Latest news with #AditiShah
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Musk's Tesla marks formal India entry with Mumbai launch event
By Dhwani Pandya and Aditi Shah (Reuters) -Tesla will open its first India showroom in Mumbai next week, having imported $1 million worth of cars and merchandise, marking its entry into the world's third-largest car market despite CEO Elon Musk's complaints about high import tariffs. In an invitation to media late Thursday, the carmaker said the July 15 event was the "launch of Tesla in India through the opening of the Tesla experience centre at Bandra Kurla Complex," located in the city's leading commercial business district. Grappling with excess manufacturing capacity at its other factories and falling sales, Tesla has pivoted to selling imported cars in India on which it will need to pay about 70% import duty and other levies. Commercially available custom records from January to June showed Tesla imported vehicles, chargers and accessories into India worth close to $1 million, mainly from China and the United States. The vehicles included six of Tesla's best-selling Model Y at a shipment value of $32,500 each for five cars, and $46,000 for the long-range version, as well as several Superchargers. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has for years wooed Tesla, including forming a new policy to attract the carmaker to build its EVs locally. Last year, Musk had planned to visit India where he was expected to announce an investment of $2 billion-$3 billion, including in local EV manufacturing. But he cancelled the trip at the last moment. Tesla has conveyed it is not interested in manufacturing in India at the moment. U.S. President Donald Trump has said that if Tesla were to build a factory in India to circumvent that country's tariffs, it would be "unfair" to the U.S." Tesla has hired for several of the three dozen positions it advertised in India earlier this year, bringing on board store managers, sales and service executives. It is looking for supply chain engineers and vehicle operators for its autopilot ambitions. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive-Regulators warned Air India Express about delay on Airbus engine fix, forging records
By Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's aviation watchdog reprimanded Air India's budget carrier in March for not timely changing engine parts of an Airbus A320 as directed by European Union's aviation safety agency, and falsifying records to show compliance, a government memo showed. In a statement, Air India Express told Reuters it acknowledged the error to the Indian watchdog and undertook "remedial action and preventive measures". Air India has been under intense scrutiny since the June Boeing Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad which killed all but one of the 242 people onboard. The world's worst aviation disaster in a decade is still being investigated. The engine issue in the Air India Express' Airbus was raised on March 18, months before the crash. But the regulator has this year also warned parent Air India for breaching rules for flying three Airbus planes with overdue checks on escape slides, and in June warned it about "serious violations" of pilot duty timings. Air India Express is a subsidiary of Air India, which is owned by the Tata Group. It has more than 115 aircraft and flies to more than 50 destinations, with 500 daily flights. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency in 2023 issued an airworthiness directive to address a "potential unsafe condition" on CFM International LEAP-1A engines, asking for replacement of some components such as engine seals and rotating parts, saying some manufacturing deficiencies had been found. The agency's directive said "this condition, if not corrected, could lead to failure of affected parts, possibly resulting in high energy debris release, with consequent damage to, and reduced control of, the aeroplane." The Indian government's confidential memo in March sent to the airline, seen by Reuters, said that surveillance by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed the parts modification "was not complied" on an engine of an Airbus A320 "within the prescribed time limit". "In order to show that the work has been carried out within the prescribed limits, the AMOS records have apparently been altered/forged," the memo added, referring to the Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Operating System software used by airlines to manage maintenance and airworthiness. The "mandatory" modification was required on Air India Express' VT-ATD plane, the memo added. That plane typically flies on domestic routes and some international destinations such as Dubai and Muscat, according to the AirNav Radar website. The lapse "indicates that accountable manager has failed to ensure quality control," it added/ Air India Express told Reuters its technical team missed the scheduled implementation date for parts replacement due to the migration of records on its monitoring software, and fixed the problem soon after it was identified. It did not give dates of compliance or directly address DGCA's comment about records being altered, but said that after the March memo it took "necessary administrative actions", which included removing the quality manager from their position and suspending the deputy continuing airworthiness manager. The DGCA and the European safety agency did not respond to Reuters queries. Airbus and CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric and Safran, also did not respond. The lapse was first flagged during a DGCA audit in October 2024 and the plane in question took only a few trips after it was supposed to replace the CFM engine parts, a source with direct knowledge said. "Such issues should be fixed immediately. It's a grave mistake. The risk increases when you are flying over sea or near restricted airpsace," said Vibhuti Singh, a former legal expert at the India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. The Indian government told parliament in February that authorities warned or fined airlines in 23 instances for safety violations last year. Three of those cases involved Air India Express, and eight Air India.
