Chandrababu Naidu invites Narendra Modi for Amaravati groundbreaking ceremony
advertisementAfter a period of stalled progress between 2019 and 2024, Naidu has revived the Amaravati city project, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh on the banks of the Krishna River, after returning to power in the state in 2024.The master plan, designed by UK-based Foster and Partners, covers 217.23 sq km between Vijayawada and Guntur. Officials said Amaravati is expected to house 3.5 million people, create 1.5 million jobs, and reach a GDP of USD 35 billion by 2050.
Naidu aims to build a world-class, inclusive and modern urban hub inspired by global cities such as Amsterdam, Singapore, and Tokyo, sources said.The estimated budget for Amaravati's development works as arrived in 2024 was about Rs 64,910 crore, with Phase-1 of the project to be completed over the next three years, said officials. Of the project cost, the Centre committed Rs 15,000 crore in financial assistance in 2024 and facilitated World Bank and Asian Development Bank support to the tune of USD 800 million each.advertisementThe Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) is planning large-scale branding campaigns to attract investors. Public-private partnerships are being promoted, and a special purpose vehicle (SPV) is being set up to fill funding gaps.In his meeting with Modi, Naidu also expressed solidarity with the Centre's fight against terrorism in the backdrop of the Pahalgam terror attack.Must Watch
IN THIS STORY#Andhra Pradesh
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The Hindu
2 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Not immediately worried about China constructing dam on Brahmaputra: Assam CM Himanta
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday (July 21, 2025) tried to alleviate fears on China's move to construct the world's largest dam on Brahmaputra and said he does not foresee any immediate cause of worry as the river gets most of its waters from Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in Guwahati, Mr. Sarma said the exact impact of the massive dam, the construction of which began last week, is not properly known as different theories are being floated and he hoped that the Centre must be in touch with China on the matter. China on Saturday (July 19, 2025) formally started the construction of a $167.8 billion dam over the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, close to the border with India in Arunachal Pradesh. "I am not immediately worried because Brahmaputra is a mighty river and it is not dependent on a single source (of water)," Mr. Sarma told reporters here. When asked about the possible downstream impact of the dam on Assam, he said it is not yet known whether it will be good or bad. "Brahmaputra gets most of its waters from Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, and the rainwater and other forms of water from our state itself," he added. The CM further said that there are two scientific views floated regarding the dam by China. "First — if Brahmaputra's flow is disturbed by China, then there may be less water and consequently biodiversity will be affected. But there is also a counter view that if less water comes, it will also act as a flood cushioning. So, I don't know which one is correct," he added. Mr. Sarma opined that the Centre is a better judge on this topic, and it will take a call on this. "I am sure that they (Centre) must already be having a discussion with China or will have a discussion with the neighbouring country," he added. The dam is being built at a massive gorge in the Himalayan reaches, where the Brahmaputra makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh, and then to Assam and Bangladesh. According to reports, the size of the project would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet, including China's own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world so far. The mammoth dam will be built in one of the rainiest parts and the project site is located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur. Brahmaputra flows across the Tibetan plateau, carving out the deepest canyon on Earth. The Tibetan plateau, regarded as the roof of the world, frequently experiences earthquakes as it is located over the tectonic plates. The hydropower project, regarded as the biggest infrastructure project in the world, raised concerns in the lower riparian countries — India and Bangladesh. The dam, besides empowering China to control the water flow, could also enable Beijing to release large amounts of water, flooding border areas in times of hostilities. India, too, is building a dam over the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh. On July 19, Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced the start of the construction of the dam at a groundbreaking ceremony in the lower reaches of the Brahmaputra River, locally known as Yarlung Zangbo, at Nyingchi City. The project will consist of five cascade hydropower stations, with a total investment estimated at around 1.2 trillion Yuan (about $167.8 billion). According to a 2023 report, the hydropower station is expected to generate more than 300 billion kWh of electricity each year, enough to meet the annual needs of over 300 million people. India and China established the Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) in 2006 to discuss various issues related to trans-border rivers, under which China provides India with hydrological information on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers during the flood seasons. Data sharing of trans-border rivers figured in the talks between Indian and Chinese Special Representatives (SRs) for the border question — NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, respectively — held here on December 18 last year.
