The Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence brought together numerous top industry leaders, ministers, and experts to celebrate the achievements of Corporate India. The event was not just a celebratory ceremony but also a platform for knowledge sharing and networking in a luxurious setting, characterized by glamour, laughter, and a public-private partnership.

Indian private sector must boost capital expenditure to support sustainable, long-term growth and job creation, according to industry leaders and policymakers. Speaking at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence in Mumbai, Amitabh Kant, Uday Kotak, Sanjiv Mehta, Sajjan Jindal and Preetha Reddy said services provide a strategic advantage, but manufacturing needed to fire. The investment could encourage greater support for R&D and India becoming a reserve currency of the world, said the panel.

​​A gala buffet dinner with seasonal specialities and haute cuisine followed. The Grandeur Grazing Table had a spread of the choicest cheese -- Brunost, red cheddar, aged 60% brie, Edam ball, goat milk feta -- served along with artisanal bread and home-made cultured butter.

​​“It’s a great honour to receive the ET Business Leader of the Year award, which was (earlier) given to me 18 years back (in 2005). But there are perhaps better ways to get it than to go through a crisis every time to come back here on the stage. And this time you’ve ensured I get it at the Jio centre,” quipped Mittal, taking a light-hearted dig at Airtel’s biggest telecom adversary, Reliance Jio.

Mandaviya, who also holds the charge of chemicals and fertilisers, said India administered 2.2 billion doses of Covid vaccines, making it the world’s largest Covid vaccination drive. He said 10 million doses were administered every day for at least 11 days during the pandemic. There was never a day when a person had to return without a vaccine because of lack of vaccinators or vaccines or syringes or needles,” Mandaviya said.

India is undergoing a transformation and there is an exciting air of entrepreneurship across its cities and towns, Times Group MD Vineet Jain said. Crediting the leadership of PM Narendra Modi and his ministers for giving wings to the dream of a New India, he said, “There is a can-do spirit among the young and the restless that will not be daunted by the size of the challenge or crushed by the fear of failure”.

In a video message, he prefaced his appeal to FM Nirmala Sitharaman with a Nike ad clip that showcased moments in which women in international sports have gone against their traditional ‘calm and composed’ roles, and have been passionate, angry, emotional, ruthless — ‘crazy’, by the usual behavioural standards imposed and propagated in an alpha male-dominated arena.

Infosys' Sudha Murthy reveals Rishi Sunak fasts every Thursday.

Markets regulator SEBI has asked the Supreme Court for more time for its investigation into the allegations levelled by US-based short-seller Hindenburg on billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate. Earlier On March 2, the Supreme Court set up an expert committee amid the controversy arising out of a report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research on the Adani Group. It directed SEBI to investigate whether there has been a violation of Section 19 of SEBI rules and any manipulation of stock prices.