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Top Boeing exec Pope visits Air India HQ to discuss plane crash, sources say
By Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Stephanie Pope, met the chairman of Air India on Monday in India, two sources said, as the companies seek to find the cause of last week's fatal crash involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Pope met Air India Chairman N. Chandrasekaran at the airline's headquarters in Gurugram, near New Delhi airport, and was accompanied by Boeing's India President Salil Gupte, one of the sources said. Details of the discussions were not immediately clear. They came four days after a London-bound Air India plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad seconds after take-off, killing all but one of the 242 people on board. Pope oversees design, production and delivery of advanced jetliners to Boeing customers around the world, according to the U.S. plane maker's website. The Dreamliner was fitted with GE engines and GE Aerospace's CEO for Commercial Engines and Services, Russell Stokes, and its South Asia chief, Vikram Rai, also met Chandrasekaran on Monday, one of the sources said. Boeing, GE and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. The sources declined to be named as the meetings were private. The crash, the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade, is the latest test for Boeing's new leadership that has been working to reform the company's public image and regain trust following a series of safety and production crises. Air India, which has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet, is one of Boeing's biggest customers with more than 200 new planes on order including 20 787s.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive-India moves to conserve its rare earths, seeks halt to Japan exports, sources say
By Neha Arora and Aditi Shah NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India has asked state-run miner IREL to suspend a 13-year-old agreement on rare earth exports to Japan and to safeguard supplies for domestic needs, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, aiming to reduce India's dependence on China. IREL also wants to develop India's capacity for rare earth processing, which is dominated globally by China and has become a weapon in escalating trade wars. China has curbed its rare earth materials exports since April, pressuring automakers and high-tech manufacturers worldwide. In a recent meeting with auto and other industry executives, Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal asked IREL to stop its exports of rare earths, mainly neodymium, a key material used in magnets for electric vehicle motors, one of the sources said. The Commerce Ministry, IREL and the Department of Atomic Energy, which oversees IREL, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The sources declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. Under a 2012 government agreement, IREL supplies rare earths to Toyotsu Rare Earths India, a unit of Japanese trading house Toyota Tsusho, which processes them for export to Japan where they are used to make magnets. In 2024, Toyotsu shipped more than 1,000 metric tons of rare earth materials to Japan, commercially available customs data showed. That is one-third of the 2,900 tons mined by IREL, although Japan relies mainly on China for its rare earths supply. Toyota Tsusho and Toyotsu did not immediately respond to requests for comment. IREL has been exporting rare earths due to a lack of domestic processing capacity, but following the recent disruptions to supplies of Chinese material it wants to keep its rare earths at home and expand domestic mining and processing, a second source said, adding that IREL is awaiting statutory clearances at four mines. However, India may not immediately be able to stop supplies to Japan because they fall under a bilateral government agreement, the person said. IREL wants this to be "amicably decided and negotiated because Japan is a friendly nation", the person added. Japan's Trade Ministry said in a statement to Reuters: "We would like to refrain from answering questions about bilateral exchanges in general, not just about this matter." EXPANSION PLANS China's recent export controls on rare earth materials have rocked the global auto industry, which has warned of supply chain disruptions and production halts. China also weaponised its supplies in 2010, when it briefly stopped shipments to Japan. That prompted the Japanese to turn to India for rare earths. India has the world's fifth-largest rare earth reserves, at 6.9 million metric tons, but there is no domestic magnet production. India relies on imported magnets, mainly from China. In the fiscal year to March 2025, India imported 53,748 metric tons of rare earth magnets, government data showed. These are used in automobiles, wind turbines, medical devices and other manufactured goods. Rare earth mining is restricted to IREL, which supplies India's Atomic Energy Department with materials for nuclear power projects and defence-related