Jet Airways' CEO Sanjiv Kapoor on Tuesday shared his positive experience at London's Heathrow airport where he was able to clear his immigration at the airport in just 10 seconds through the e-enabled passport kiosks.

The corporate executive wrote on Twitter: “E-enabled passport: cleared London Heathrow arrivals immigration in 10 seconds thru the e-passport kiosks. Global Entry-enrolled? Clear US arrival immigration in 10 seconds using facial recognition. No departure immigration for UK and US. This is the way to go, Digital!”

South Korean FA-50 light attack aircraft have outplayed India’s Tejas fighter jets as Seoul inked a deal to export 18 Lead-in-Trainer-Light Combat Aircraft (FLIT-LCA) to Malaysia.

The announcement was made by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), South Korea’s sole aircraft manufacturer, on February 24. According to KAI, the contract is valued at 1.2 trillion won ($920 million), and delivery will start in 2026.

The HAL had submitted a proposal to the Malaysian Ministry of Defence for the supply of 18 Fighter Lead-in Trainer (FLIT) LCAs against a global tender which was floated by the Royal Malaysian Air force (RMFA) in 2021. India’s LCA Tejas and Korea’s FA-50 were selected among eight nations that responded to the RMFA. Other participants included the Sino-Pakistani JF-17, the Russian Yak-130, and the Italian M-346 from Leonardo.

Faced with difficulties in making payment in dollars, Egypt is now looking to adopt the rupee to import at least 1.5 lakh tonnes of rice from India.

If the deal to settle trade in Indian rupee between Cairo and New Delhi goes through, Egypt would join 18 countries — Russia, UK, Singapore, Germany etc — that have agreed to trade in INR and give up dollar for cross-border transactions.

Between April and January this fiscal, Egypt has imported 76,858 tonnes of rice. The country recently purchased two ship loads of rice, however, it had to “face tremendous difficulties” in settling the trade in dollars, a report by The Hindu BusinessLine quoted a source saying.

With retail inflation remaining above the comfort level of 6 per cent and most global peers including the US Fed continuing their hawkish stance, the Reserve Bank of India too may go in for a 25 basis points hike in the bi-monthly monetary policy to be announced on April 6, opined experts.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank will be meeting for three days on April 3, 5 and 6 to take into account various domestic and global factors before coming out with the first bi-monthly monetary policy for fiscal 2023-24.

As the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and a crisis that followed turned dollar into a safe haven for investors, Reserve Bank of India's forex reserves bulked up. Even as the Rupee weakened for the crisis-hit week that ended on March 17, the RBI's foreign exchange stack hit a six-week high.

A $12.8 billion addition, took the reserve to $572.8 billion, which is the highest level since early February, after a dip in the week before.

Currencies being the biggest component of the RBI's forex pile, reached $505.34 billion with an inflow of $10.49 billion.