Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: India’s aviation regulator has ordered testing of every pilot. The mandate covers psychoactive substances across all airlines. Testing under this cycle runs until July 31, 2027. Officials confirmed screening is already underway industry-wide. This expands significantly beyond the existing testing framework. Current rules randomly test 10% of flight crew annually. Air traffic controllers are also included in that framework. The new mandate broadens coverage considerably during this cycle. Officials say the order has already been formally issued. One official noted testing began last month already. This one-time mandate differs from any permanent annual requirement. Separately,…
Author: Industry Odisha
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Wednesday launched the Aadhaar Face Authentication SDK and Sandbox at the Global Fintech Fest 2026, a move aimed at helping banks, fintechs and government departments integrate Face Authentication directly into their own mobile applications. The SDK embeds UIDAI’s Face Authentication capability natively within Android and iOS apps, doing away with the earlier requirement of switching to a separate application — the Aadhaar FaceRD app — to complete verification. Users will now be able to complete Aadhaar-based authentication within a single app, whether for banking, insurance or broking…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep10: VinFast is developing two electric vehicles built specifically for India. Sources say they carry internal codenames VF X and VF Y. The plans follow a major strategic reversal weeks earlier. Discussions with Indian suppliers remain at an early stage. This marks a departure from VinFast’s previous localisation approach. The company had tried adapting existing global vehicles for India. That strategy proved difficult to sustain on cost grounds. VinFast now wants products built around Indian requirements directly. In July, VinFast paused local manufacturing plans for three models. Those were the VF 3, VF 6 and VF 7.…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: India has rolled out a digital trade portal for exporters. Its purpose is linking Indian sellers with American buyers. The tool particularly targets small businesses and newcomers. It arrives as both nations pursue deeper trade ties. Officials designed the platform around goods and services exporters. Many smaller firms lack established networks for US buyers. First-time exporters especially struggle finding credible overseas partners. This portal attempts to close that persistent access gap. Binaya S. Pradhan, India’s Consul General in New York, explained the initiative. He said exporters could connect with several large American retailers. Amazon, Walmart…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: India’s food regulator has opened the door to stricter labelling. The shift came during Supreme Court questioning on Thursday. Judges pressed FSSAI over its two-phase implementation timeline. The regulator responded by signalling readiness for immediate change. FSSAI unveiled its original proposal just last month. It called for red hexagonal warnings on select products. Those warnings would target three specific nutritional categories. Added sugar, salt and saturated fat formed that list. Under the initial plan, thresholds required dual-category breaches. A product needed to exceed limits in two areas. Only then would the warning label become mandatory.…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: UIDAI is testing whether Aadhaar can work internationally. The authority wants greater interoperability beyond India’s borders. Proof-of-concepts are already underway in select regions. One such test is running in the Middle East. UIDAI CEO Saurabh Vijay outlined the effort Thursday. He spoke at Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai. Vijay said Aadhaar’s international focus is now priority. Interoperability, he explained, means working across foreign digital systems. This ambition does not mean global rollout yet. Proof-of-concepts remain early-stage technical experiments, not deployment. No country partnership or implementation date was confirmed. The Middle East test represents one…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: The monsoon is entering its withdrawal phase, but a new weather system is defying the seasonal slowdown. A cyclonic circulation formed over the north Bay of Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh on Wednesday. The India Meteorological Department expects it to consolidate into a full low pressure area by Thursday. Monsoon withdrawal typically begins around September 17 in North West India. This system, however, could deliver one last strong pulse of rain before that happens. South India’s Rain Deficit The South Peninsula has suffered the most this monsoon season. El Niño driven sinking air and persistent high…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: China’s Xi Jinping lands in New Delhi this week. It marks his first India trip in seven years. Diplomats see it as a positive signal. Business leaders are far less certain. Xi joins the BRICS summit hosted by India. Whether he will meet Modi bilaterally remains unclear. That meeting could prove decisive for future ties. India-China relations have gradually warmed since last year. Modi’s China visit and a Kyrgyzstan meeting helped. Despite this, commercial friction has not eased much. Chinese investment proposals still face slow Indian approvals. Visa processing remains inconsistent for business travellers. Equipment…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: A state-level workshop highlighted achievements of the RIISE project on Wednesday. The initiative is a joint effort of the Odisha government and the World Food Programme (WFP). It was implemented in Ganjam district to strengthen farmers’ resilience against climate change. The project aims to improve household food and nutrition security among smallholder farmers. It also seeks to build community resilience against growing climate challenges in Odisha. WFP Highlights Scalable Model Ms. Nozomi Hashimoto, Deputy Country Director of WFP India, opened the discussion. She said the Ganjam programme was designed to create scalable resilience models. Active…
Industry Odisha Bureau, Sep 10: Global investment bank Jefferies has identified six high growth sectors driving what it calls India’s new industrial revolution, with space, semiconductors and solar emerging as standout opportunities backed by strong government support and rising private sector participation. “Large domestic opportunity is driving participation in emergent industries in India across Space, Semi & Electronic, Data Centers and Solar,” Jefferies noted in its report, pointing to policy measures such as opening the space sector to private players, tax holidays for data centres, incentive schemes for semiconductors and solar, localisation mandates, and government backed GPU procurement. A Fivefold Growth…