Action against corrupt shouldn’t be seen as crackdown on India Inc: PM Modi

The target to nearly double the size of the economy to $5 trn is just a phase and the targets are bigger and higher, says Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met top industrialists including Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata for an ‘’extensive’’ interaction and later followed it up with an address meant to revive the business sentiments, sending out a positive message ahead of the Union Budget.

During his meeting with India Inc bigwigs during the day, the PM focused on issues facing the industry and measures needed to boost the economy. Speaking at the centenary celebrations of Kirloskar Brothers in the evening, he encouraged businesses to invest without fear, stressing that action against a few corrupt entities should not be seen as government crackdown on the corporate sector. The government will walk shoulder to shoulder with the industry, he added, in a bid to revive the animal spirit.

Besides Tata and Ambani, the meeting with the PM was attended by Sunil Mittal, N Chandrasekaran, Anand Mahindra, Sajjan Jindal, Gautam Adani, Venu Srinivasan, A M Naik and Anil Agarwal, among others. An official in the Prime Minister’s Office said, “The PM had an extensive interaction with leading business stalwarts to discuss ways to improve growth and job creation’’.

The Modi government will present its next budget on February 1 and Indian companies are expecting a cut in income tax rates to revive consumer demand. Rationalisation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) is also high on India Inc expectations from the Budget. Although the government has already taken a series of steps to boost the sentiments, including a corporate tax rate cut, companies remain hesitant about fresh investments due to low consumer demand…

World leaders come up short at UN summit as millions demand climate action

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are expected to submit new, and ideally more ambitious, climate action plans every five years. The next presentations are due in 2020

Millions of people in 170 countries took to the streets to protest. World leaders lined up at the United Nations to pledge action. A 16-year-old girl, close to tears, shamed them for robbing her of a future.

The pressure to act on climate change is mounting. Titans of global business and politics gathered in New York this week for a series of events, including the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, to acknowledge that more must be done — but fell short of saying exactly what will be done.

“Time is running out in the court of public opinion, because time is running out to address climate change,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told heads of state and business chiefs at the Global Business Forum on Wednesday. “It’s right for them to hold our feet to the fire.”

The stakes have indeed never been higher. Temperatures have already risen 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1880s. The world must limit that warming to no more than 2 degrees above Industrial Revolution levels, the UN has warned, to avoid the most catastrophic of droughts, floods, mass migrations and conflicts. “You can just feel the groundswell of popular sentiment, that the urgency of this is elevated,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive David Solomon said during the forum.

When asked whether there’s enough information out there to determine his own bank’s exposure to climate change, Solomon said, “We’re working on it. The answer is we’re working on it.” It was a response that underscored both the heightened awareness among leaders that they will be held responsible for global warming and the work that still lays ahead of them…