Weekly News Roundup at 10:00 am on 4th November 2023

Let’s begin with the news that made headlines this week. Adani Enterprises this week recorded its second quarter profit for the financial year 2023-24 at Rs 227.82 crore, down 50.6 per cent in comparison to Rs 460.94 crore during the corresponding quarter of FY23. It posted revenue from operations at Rs 22,517.33 crore, down 41 per cent as against Rs 38,175.23 crore during the same period last year. The company EBITDA stood at Rs 2,430 crore, up 30 per cent on-year, on account of strong incubating businesses. AEL has made significant progress in its strong incubation pipeline during the first half of the fiscal year 2023-24. The company’s latest results showcase the emergence of key incubating businesses, including green hydrogen integrated manufacturing ecosystem, airports and roads.

Speaking of profit, Mumbai-headquartered automotive major Tata Motors has reported its financial results for Q2 FY2024. The company reported revenue of Rs 1.04 lakh crore as against Rs 78,846 crore a year ago, the net profit came at Rs 3,764 crore as against a loss of Rs 944.61 crore for the same period last year. The company says all its auto verticals continued their profitable growth trajectory. The company says it remains optimistic on demand despite external challenges and anticipate a moderate inflationary environment. It aim to deliver a stronger performance in H2, due to a healthy order book at JLR, strong demand for heavy trucks in CV and exciting new generation products in PV.

Meanwhile, State-owned coal miner Coal India this week posted the Provisional Production and Off-take Performance of the company and its subsidiary companies for the month of October 2023 and for the period April 2023- October 2023. Coal India said that it posted a strong 12 per cent on-year production growth ending October FY24. CIL produced 394 million tonnes of coal in the April-October 2023 period with a 42 MT increase compared to 352 MTs during the year ago period. The output growth was higher than the annual asking growth rate of 11 per cent, it said. Production by Coal India shot up by 8 MTs in October alone to 61 MTs, logging 15 per cent growth.

Moving on. A record 76.5 million income tax returns were filed for assessment year 2023-24 till the due date of October 31, 11.7% higher than 68.5 million returns filed for AY2022-23 till the respective due date, the tax department said on Wednesday. Further, total number of ITRs filed this fiscal all assessment years stood at 78.5 million, an all-time high again. Around 77.8 million ITRs were filed in FY 2022-23. Out of the 76.5 million ITRs filed for AY23-24, more than 75.1 million have already been verified. Further, out of the 75.1 million verified ITRs, 71.9 million have already been processed till October 31, meaning almost 96% of the verified ITRs stand processed.

On to some more money matters. EPFO has approved a Communication Framework Document which will help in the timely dissemination of information within the retirement fund body and its stakeholders, an official statement said on Wednesday. The EPFO board also approved the Draft Audit Manual which will help standardize audit procedures, provide a training resource for employees, facilitate decision-making, and consolidate audit information in EPFO, the Ministry of Labour & Employment said in a statement. The decisions were taken at EPFO‘s 71st Foundation Day on Tuesday. Besides a Draft Exemption Manual was also approved by the board which will help in streamlining the procedures, training, and consolidating the information.

Over to technology. India suffered its biggest data leak ever if the claims of a hacker ‘pwn0001’ are to be believed. The personal details of over 81.5 crore Indians have been leaked online, allegedly from the data collected by the Indian Council of Medical Research during COVID-19 testing. The data includes names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and even Aadhaar numbers. First noticed by Resecurity, an American cyber security and intelligence agency, the stolen data was posted by hacker pwn0001 on Breach Forums – a data breach and discussion forum, exposing the private data of over 80 crore Indians. The case is more likely to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation once it receives a complaint from ICMR.

Lastly, Apple may currently be facing heat over the possibility of state-sponsored hacking alert notices received by several opposition party leaders on their iPhones. However, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team had detected and flagged 28 cases of vulnerabilities in the company’s products between January and October this year. The latest such alert was issued on October 27. Official sources said that notices with regard to these vulnerabilities were sent to Apple, requiring action on its part. The vulnerabilities flagged by CERT-IN are related to multiple Apple products such as Apple iOS, iPadOS, Apple iTunes, Apple macOS, Apple Safari, Apple tvOS, watchOS, etc.