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Services industry must be competitive and not seek subsidies to boost exports, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on September 29.

“The focus must shift to strengthening ourselves to competing with the best in the world,” Goyal told industry at an event organised by the Services Exports Promotion Council. “If we look at global headwinds, we will have an opportunity to wedge our way.”

The government has gradually been removing all subsidies from export system as they make the country uncompetitive, holding it back, the minister said.

Services exports will rise going ahead but on their own competitive strength, Goyal said, adding that India could not keep helping uncompetitive industries.

India has again extended its foreign trade policy by six months from September end. The services industry was keenly waiting for a new policy, in anticipation of some benefits in lieu of the Service Exports from India Scheme.

Meanwhile, Goyal reiterated India’s ‘ambitious’ target for exports to rise to $2 trillion by 2030, including $1 trillion of services exports.

Services exports have the potential to grow at twice the pace of goods exports, he added.

Aircraft lessors based out of Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) are likely to lease out about 60 aircraft, including helicopters, by March 2023, said Dipesh Shah, executive director (Development), International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), on Wednesday.

"The aircraft leasing framework came out in 2021. And in just a few months after that, in August, the first aircraft was leased out from GIFT City in India," Shah said during a conference organised by aviation consultancy firm Ishka. The IFSCA regulates the financial institutions present in GIFT City.

In May 2022, the IFSCA further enabled the IFSC framework and now, there are 17 aircraft lessors in GIFT City, Shah said.

"They have already released 11 aircraft into India.

And in this financial year, by March 2023, we have been given projections by 17 lessors that 40-50 more aircraft will be leased from GIFT City," he added.

This means that by the end of March 2023, about 60 aircraft are expected to be leased out of GIFT City. However, none of these would be narrow-body aircraft like A320neo and B737 or wide-body ones like A350 and B787 that are mainly used by commercial airliners in India.

The 11 aircraft leased out of GIFT City to date include helicopters, regional aircraft, trainer aircraft and private jets.

Indian airlines have a combined fleet of around 700 planes, and over 85 per cent of them are on lease. A majority of lessors are based in Ireland due to its attractive tax policy and ease of doing business.

The Government of India and the Gujarat government have provided several incentives, such as tax holiday, no withholding tax on lease payments and interest payments, for the aircraft leasing companies to set up shop in GIFT City.

Shah said, "The aircraft leasing business has taken off from GIFT IFSC with a significant number of international and domestic lessors now setting up base here."

"The response to the regulatory and competitive tax framework has been very encouraging,” he added. “Going forward, GIFT IFSC would be contributing immensely to the aircraft leasing opportunities, which are emerging from India."

Every year September 29 is celebrated as World Heart Day, and the focus this year for the World Heart Foundation is ‘Use heart for every heart’.

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) are a leading cause of deaths in India, with some estimates showing one in four deaths attributed to CVDs. According to current estimates India has the CVD capital of the world. Stories of patients in their 30s and 40s succumbing to heart disease, unfortunately, have become frighteningly commonplace.

A Stich In Time…

When it comes to one’s health, especially heart health, the adage ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is apt. There is a tendency, at least among a few, to avoid regular health check-ups. When your car needs regular servicing/check-ups, how can it not apply to something way more complex such as the human body, especially the heart!

To understand its importance, picture this: the heart beats about 100,000 times in a day, and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times! This underscores the importance of regular check-ups.

Along with regular check-ups, it is important to follow a systematic, clean, and alert lifestyle. Mild to moderate exercise of about 30 minutes five times a week is recommended. Avoid sitting for prolonged periods of time — those in desk-facing jobs need to take regular, short breaks. To the extent possible, eating healthy is a must — avoid processed, sugars, oils, and animal fat-based foods. It is equally important to manage stress, and to clock at least seven hours of good sleep daily. Those who smoke tobacco-based products are at a higher risk of heart ailments, and this should be avoided.

Those who have co-morbidities, such as hypertension (blood pressure), high cholesterol, and/or diabetes need to be even more vigilant about heart-related problems.

That Discomfort

An extension of being alert is to know the symptoms associated with a cardiac arrest, and what to do in the event of a heart attack — because it could happen anywhere, anytime.

The symptoms include chest pain (discomfort). While it is classically described as crushing/pressure, these symptoms can be atypical, especially in women. Often times, it is just a sensation of shortness of breath, fatigue, or just not feeling right. Any discomfort that is present for a few minutes without resolving ought to be evaluated urgently in a hospital.

In the event of such discomfort, do not wait to report it to your doctor till the next appointment. This is an emergency. Take a full dose of aspirin, and get to the nearest hospital, preferably by ambulance. Get someone else to drive you if an ambulance is not available.

Doctor, How Did This Happen?