Mint
2 minutes ago
- Mint
How China curbed its oil addiction—and blunted a US pressure point
China's thirst for oil drove global demand for decades. Now a government campaign to curb that addiction is nearing a milestone, with national consumption expected to peak by 2027, then begin to fall. Chinese officials have long worried that the U.S. and its allies could hamstring the nation's economy by choking off its supply of foreign oil. So China has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into weaning itself off the imported stuff by reviving domestic production and swiftly building the world's leading electric-vehicle industry. 'The energy rice bowl must be held in our own hands," Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said. Across China, fleets of gas-guzzling Volkswagen and Hyundai taxicabs are being replaced by electric models designed and produced locally. Last year, nearly half of passenger vehicles sold in the country were either all-electrics or plug-in hybrids, compared with 6% in 2020. In a remote corner of China called the 'sea of death" for its harsh conditions, oil workers are trying to coax more crude out of the ground by drilling holes as deep as Mt. Everest is high. State-owned PetroChina reported $38 billion of capital expenditures last year, nearly as much as Exxon Mobil's and Chevron's combined. China boosted oil output by 13% from 2018 to 2024, to around 4.3 million barrels a day. Crude imports fell nearly 2% last year, though they have rebounded slightly this year as some Chinese companies built stockpiles. China's biggest state oil companies and the International Energy Agency all forecast that China's demand for oil will likely peak within two years, while gasoline and diesel demand has already topped out. China won't stop importing oil. It still brings in roughly 11 million barrels a day, about 70% of what it consumes, up from less than three million a day 20 years ago. And overall oil consumption is likely to decline only gradually as China's demand for oil to make petrochemicals continues to grow. Nevertheless, Xi's campaign will have ramifications for global energy markets, with billions of dollars of Chinese oil imports projected to vanish in coming years. In June, the IEA, a Paris-based organization that tracks global oil consumption, slashed its forecast for Chinese demand in the 2028-30 period by more than one million barrels a day from its year-earlier prediction. Many oil-exporting nations are eager to retain a slice of China's market. Russia has been selling oil to China at a discount to ensure Beijing keeps buying. Saudi Arabia has invested in Chinese refineries to shore up long-term contracts to supply those facilities with oil. During a trip to Beijing in March, Saudi Aramco's chief executive lavished praise on China, telling Xi that China was 'inspirational and admirable" and 'an oasis of certainty" in an unpredictable world. The campaign has been costly for China's government. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington pegged Chinese government support for electric vehicles at $231 billion from 2009 to 2023. Many of the nation's electric-vehicle makers are unprofitable. Overproduction has spurred a brutal price war at home, and rising EV exports that have fueled trade tensions. In late 2013, when China overtook the U.S. as the world's biggest net oil importer, its reliance on foreign crude looked set to grow unchecked, accounting for about half of global demand growth over the prior decade. Soon after, Xi gathered his economic team and told them China needed an energy 'revolution" to protect national security. Beijing was leery of relying too much on Middle Eastern oil, which had entangled the U.S. in that region's conflicts for decades. Xi also was facing domestic discontent over choking smog, attributable in part to the surging numbers of cars on China's roads. During the first Trump administration, as relations between the two nations deteriorated, Chinese government strategists grew concerned about the nation's reliance on the Strait of Malacca. Most of the ships importing oil and gas to China go through that narrow passage near Singapore, leaving them susceptible to intercept by the U.S. Navy in the event of a conflict. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Paul Dabbar has estimated that if China lost access to all seaborne oil-and-gas imports, its economy could shrink by as much as 17%. Xi's call for action ignited a flurry of government activity to boost its nascent EV industry. Not only would EVs help slash oil demand, they offered China a chance to leapfrog automakers in the U.S. and elsewhere after years of struggling to catch up to them in producing internal-combustion engines. To reduce the cost of EVs, Beijing exempted them from a 10% sales tax—a program estimated to have cost more than $100 billion since 2018. Nearly 500 companies sought to make EVs. Some were founded by executives with little experience running car companies, who burned through government money before flopping. By 2019, EVs and plug-in hybrids accounted for only a fraction of the market, with many Chinese consumers still hesitant to make the switch. The turning point came late that year when Tesla, with strong backing of Shanghai's government, opened its first factory in China. 'For the first time, Chinese consumers saw a really appealing, futuristic automobile," said Michael Dunne, chief executive of auto consulting firm Dunne Insights. 'It was good-looking, it was fast, it had all these highly attractive elements to a consumer." As EV sales surged, the government ramped up subsidies for companies to build public charging ports. It also required new apartment buildings to provide infrastructure enabling residents to easily install their own. As of May, China had more than 14 million charging points, nine times as many as at the end of 2020. The U.S., by comparison, has around 230,000 public and private chargers, in addition to hundreds of thousands at private homes that are more difficult to track. An EV charging station on display at the Auto Shanghai show in April. As of May, China had more than 14 million charging production line for electric-vehicle maker Zeekr in Ningbo, China. In recent years, sales of EVs have surged in China. In Shanghai, the city provided EV buyers with free green license plates while auctioning plates for traditional cars for more than $10,000. Cities replaced diesel-powered buses with electric ones. By 2023, more than 80% of China's city buses were all-electrics or hybrids. Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology reported $18 billion in net profit over the last three years and invested more than $7 billion into research and development. Today, CATL and rival BYD say their R&D spending has enabled each of them to develop technology to charge cars in just five minutes. These days, China's EV factories are symbols of its manufacturing prowess. Less than 100 miles south of Tesla's Shanghai operation, Chinese carmaker Zeekr has automated entire processes such as welding, with more than 800 robots doing the work. One of its cars, the Zeekr 001, has a range of up to 466 miles—about 180 miles more than the median range of an EV in the U.S. Inside a showroom recently, a salesman voice-activated a massage function built into the driver's seat, while one of the car's apps played Chinese karaoke classics on a video screen. In the U.S., sales of EVs and hybrids have risen more slowly than in China, to 20% of light-vehicle sales at the end of last year, from 12% in early 2022, according to research firm Omdia. But high EV inventory levels at some dealerships suggest a limit to U.S. demand, and Congress is scrapping tax credits of up to $7,500 for EV purchases to save money for other priorities. China's desire for energy independence dates all the way back to former leader Mao Zedong, who once dispatched tens of thousands of workers to search for oil in China's northeast to ensure China wouldn't be dependent on imports. The discovery in 1959 of a massive deposit near the city of Daqing became the stuff of Communist Party lore, with 'Daqing Spirit" coming to mean hard work in the face of challenges. But production at Daqing and other fields couldn't keep up with the surge of demand following China's economic reforms. As the government prioritized EVs, state companies began cutting domestic oil output, preferring to import more of the crude they needed from less expensive sources abroad. In July 2018, Xi personally intervened, ordering state-owned companies to revive domestic production to safeguard national security. Three state-owned oil majors invested an additional $10 billion the following year in exploration and production. They zeroed in on offshore areas such as the South China Sea and the Bohai Sea off the country's northeast coast, as well as remote reserves near China's western border with Kyrgyzstan, in a region called the Tarim Basin. Cnooc, the company focused on offshore reserves, accelerated its drilling cycles to bring oil fields online more quickly. It teamed up with Chinese technology giant Huawei to digitize its operations, using tens of thousands of sensors to collect data and improve decision-making. By 2023, the Bohai oil field accounted for 50% of the growth in China's oil output. Cnooc also increased production in the South China Sea by more than a quarter since 2020. In that expanse of water off South China, the government has aggressively enforced disputed maritime claims against its neighbors. Cnooc said in a written statement that it aimed to raise its total oil-and-gas production as much as 15% between 2024 and 2027, and that two-thirds of its production would continue to come from China. In the deserts of the Tarim Basin crews are exploring some of the nation's deepest reserves. Summer temperatures can top 120 degrees, and in the winter they can hit minus 20. Such ultradeep exploration is expensive, with some wells costing three times as much as shallower traditional wells, a Chinese oil executive told state media. In 2023, Xi held a video call with Tarim Basin oil workers, praising their 'indispensable contributions" to the nation. About 5% of China's total oil and gas output last year came from the basin's deep reservoirs, a number Chinese oil executives intend to increase. As of May, PetroChina's parent company, China National Petroleum, said it had drilled 193 wells in the Tarim Oilfield at least 5 miles deep. In the U.S., many wells are a mile or two deep. In February, the company said it completed its deepest-ever exploratory well—the Shenditake 1—at nearly 7 miles deep. State media said it is the world's second-deepest vertical well, after a scientific well drilled by the Soviets many years ago. 'Advancing into the deep-Earth is the only path forward for the future development of oil and gas in our country," said PetroChina vice president He Jiangchuan. A sign greets workers at the gates of the drilling site. 'Challenge the forbidden zone to forge the tools of a great power," it said. 'Strive to become pillars of guaranteeing energy supply." Grace Zhu contributed to this article. Write to Brian Spegele at
India.com
2 minutes ago
- India.com
Massive win for Sunil Bharti Mittal as Airtel beats Ratan Tata's TCS in..., Airtel is now India's...
Ratan Tata and Sunil Mittal New Delhi: In a significant development, Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal has shown tremendous growth in the recent week. Overtaking Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to become India's third-largest company by market capitalisation, the Bharti Airtel founder has become India's third-largest company by market capitalisation. Here are all the details you need to know about the recent development for Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel and how it has overtaken Ratan Tata's TCS. How Bharti Airtel overtook TCS? In the recent development, the shares of Airtel rose by 0.333 per cent on Monday, which led to increase in its market value to Rs 11.44 lakh crore, around Rs 2,000 crore more than TCS. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries takes massive hit As per a report by news agency PTI, the combined market valuation of 6 of the top-10 most valued firms declined by Rs 94,433.12 crore last week, with Tata Consultancy Services and Reliance Industries taking the biggest hit, in line with a bearish trend in equities. Last week, the BSE benchmark tumbled 742.74 points or 0.90 per cent. The PTI report also added that While Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bharti Airtel, Infosys and Hindustan Unilever suffered erosion from their market valuation last week, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) emerged as gainers. In a significant shock for Ratan Tata's TCS, the valuation of TCS tumbled Rs 27,334.65 crore to Rs 11,54,115.65 crore, the most among the top-10 firms. How have HDFC Bank, Hindustan Unilever performed? Reliance Industries suffered an erosion of Rs 24,358.45 crore to Rs 19,98,543.22 crore from its valuation. The market capitalisation (mcap) of HDFC Bank tanked Rs 20,051.59 crore to Rs 15,00,917.42 crore. Bharti Airtel's mcap dropped by Rs 11,888.89 crore to Rs 10,83,998.73 crore, and that of Hindustan Unilever declined by Rs 7,330.72 crore to Rs 5,84,789.77 crore.
