that assets — about 1,500 stores nationwide — wouldn’t be sold to Ambani, who owns India’s largest retail empire. When Biyani did exactly that after Covid-19 decimated operations, Amazon began proceedings against Future for breach of contract. The Reliance deal was in limbo — until Ambani decided he’d had enough.

The desperation was palpable in the messages Future sent Reliance. “Please confirm that there will not be any reduction in consideration payable,” said a March 2 missive from Future, as reported by Saritha Rai and P R Sanjai of Bloomberg News. Then, one paragraph later, “It is important for our stakeholders to have visibility on the final consideration.” Was Future Retail living under a rock? Its bailout by Ambani was always clearly a commercial deal, not a humanitarian mission. It was Future’s job to take care of its stakeholders, including creditors.

And where’s Amazon in all this? By now, it must have learned that taking on Ambani on his home turf was futile. Once the ground had shifted from under its feet, Amazon offered an out-of-court settlement over its funds infusion in Future Coupons Pvt. — which had been its first move in the drama. Amazon couldn’t have rescued Future Retail directly because India’s draconian foreign direct investment rules were in the way. So it did the next best thing: funding privately held Coupons and, thus, indirectly exercising some control over Retail.

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On March 11th, the Reserve Bank of India barred Paytm Payments Bank from onboarding new customers with immediate effect. Without elaborating, the RBI said it observed ‘material supervisory concerns’ in the bank.

The regulator also ordered a comprehensive audit of Paytm Payment Bank’s IT systems. Vijay Shekhar Sharma holds a 51% stake in the bank and One97 Communications 49%.The restrictions mean users cannot sign up for new Paytm wallets or Paytm Payments Bank savings and current accounts.Meanwhile, sources told Business Standard that RBI’s action was primarily owing to violations of KYC and anti-money laundering norms.The bank faced a similar action in 2018 after RBI found that it had violated KYC norms while onboarding users.Banking industry experts said the RBI had been strict in this regard in view of the Financial Action Task Force country review, which is coming up this year or early next year.Paytm has denied a news report from Bloomberg that said RBI found Paytm Payments Bank’s servers were sharing information with China-based entities that indirectly own a stake in the firm.In the past, RBI has levied monetary penalties on banks for non-compliance with KYC rules.

Earlier this month, three cooperatives faced penalties while in September 2021, Axis Bank was fined 25 lakh rupees.Recently, fraudsters used the PAN number of several people to avail instant loans from the Dhani app.

This has highlighted the need for stronger KYC checks.

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The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is a flagship smartphone with several strengths. It maxes out on almost all fronts — design, display, imaging, productivity features, ingress protection, charging technology, user experience, etc. The phone is, however, expensive. This brings us to the next best in the series, the Samsung Galaxy S22+. Priced Rs 84,999 onwards, the Galaxy S22+ has the same underpinning as that of the Ultra model but without fancy bells and whistles. That said, let’s take a look at how this premium smartphone fares in everyday use:

Design

The Galaxy S22+ is a lightweight smartphone made of premium material – aluminium body with Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection on the front and back. It comes in three colour options – phantom white, phantom black and green. The phantom black variant (review unit) has a frosted glass cover on the back. It is a flat glass cover with neat chamfered edges for comfortable ergonomics. Like the rear, the front side of the phone has flat glass on the display. That said, the phone looks uniform from all sides. However, it does not look much different from its predecessor, the Galaxy S21+ (review). Nevertheless, the Galaxy S22+ looks premium and boasts IP68-rated protection for water and dust resistance.

Display and audio

The Galaxy S22+ sports a 6.6-inch fullHD+ AMOLED screen of 120Hz variable refresh rate (48Hz – 120Hz). The screen dominates the entire front, leaving negligible bezels on the sides. Importantly, the bezels are uniform on all sides and the otherwise thick bottom bezel on many other smartphones is thin on the Galaxy S22+. As for the quality, the display delivers top-notch performance despite missing the fancy bells and whistles that are part of the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s display. It is bright, vivid and responsive. It remains legible under direct sunlight and is easy to read irrespective of light conditions.

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India will issue at least 240 billion rupees ($3.3 billion) in sovereign green bonds as the country marks a shift towards a low-carbon economy, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

The debut sale may take place in the first half of the fiscal year that starts on April 1, and a decision to sell more green debt will depend on the response to the initial issuance, the people said, requesting not to be identified as the information is private, said.

A finance ministry spokesman was not immediately available for a comment.

The South Asian country’s maiden foray into the green bond space comes as it plans to fund renewable energy projects that will help meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2070.

The government is expecting lower yields on green bonds, as otherwise it sees little purpose in issuing them, the officials said. The yield on the 10-year sovereign bond closed at 6.85% on Monday.

The planned issuance comes amid a global boom in sustainable investments. India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and plans to more than quadruple its renewable power generation capacity by 2030.

Indian renewable energy companies raised debt worth 17.6 billion rupees in February, the most in nearly a year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

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