applications. India lacks wide-scale technology and infrastructure to mine rare earths, and the development of any commercially viable domestic supply chain is years away, analysts said. IREL has a rare earths extraction plant in the eastern Indian state of Odisha and a refining unit in Kerala, in southern India. The miner, founded in 1950, plans to produce 450 metric tons of extracted neodymium in the fiscal year to March 2026 with a plan to double that by 2030, the second person said. It is also looking for a corporate partner for the production of rare earth magnets for the auto and pharmaceutical industries, the person said. India is firming up plans for incentives to companies to set up rare earth processing and magnet production facilities to meet local demand, people familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Air India disaster deals heavy blow to 'world class airline' ambition
By Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The Air India plane crash in which more than 200 passengers were killed on Thursday has plunged the airline into its deepest crisis yet and will deal a heavy blow to its efforts to revamp its reputation and fleet. After taking the carrier over from the government in 2022, the Tata Group unveiled ambitious plans to reverse years of underinvestment in an ageing and outdated fleet and create a "world class airline", as CEO Campbell Wilson has repeatedly put it, on a par with rivals like Emirates. The turnaround has been aimed at tackling its myriad problems including persistent flight delays, disgruntled customers, a shortage of spare parts, delayed plane deliveries and years of financial losses. "Newer aircraft and better maintenance should be the hallmark for Air India to survive. Proper maintenance is what they should be looking into, because Air India has had a chequered past," said Vibhuti Deora, a former legal expert at India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. That past includes, while under government ownership, Boeing 737 flight from Dubai overshooting the runway at one domestic airport and crashing into a gorge in 2010, killing 158 people. More recently, its low-cost unit Air India Express saw one craft skid off a runway in India in 2020, killing 21 people. Only a few days ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told an international gathering of hundreds of airline executives in New Delhi that the country's aviation industry stood at a crucial point of takeoff. On Thursday, however, Air India swapped the bright red colour scheme and logo on its website for a more sombre black and grey one, covering it with a banner that carried the crashed flight's number: "AI-171". "For an airline, the most important thing is the brand's identity with safety. This will be a major setback for the brand in that aspect," said Dilip Cherian, a communications consultant and co-founder of public relations firm Perfect Relations. 'DIFFICULT DAY' With its maharajah mascot, Air India was once renowned for its lavishly decorated planes and stellar service championed by its founder, JRD Tata, India's first commercial pilot. But since the mid-2000s, the carrier's reputation has worsened as financial troubles mounted. It has flown widebody planes with business class seats in poor condition and grounded some of its new Boeing 787 Dreamliners for lack of spare parts. When Tata regained control, the airline was "just in absolute shambles", its CEO Wilson told Reuters in a 2024 interview, noting that some of its planes hadn't had a product refresh since they were delivered in 2010-2011. Air India, which has a 30% share of the domestic passenger market, has a fleet of 198 planes, of which 27 are 10-15 years old and 43 are more than 15 years old, the civil aviation ministry told parliament in March. Air India Express had 101 planes, with 37% of them more than 15 years old. The plane that crashed on Thursday was 11 years old, according to Flightradar24. Rival Indian airlines like IndiGo operate newer planes. Air India, which is part-owned by Singapore Airlines, has placed orders for 570 new jets in recent years and is in talks for dozens more. It has even aggressively expanded its international flight network in the face of the fury of its passengers, who often take to social media to show soiled seats, broken arm rests, non-operational entertainment systems and dirty cabin areas. It has also been ranked the worst airline for flight delays in Britain, where its departures were on average just under 46 minutes behind schedule in 2024, according to analysis of Civil Aviation Authority data by the PA news agency published in May. It has also been reporting losses since at least fiscal 2019-20. In 2023-2024, it reported a net loss of $520 million on sales of $4.6 billion. Before it can make any further progress on these problems, however, it faces the difficult task of investigating one of India's worst aviation disasters ever. "This is a difficult day for all of us at Air India," CEO Wilson said in a video message. "Investigations will take time." Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
