If 2020 was the year when Jio Platforms filled its war chest through a series of funding rounds from several international investors, 2021 would be the year that would see the company double down on its promise of powering India’s move to a truly digital economy. Jio would do this through its suite of tech products, offering solutions across education, healthcare, ecommerce and entertainment.

India, which appears to have been pushed back to being the world's sixth-biggest economy in 2020, will again overtake the UK to become the fifth largest in 2025 and race to the third spot by 2030, a think tank said on Saturday. India had overtaken the UK in 2019 to become the fifth-largest economy in the world but has been relegated to 6th spot in 2020.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Saturday appointed Taruvai Subayya Krishnamurthy as ‘observer’ in e-voting of unitholders of six schemes of Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund. Taruvai Subayya Krishnamurthy is former Chief Election Commissioner of India and will be overseeing the e-voting process, scheduled between 26-29 December.

JA Solar, a leading manufacturer of high-performance solar products, and Redington, one of the leading distributors of PV products today announced that they entered into a distribution agreement to further strengthen their cooperation to promote the development of rooftop PV projects in India. India is one of the world's largest PV markets, and the sector is growing steadily in recent years.

Realty major DLF's rental arm DCCDL has entered into an agreement to acquire the stake of US-based Hines in a premium commercial project, ‘One Horizon Center’ in Gurugram for Rs 780 cr. Hines has around nearly 52 per cent stake in the One Horizon Centre while the rest is with DCCDL. Post-acquisition, the DCCDL platform will have about 34 million sq ft of an operational rental portfolio.

MediaTek surpassed Qualcomm to become the world’s biggest smartphone chipset vendor in Q3 2020 in terms of market share with a stake of 31%. The smartphone segment bounced back in the 3rd quarter, and with it, MediaTek surpassed giant Qualcomm. Counterpoint attributed this growth to MediaTek’s strong performance in the price band of $100 to $250 and to the growth in key regions including India.

State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) is set to diversify into non-coal mining areas and make major investments in clean technology in 2021 after the demand for the dry fuel remained muted for most of this year amid the coronavirus pandemic impacting economic activities. Due to the slump in coal demand, the government opened up the country's mining sector for private players by auctioning 19 blocks.

While a majority of sectors have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, raw diamond cutting and polishing units in and around Surat city of Gujarat are abuzz with activities after a prolonged lull. Media reports say that India is the world’s largest cutting and polishing centre of rough diamonds, and 14 out of every 15 rough diamonds in the world are polished there.

India is set to end the year with five companies valued at more than ₹5 trillion each as foreign investors pumped a record $18.5 billion into Indian stocks in the December quarter, boosting valuations. Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Infosys Ltd entered the ₹5 trillion market capitalization club this year, joining Reliance Industries Ltd, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and HDFC Bank Ltd.

Around one-third of Indian chief marketing officers (CMOs) participated in a survey said they are hopeful of V-shaped recovery of their industries on the back of performance of the agriculture sector and increasing demand of the FMCG products, according to a report. About 23% of them expect the economy to likely rebound in 2 years, said the report by Octane Research conducted with over 250 CMOs.

ANZ India Business Chamber (ANZIBC) is a leading non-profit organisation working closely with the business community, government and other trade promotion councils at international level and primarily focusing on the promotion of Indo-Australian trade. It signed an MoU with Pune-based SpringUp Capital to facilitate investments and business for their members to grow in the international market.

The country's foreign exchange reserves surged by $2.563 billion to touch a record high of $581.131 billion in the week to December 18, RBI data showed. In the previous week, the reserves had declined by $778 million to $578.568 billion. In the reporting week, the increase in reserves was due to a rise in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) rolled out a policy to help employees cope with domestic abuse, underscoring how India Inc. is expanding the scope of its human resource policies to make them worker-friendly. Employees who are subject to, or are survivors of, acts of physical or emotional abuse outside the workplace can access urgent medical care and psychological counselling for themselves.

Axis Bank, Netflix India, Zomato, Cred and Star Sports, among others, figure in a Twitter list of the year’s most creative and engaging brand campaigns released on Friday. Companies were selected for running campaigns to launch products, engage with users or motivate them to support small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lenders to Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) are set to elect the new owner of the bankrupt home financier on January 14-15, after a three-week long voting process that will likely begin this weekend, people involved in the process said. After two days of marathon meetings that ended on Friday evening, the lenders decided to put the proposals up for voting.