It is important to know what tests such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) and echocardiogram (Echo) mean. It is not unreasonable to get ECGs as we get older, and to be more aggressive than what the Western guidelines recommend, given our higher prevalence to heart ailments.

An ECG can pick up in certain cases if the patient has had heart attacks, and can be invaluable in picking up certain problems when one is having a chest pain. A normal ECG does not preclude having an undiagnosed blockage in the heart vessel (which could lead to a heart attack). Similarly, an Echo only tells you how the pump is, and how the valves are — it does not diagnose the blood vessel supply to the heart. A coronary CT or an angiogram is what shows the blood vessel supply to the heart.

All this does not mean that a layperson can turn to these tests and diagnose oneself. The key idea is that a regular check up with one’s healthcare provider or with a cardiologist might be warranted to truly optimise one’s cardiac health.

Tough Calls

It is important that any interventional procedure is only done when the potential benefit outweighs the risk of the procedure. The problem is that patients are often told it is better to not undergo any procedure because of the ‘risk’ involved. What is often unsaid is that there is bigger ‘risk’ in doing nothing! It is these higher-risk patients who often derive the most benefit from these procedures.

It is often the case with complex heart disease, and extensive blockages to have diverse recommendations based on the same test report. There is a widespread misconception that patients with far advanced CADs often derive no meaningful clinical benefit. Paradoxically, studies have suggested that for the high-risk coronary disease patients appropriate revascularisation (along with good medical therapy) can help improve both quality of life and reduce adverse clinical events.

Sometimes recommendations are based on outdated studies, or the cardiologist’s own procedural skillsets (or biases). Hence, unfortunately, patients are told what the doctor can do, and not what the patients need. A question that I have often asked when teaching complex angioplasty is: “If we as interventionalists knew getting into the procedure that we would not fail, which patients/procedures would we take on?”

Science On Our Side

Today the science in the procedures and the technology assisting the doctor has advanced tremendously that the success rate in complex operations (where there are 100 percent blockage in the blood vessels) is over 95 percent.

Complex and technically-demanding procedures such as retrograde and antegrade dissections can be done today. Experts who have done hundreds, if not thousands of these procedures, are comfortable switching between various strategies even during a procedure, thereby leading to a high success rate.

Coronary artery disease should not continue to be the top ailment. A healthy lifestyle, and preventive measures can significantly reduce the risks that lead to heart problems. Do not be afraid to ask questions to your heart doctor both about the procedure, as well as the doctor’s qualifications. Do not ignore symptoms at any point of time. Finally, any blockage can be treated/opened — do not let anyone tell you there are no options.

This World Heart Day let’s take a decision to increase our awareness, for being aware is a strong first step.

Every year September 29 is celebrated as World Heart Day, and the focus this year for the World Heart Foundation is ‘Use heart for every heart’.

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) are a leading cause of deaths in India, with some estimates showing one in four deaths attributed to CVDs. According to current estimates India has the CVD capital of the world. Stories of patients in their 30s and 40s succumbing to heart disease, unfortunately, have become frighteningly commonplace.

A Stich In Time…

When it comes to one’s health, especially heart health, the adage ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ is apt. There is a tendency, at least among a few, to avoid regular health check-ups. When your car needs regular servicing/check-ups, how can it not apply to something way more complex such as the human body, especially the heart!

To understand its importance, picture this: the heart beats about 100,000 times in a day, and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times! This underscores the importance of regular check-ups.

Along with regular check-ups, it is important to follow a systematic, clean, and alert lifestyle. Mild to moderate exercise of about 30 minutes five times a week is recommended. Avoid sitting for prolonged periods of time — those in desk-facing jobs need to take regular, short breaks. To the extent possible, eating healthy is a must — avoid processed, sugars, oils, and animal fat-based foods. It is equally important to manage stress, and to clock at least seven hours of good sleep daily. Those who smoke tobacco-based products are at a higher risk of heart ailments, and this should be avoided.

Those who have co-morbidities, such as hypertension (blood pressure), high cholesterol, and/or diabetes need to be even more vigilant about heart-related problems.

That Discomfort

An extension of being alert is to know the symptoms associated with a cardiac arrest, and what to do in the event of a heart attack — because it could happen anywhere, anytime.

The symptoms include chest pain (discomfort). While it is classically described as crushing/pressure, these symptoms can be atypical, especially in women. Often times, it is just a sensation of shortness of breath, fatigue, or just not feeling right. Any discomfort that is present for a few minutes without resolving ought to be evaluated urgently in a hospital.

In the event of such discomfort, do not wait to report it to your doctor till the next appointment. This is an emergency. Take a full dose of aspirin, and get to the nearest hospital, preferably by ambulance. Get someone else to drive you if an ambulance is not available.

Doctor, How Did This Happen?

