Ethanol to replace fossil fuels?
To counter rising petrol and diesel prices, the government has allowed selling ethanol directly as a standalone fuel. With this, compatible automobiles will be able to use ethanol as a primary fuel. Under the new notification, all the oil marketing companies will be able to sell bioethanol.
Ethanol is produced by microbial fermentation of the sugar. India is a large sugar producer. Hence, this policy offers great scope to increase the usage of ethanol as a replacement fuel. India is the second-largest sugar manufacturer in the world.
Under the National Policy on Biofuels -2018, the government has allowed the usage of ethanol-blended petrol. Under this policy, OMCs were given a target of blending 20% ethanol in petrol by 2030.
Accordingly, ethanol blending in petrol has increased from 1.53% in 2013-14, to 5% in 2019-20. In 2020-21, we get petrol with 6.9% ethanol blended in it.
New hiring picking up:
After a year of uncertainty and insecurity, India's job market is heading towards normalization. A Naukri survey revealed that there is an uptick in hiring activities. Around 51% of recruiters who participated in the survey confirmed that.
Lay-offs are also becoming a thing of the past. Only 1% of recruiters reported lay-offs in their organization- A drastic drop from 36% in the previous survey.
Hiring is a strong indicator of the level of activities in an economy. It points at positive corporate sentiments. When a company hires it directly reflects its growth aspiration and mere survival is not under consideration.
Tata Sons reigns supreme:
In a major setback to Cyrus Mistry and Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group, Supreme Court has upheld Tata Sons’ decision to sack Cyrus Mistry as the chairman of the group. It has also set aside NCLAT's judgment which had ordered to reinstate Cyrus Mistry as Chairman.
Chief Justice SA Bobde, reading the copy of the judgment said, all the questions of law are liable to be favored for the Tata group. The feud between Tata Sons and Cyrus Mistry began in 2016 after Mistry was removed as chairman of the conglomerate.
This is an outright victory for Tata Group. The court has even refused to entertain SP group’s plea for fair compensation of their equity shares in Tata Sons.
The court said it cannot adjudicate on fair compensation for Mistry-family controlled SP Group's stake in Tata Group companies. SP group holds 18.37% stake in Tata Sons. The court has left it to both parties to take legal route to resolve the issue.
