Pune, Mar 23: India batsman Krunal Pandya smashed the fastest fifty by an ODI debutant during the first match against England here on Tuesday and broke down remembering his father who died in January this year after suffering a heart attack.
The 30-year-old Krunal was handed the India cap by his younger brother and star all-rounder Hardik.
He reached the half century mark in just 26 balls, overtaking John Morris (35 balls) of New Zealand.
Krunal broke down while being interviewed by the host broadcaster after his blistering unbeaten knock of 58 (31 balls), which was studded with seven fours and two sixes.
"This one is for my father," was all that Krunal could tell commentator Murali Kartik when asked about his unbeaten knock before being overwhelmed by emotions.
He was enveloped by Hardik in a tight hug soon after.
For Krunal, the last three months have been an emotional roller-coaster.
In January, he had an ugly tiff with state-mate Deepak Hooda who accused the Baroda captain of bullying him during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy camp.
Hooda left the camp after that and was subsequently suspended for the entire season by the Baroda team management, which backed Krunal on the matter.
Weeks after the controversy, Krunal lost his father Himanshu and had to leave the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy bio-bubble to be with his family.
This is all heart ??
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 23, 2021
A teary moment for ODI debutant @krunalpandya24 post his brilliant quick-fire half-century??@hardikpandya7 #TeamIndia #INDvENG @Paytm pic.twitter.com/w3x8pj18CD
ODI debut for @krunalpandya24 ?
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 23, 2021
International debut for @prasidh43 ?#TeamIndia @Paytm #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/Hm9abtwW0g
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New Delhi (PTI): E-commerce giant Amazon plans to make a mega-investment of USD 35 billion, over Rs 3.14 lakh crore, in India by 2030 across its businesses with a focus on AI-driven digitization, export growth and job creation, a senior company official said on Wednesday.
Making the announcement during the Amazon Smbhav Summit, Senior VP Emerging Markets, Amit Agarwal, said the company has set a target to quadruple exports from India to USD 80 billion from about USD 20 billion it has facilitated as of now and create an additional one million direct, indirect, induced and seasonal jobs by 2030.
"Amazon to date has invested USD 40 billion in India since 2010. Now we will invest another USD 35 billion by 2030 across all our businesses in India," Agarwal said.
Amazon's investment plan is 2 times of Microsoft's investment plan of USD 17.5 billion and close to 2.3 times that of Google's USD 15 billion investment plan by 2030.
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Agarwal said the company has invested USD 40 billion in India to date and is the largest foreign investor in India, according to a Keystone report compiled from publicly available data.
In May 2023, Amazon announced plans to invest USD 12.7 billion in India by 2030 into its local cloud and AI infrastructure across Telangana and Maharashtra. The company has already invested USD 3.7 billion in India between 2016 and 2022.
Agarwal said that the company has invested at scale towards building physical and digital infrastructure, including fulfilment centres, transportation networks, data centres, digital payments infrastructure and technology development.
According to the Keystone report, Amazon has digitized over 12 million small businesses and enabled USD 20 billion in cumulative ecommerce exports, while supporting approximately 2.8 million direct, indirect, induced and seasonal jobs across industries in India in 2024.
To push export growth from India, Amazon launched a manufacturing-focused initiative, "Accelerate Exports", designed to connect digital entrepreneurs with trusted manufacturers while enabling manufacturers to become successful global sellers.
As part of the program, Amazon will host on-ground onboarding drives in over 10 manufacturing clusters across India, including Tirupur, Kanpur, and Surat.
At the Smbhav summit, Amazon announced a key partnership with the Apparel Export Promotion Council of India to expand and scale the program nationwide.