It is important to know what tests such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) and echocardiogram (Echo) mean. It is not unreasonable to get ECGs as we get older, and to be more aggressive than what the Western guidelines recommend, given our higher prevalence to heart ailments.

An ECG can pick up in certain cases if the patient has had heart attacks, and can be invaluable in picking up certain problems when one is having a chest pain. A normal ECG does not preclude having an undiagnosed blockage in the heart vessel (which could lead to a heart attack). Similarly, an Echo only tells you how the pump is, and how the valves are — it does not diagnose the blood vessel supply to the heart. A coronary CT or an angiogram is what shows the blood vessel supply to the heart.

All this does not mean that a layperson can turn to these tests and diagnose oneself. The key idea is that a regular check up with one’s healthcare provider or with a cardiologist might be warranted to truly optimise one’s cardiac health.

Tough Calls

It is important that any interventional procedure is only done when the potential benefit outweighs the risk of the procedure. The problem is that patients are often told it is better to not undergo any procedure because of the ‘risk’ involved. What is often unsaid is that there is bigger ‘risk’ in doing nothing! It is these higher-risk patients who often derive the most benefit from these procedures.

It is often the case with complex heart disease, and extensive blockages to have diverse recommendations based on the same test report. There is a widespread misconception that patients with far advanced CADs often derive no meaningful clinical benefit. Paradoxically, studies have suggested that for the high-risk coronary disease patients appropriate revascularisation (along with good medical therapy) can help improve both quality of life and reduce adverse clinical events.

Sometimes recommendations are based on outdated studies, or the cardiologist’s own procedural skillsets (or biases). Hence, unfortunately, patients are told what the doctor can do, and not what the patients need. A question that I have often asked when teaching complex angioplasty is: “If we as interventionalists knew getting into the procedure that we would not fail, which patients/procedures would we take on?”

Science On Our Side

Today the science in the procedures and the technology assisting the doctor has advanced tremendously that the success rate in complex operations (where there are 100 percent blockage in the blood vessels) is over 95 percent.

Complex and technically-demanding procedures such as retrograde and antegrade dissections can be done today. Experts who have done hundreds, if not thousands of these procedures, are comfortable switching between various strategies even during a procedure, thereby leading to a high success rate.

Coronary artery disease should not continue to be the top ailment. A healthy lifestyle, and preventive measures can significantly reduce the risks that lead to heart problems. Do not be afraid to ask questions to your heart doctor both about the procedure, as well as the doctor’s qualifications. Do not ignore symptoms at any point of time. Finally, any blockage can be treated/opened — do not let anyone tell you there are no options.

This World Heart Day let’s take a decision to increase our awareness, for being aware is a strong first step.

In mid-September, two workers fell to their death while working on a lift installation at a construction site. Earlier, seven workers were killed when a scaffolding fell at a construction site in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The Gurugram Police released a report that at least 20 construction workers in the city have lost their lives in the city till July this year. Similar accidents have been reported from Chennai as well. The common thread in all these is the lack of safety measures that might have prevented these needless accidents.

A global study in 2015 found that the Indian construction workforce constitutes 7.5 percent of the global workforce, but accounts for 16.5 percent of the fatal global occupational accidents. It also found that about 40 percent of the fatalities were due to falls, over 8 percent were struck by objects, and about 8.5 percent by electrocution. Clearly, a little precaution could have reduced the fatalities.

Subsequently, safety became a very important chapter of the National Building Code (NBC). NBC Vice Chairman V Suresh told this author that the NBC 2016 provisions were built around structural, health, fire, construction, public, and life safety. The NBC has a very comprehensive coverage in Part 2 (Administration on Regulatory Responsibilities), and Part 7 (Construction Management Practices and Safety ...for Construction and Demolition).

Why then do construction sites in India remain one of the riskiest in the world?

Construction activities have grown by 80 percent in the past four years; from Rs 7.8 crore in 2013 to Rs 14,000 crore in 2022. With an accident rate of 165 out of every 1,000 workers in India injured, it is important to address this issue urgently.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) possibly does not get enough credit for the kind of challenges it faces, both internal and external. The RBI is encumbered with a rather thankless task of maintaining fiscal stability while ensuring a fertile environment for growth. Yet, it has done a stellar job, particularly over the last couple of years in the wake of the global pandemic, and is likely to again be the bearer of firewood, as we brace for economic winter.

The global economy may soon be about to see a third phase of contraction since the 2009 Great Financial Crisis (GFC), something that even US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell admitted to be a possibility given the pace of rate hikes that the Fed has embarked upon. The US markets have been in a heightened state of activity, with the Fed following through, for now, with its narrative of tightening the liquidity conditions through quantitative tightening (QT, or the process of sucking excess liquidity from the system) and with a hike to the Fed funds rate.

