Nasscom, the trade association for IT services and business process management companies, has made its pick of the top ten most innovative technology products and services startups for the year 2019, seeking out firms that have the potential to scale at speed. The ten startups, which have been picked from Nasscom’s Emerge 50 awards finalists, are from a wide range of sectors including Software as a Service, retail technology, healthcare, cyber security, internet of things etc.

CEN and CENELEC held the high-level 1- day Standards + Innovation Conference ‘Boosting Innovation Through Standards’ with the aim of fostering the market uptake of innovation and research outcomes by using standardization as an enabler. Leading experts in innovation and standardization presented their experiences in linking the two worlds and highlighted how each one is benefiting from the other. Know more about the conference and how standards can boost innovation thanks to the new dedicated webpage.

Discover how European standards contribute to the success of research and innovation activities, facilitating market uptake, finding partners (e.g. industry, policy, consumer) for your activities, using existing knowledge, transferring know-how or easing the access to financial resources.

Prime Minister has given ex-post facto approval to the MoU between India and Switzerland on Technical Cooperation in the field of Climate Change and Environment. The MoU was signed in Switzerland on 13th Sept, 2019.

The discussions in Joint Working Group focused on Freight and Passenger Cars, Railway Electrification Equipment, Multimodal transport and tunneling technology. 

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel visited India and list of MoUs/Agreements signed during her visit is available.

As part of its obligations & commitment to reduce carbon footprints, Indian Railways is taking several initiatives in the field of Green Energy to achieve the same. Complete electrification of Railway network has been approved by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs which will reduce its carbon footprint and will also improve its finances through a reduction in fuel cost. In line with this, a MoU was signed between the Ministry of Railways, & Department for International Development, the United Kingdom on 2nd Dec 2019 for collaboration on energy and sustainability.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $250 million as part of an assistance package to Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a public sector energy service company, to expand energy efficiency investments in India. India has seen strong economic expansion over the last decade and a half, a period in which carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion have outpaced economic growth, reaching more than 2 billion tons in 2016, compared to 890,000 tons in 2000. The country is still largely dependent on fossil fuels, particularly coal power.

The govt.  has offered to set up an exclusive enclave for Swedish companies and expatriates, complete with hospitals and educational institutions, as it seeks to woo investors from the European nation to boost the Make-in-India and start-up initiatives. The issue was discussed during the India-Sweden joint economic commission meeting, with commerce and industry minister suggesting the government was willing to offer land for setting up an “Investment Enclave” with plug-and-play infrastructure.

India and the Europe 29 group of Central, Northern and East European countries hold growth potential in areas such as AI, new age technologies, new manufacturing technologies and can be the beacons of growth in a slowing world,” Commerce & Industry Minister said. “The two regions have a lot of complementarities in areas such as smart cities, clean and renewable energy, start-ups, IT and ITES and can develop a strong economic relationship with each other,” he said at the India-Europe 29 Business Forum.

India took a huge stride in improving its ease of doing business, climbing 14 notches to clinch 63rd place in the list of 190 countries, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business Report, (DBR) 2020. India also remained among the world’s top 10 improvers for the third consecutive year. China too made it to the list. India’s ranking has improved 79 places in the past six years from 142 in 2014.