Rajeev Jhawar - Sustainable and resilient growth is the current focus of Usha Martin Limited

Over the last 60 years, Usha Martin Limited have been able to establish themselves as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wire rope. Their multi-units and diversified portfolio of products, coupled with superior quality products and services have enabled them to emerge as a globally trusted brand. Rajeev Jhawar led Usha Martin currently focuses on building pathways to sustainable growth. In order to continue to be sustainable, resilient and future ready, Usha Martin is preparing plans for augmenting capacity and capability building.

Rajeev Jhawar

Post divestment of its Steel Business Undertaking, Usha Martin has improved with renewed vigor with its focus on capability building, debottlenecking of constraints and increase in productivity of key products to remain agile and competitive. There is focused effort for planned capability building by adding new machines for producing high end ropes and value-added products. Rajeev Jhawar Usha Martin has also cautioned all to remain agile and responsive to the changing market needs and focus on increasing market share in high contributory products.

Usha Martin Group is a continuously evolving organization and global leader in finding innovative solutions for industry-wide problems. Their commitment is to ensure that their wide range of products are designed towards the highest quality, whereas safety, performance and sustainability is the constant focus. The market leader in India in wire ropes, Usha Martin has the capacity to produce a wide range — from 4.8 mm to 130 mm in diameter — of wire ropes. Rajeev is bullish about the segment and expects oil & gas, ports and shipping to be the growth drivers. On a consolidated basis, 35–40 per cent of Usha Martin’s revenue is from exports to Europe, South East Asia, the US and the Scandinavian countries.

Further, the plans for addition of capacity would focus mainly upon debottlenecking constraint areas and increase productivity of key products. With these plans in hand, Rajeev Jhawar Usha Martin remains confident of making deeper inroads into international markets with high contributory products. It is also expected that with steady infrastructure spending by the Indian government, specialty products used in construction and infrastructural sector may become one of the key growth drivers for the company in the future years. The future outlook is expected to be a mixed bag of both opportunities and challenges with the key being the company’s adaptability and proactive adjustments to an ever-changing macro-economic environment, Rajeev Jhawar hopes.

Richest Russian of Silicon Valley gives up citizenship after war

Yuri Milner, wealthiest man in Russia’s Silicon Valley, said on Monday that he had renounced his Russian citizenship.

Yuri Milner, Silicon Valley’s wealthiest Russian, said on Monday that he had renounced his Russian citizenship.

Milner completed the process in August, according to a post on his venture firm DST Global’s website, which addresses its “background in relation to Russia” — a topic that’s become controversial following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a tweet, Milner said that he and his family “left Russia for good” in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea. When Russia attacked Ukraine earlier this year, DST Global released a statement condemning “Russia’s war against Ukraine, its sovereign neighbor,” and his foundation spoke out against “unprovoked and brutal assaults against the civilian population.” Milner said he stood behind those statements.

Milner was born in Moscow and was the most prominent tech leader to seek to distance his firm from Russia as Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion drew condemnation and sanctions from Western governments. Milner’s ties to the country sparked some consternation in Silicon Valley, where he is a longtime fixture. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates Milner’s wealth at about $3.5 billion. DST Global made lucrative investments in tech giants including Facebook, now Meta Platforms Inc., and Twitter Inc.

DST Global drew scrutiny for taking Russian funds from a state-controlled bank and other Russian backers in 2011. DST hasn’t taken any money from Russia since that time, nor has it made any investments in the country, Milner told Bloomberg in March. In 2011, Vladimir Putin was not the president and it appeared to be a sunnier time for US-Russia relations.

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek in March, Milner said, “I cannot change the fact I was born in Russia. I cannot change the fact we had some Russian funds.”

Milner has a house in Los Altos, California, which he purchased in 2011 for $100 million. He holds an O-1 visa in the US, a type popular with entrepreneurs and reserved for people of “extraordinary ability.”

Nirmala Sitharaman's prediction for India's economy as IMF cuts global growth

Nirmala Sitharaman said growth will be among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi government and attention will be paid to sustaining the momentum that the Indian economy has got coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, on Tuesday forecasted India’s growth rate to be around 7 per cent this financial year.

Sitharaman said growth will be among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi government and attention will be paid to sustaining the momentum that the Indian economy has got coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her statement comes even as the IMF, in its latest projection, predicted India’s GDP growth to be 6.8 per cent — down from a January projection of 8.2 per cent and in July estimate of 7.4 per cent. However, despite the slowdown, India would remain the fastest-growing major economy.

The IMF said on Tuesday global growth is expected to slow further next year, downgrading its forecasts as countries grapple with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spiraling cost-of-living and economic downturns.

The world economy has been dealt multiple blows, with the war in Ukraine driving up food and energy prices following the coronavirus outbreak, while soaring costs and rising interest rates threaten to reverberate around the globe.

“I am aware that growth forecasts around the world are being revised lower. We expect India’s growth rate to be around 7 per cent this financial year. More importantly, I am confident of India’s relative and absolute growth performance in the rest of the decade,” she said addressing a gathering in Washington.

Sitharaman, however, observed that the Indian economy is not exempt from the impact of the world economy. “No economy is,” she said.

“After the unprecedented shock of the pandemic, came the conflict in Europe with its implications for energy, fertiliser and food prices. Now, synchronised global monetary policy is tightening in its wake. So, naturally, growth projections have been revised lower for many countries, including India. This triple shock has made growth and inflation a double-edged sword,” Sitharaman said.

After the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February 2022, there was a sharp increase in food and energy prices. India had to ensure that the rising cost of living did not lead to lower consumption through erosion of purchasing power.

“We addressed these multiple and complex challenges through a variety of interventions. One, India ramped up its vaccine production and vaccination. India has administered over 2 billion doses of vaccine produced domestically. Two, India’s digital infrastructure ensured the delivery of targeted relief Third, in 2022, after the conflict erupted in Europe, we ensured adequate availability of food and fuel domestically, lowered import duties on edible oil and cut excise duties on petrol and diesel. The central bank has acted swiftly to ensure that inflation did not get out of hand and that currency depreciation was neither rapid nor significant enough to lead to a loss of confidence,” the minister said.

Sitharaman said India is discussing with different countries to make Rupay acceptable in their nations.

“Not just that, the UPI (Unified Payments Interface), the BHIM app, and NCPI (the National Payments Corporation of India) are all now being worked in such a way that their systems in their respective country, however, robust or otherwise can talk to our system and the inter-operability itself will give strength for Indians expertise in those countries,” she said.