The interconnectedness of the global economy, underpinned by the reserve currency status of the US Dollar, has forced central banks around the world to follow suit, irrespective of the state of their economies. While curtailing inflation has been a priority across the globe, many tend to forget that this inflation has been imported from the US on account of the latter’s loose monetary policies of the last decade.

Policy Moves

The last Federal Open Market Committee (or FOMC) meeting saw Powell show resolve in increasing rates to tame inflation, with an increase in the benchmark rate to a 3-3.25 percent range, the highest since 2008.

While India has not been immune in the past to the US monetary policy movements, 2022 has been a relative period of quiet. The relative resilience of the Indian Rupee and by corollary the economy has been attributed to better access, demographic dividend, start-ups, and government policies. While all these factors have contributed, the role of the RBI policy stance goes largely underappreciated.

The RBI approach to rate hikes is a great example to buttress the above point. The RBI has raised the repo rate by 140 bps, since the beginning of 2022, on a base of 4 percent. In sharp contrast to the US Fed raising its target rate by 3 percent on a base of near zero, the RBI’s repo rate hike trajectory has been a lot less steep.

Instead of trying to follow the US Fed’s cue on rate hikes, the RBI has taken a slightly different course, and paced the hikes to focus on the challenges of the Indian economy. While the Fed’s need to rein in debt is evident, the data of the last two decades points towards the futility of this exercise.For every one percent rise in the interest rates, the interest burden will shave off nearly 4 percent from the US GDP, which emboldens Powell’s assertion about a likely recession.

Also, one cannot ignore the six-to-nine-month lag in monetary policy transmission, and the cascading effect it will have on the economy. While the US is almost certain to see a contraction as large hikes ripple through the economy at a record pace, in India’s case, the impact on growth trajectory is likely to be less onerous. Furthermore, a near normal monsoon, and the upcoming festival season without the COVID-19 restrictions of the last couple of years should further bolster the sentiment.

While the Fed is trying to make the world believe that QT has set in, the sustained level of the Fed balance sheet along will increasing rates will only add to the interest burden of the US.

As the RBI’s monetary policy committee meets from September 28, the committee will be looking at inflation, considering seasonally tighter monetary conditions in September and the impact of the lag in policy transmission while hiking rates. The current rupee depreciation may be less of a concern if the imminent US Fed rate cut cycle’s impact on the calendar year-end exchange rates is considered.

Considering where the US mortgage rates are, the smart money should be lining up to enter India, which, while benefitting the Indian markets, will also possibly contribute to the imported inflation. Once again, we will expect another measured intervention from the ever-reliable RBI.

In a bid to meet the requirements of the liberalised geospatial data regime that was released last year, the central government has released a list of economic- and national security-related strategic and sensitive locations that cannot be mapped and exported, reported BusinessLine on Tuesday.

These sensitive locations include bulk oil and gas depots, and nuclear and military installations among others.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in a notification released on Friday said, “The export of maps and geospatial data with sensitive attributes will be restricted.”

The central department, which comes under the Finance Ministry, said, the transgression of the threshold values the Department of Science and Technology had mentioned in its guideline issued on February 15, 2021, will not be allowed for mapping and collection of location data of the identified installations and facilities, reported BusinessLine.

“For the maintenance of the security of India, it is necessary so to do, hereby prohibits the export of Maps and Geospatial data of spatial accuracy and value finer than the threshold values as specified in Annexure-I,” the department stated.

The threshold values, as per the notification, are: “On-site spatial accuracy - one meter for horizontal or planimetry and three meters for vertical or elevation,” and “gravity anomaly - one milli-gal”. It further added the threshold value in the case of “vertical accuracy of bathymetric data ( study of underwater depth) in territorial waters - ten meters for up to five hundred meters from the shore-line and one hundred meters beyond that”, reported BusinessLine.

The government tagged 52 security installations and secured facilities as 'sensitive attributes' and added that each carries 'stipulated regulations' to prohibit them from mapping and location data sampling.

The directive has listed out 51 “security installations/ features and secured facilities” that have been tagged as “sensitive attributes” with each carrying “stipulated regulations” to prohibit them from mapping and location data sampling.

The notification, for instance, added that all missile test ranges, be it for launch and firing, will 'not to be labelled in geospatial data and map.'

Other locations that are prohibited to be labelled in geospatial data and maps are: oil bulk depots/ storage tanks; LPG/ LNG storage area/tanks; operational control rooms of oil and gas terminals; seizing up of glacier lake depth; all nuclear installations in India; the nation's intelligence agencies and its governance architecture; the space centre and space port; international boundaries with neighbouring countries, reported BusinessLine.

The central intelligence agencies and governance architecture that are barred from mapping include Aviation Research Centre (ARC), Intelligence Bureau (1B), National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), and Cabinet Secretariat.