The Shree Jagannath Temple managing committee has approved Rs. 190 crore as annual budget for the 12th century shrine for the 2021-22 fiscal. It plans to generate revenue of Rs 106 crore from earnings, and income of around Rs. 37 crore from interest. It pegs the budgetary expenditure at Rs. 85 crore.

Amazon has infused Rs. 1,000 crore into its payments unit in India, Amazon Pay. The fresh infusion is expected to help the company compete more aggressively with rivals like PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm. The shares were allotted to Amazon Corporate Holdings Pvt Ltd and Amazon.com.incs Ltd.

Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce firm, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Union Ministry of Rural Development for its Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM), to help empower local businesses and self-help groups (SHGs) – especially those led by women.

The Indian government, the Meghalaya government and the World Bank have signed a $40 million health project for Meghalaya. The project will seek to improve the quality of health services and strengthen the state’s capacity to handle future health emergencies, including Covid. All 11 districts of Meghalaya will benefit from the project.

The Assam government has launched the process of mapping 700-odd villages through drones, which in future could help in demarcating borders with other states in the region. There are around 22,724 villages in Assam, of which 700 are unmapped, posing hurdles in executing government projects and buying and selling land.

Thales, the French defence and aerospace company, plans to invest a billion euros ($1.2 billion) in India’s drone space. A significant part of the of this investment will go towards manufacturing traffic management drones and rogue-countering drones which will allow authorities to detect and verify a drone’s registration number, identify its pilot, etc.

Punjab has become a preferred investment destination with investments of Rs. 99,000 crore in various sectors from across the globe in the past four and a half years, a state minister said. The sectors include bicycle, agriculture and food processing, logistics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles and alloy and steel.

Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors is in talks with global institutional investors including pension and sovereign funds to set up three platforms worth over $1.5 billion for joint investments in commercial properties, data centres and student housing across India. Each of these joint investment platforms will have equity funding of $500 million.

JSW Steel’s subsidiary, JSW Steel (USA) Inc, has commenced the Phase II upgrade of its plate mill facility located at Baytown in Texas, USA. The project, expected to be completed by 2023. It involves addition of a 4-Hi finishing mill, pre-leveler, accelerated cooling system/direct quench, cooling beds and new roll shop.