this is the business briefing. i'm maryam moshiri. grounded... but for how long? aviation authorities from all over the world meet in texas to discuss the flight ban for the boeing 737 max. getting real with the rupee. as india closes in on election results, we'll assess the economic challenges for the world's fastest growing economy. and on the markets, asian stocks are down as worries about those continued trade tensions between the us and china impact investors appetite for risk.

hello and welcome to the programme. both boeing and us aviation regulators will begin drives to restore their battered reputations today following the worldwide grounding of 737 max aircraft in march after two deadly crashes just five months apart. the us federal aviation administration is hosting global air regulators in fort worth, texas to review boeing's now completed software update for the 737 jet and consider how soon it should be cleared to fly again. the faa is likely to face questions over how it approved boeing's newest aircraft, along with the new mcas anti—stall system implicated in the two crashes. also why it dragged its feet in grounding the aircraft, and whether it's too close to boeing. there are doubts over how quickly foreign regulators, notably the chinese, will allow the 737 to return to their skies.

the us and china are embroiled in a bitter trade dispute. on wednesday, china's three biggest airlines joined united airlines, turkish, ryanair and others in asking boeing for compensation for losses caused by the 737 max grounding. a meeting of airlines is also being held today in montreal, canada, convened by the international air transport association. of its 290 airline members, 28 have the 737 in their fleets or have it on order. alex macheras, an aviation analyst joins me now. first of all, some difficult questions for the faa to answer in terms of what it knew about boeing and what it did about the boeing maxed before those incidents happened? maxed before those incidents happened 7 absolutely, maxed before those incidents happened? absolutely, ultimately the pressure is on for the faa because today they will meet with regulators from 50 different countries and the 737 max is under the spotlight,

these countries need reassurances before the grounding. is lifted and ultimately these authorities need to go to their countries and assure their nations. these airlines have been losing money and at some point they will wa nt money and at some point they will want compensation from boeing as well? absolutely. something like this is enough to send a fragile airline in terms of its financial stability over the edge, so compensation is key here. some airlines have been very vocal in slamming boeing and saying they need compensation soon and they will be exploring other aircraft order options, perhaps by boeing's largest competitor, airbus, in response to this ongoing grounding. . some expected it to lastjust this ongoing grounding. . some expected it to last just a few weeks but now we are a few months later and there's no end in sight. any chance we will see them trying to bring the plane back at least in america? us airlines appear under the impression it will flying around august, but will that be shared by

their counterparts to permit european airlines to operate it as soon european airlines to operate it as soon as european airlines to operate it as soon as august? that seems unlikely. we've seen this the alignment between the faa and its counterparts around the world, especially china. —— the alignment. china did it before boeing, the us and the faa agreed to ground them. this is what i don't understand, there is no consensus between the us, the chinese and the europeans. surely they need passengers' interests at heart? this is unprecedented, where we have seen the breakdown in relationships between the faa and europe. when i say breakdown, it isn't entirely clear at this point but it is certainly a deal alignment. there should be hand—in—hand decisions, and the feeling in europe as they won't be 100% satisfied with what the faa could be saying today that will lead

them to not ground the aircraft in august. time world health and we'll see what happens at the meetings today. thank you very much for watching to us. “— thank you very much for watching to us. —— time will tell and we'll see what happens after the meetings today. votes are being electronically counted after india's marathon five—week election. the new government will face some deep—rooted economic problems which include an economic slowdown and a high unemployment rate. business reporter sameer hashmi joins us for the latest. what are going to be the main challenges in terms of the economy for any new government? well, i can tell you that during the first round of voting, after the first round of voting, after the first round of counting, prime minister narendra modi's coalition is set to win a majority. it seems like they will retain power. the three big challenges for the government coming in will be to create jobs, which has government coming in will be to createjobs, which has been a big issue for the economy, they've been growing rapidly but despite that

india has failed to create the number ofjobs india has failed to create the number of jobs they need india has failed to create the number ofjobs they need to given that india has such a young population. the second challenge is investment. india's economic growth has been driven by government expenditure or spending, but private investment has lagged behind and the third is the rural economy stopping more than 50 % of india's population lives in small towns and villages and farming has struggled so these will be the three key issues for the government. the indian stock market touched a record high after the exit polls, what are they expecting or hoping forfrom all of polls, what are they expecting or hoping for from all of this? the stock market opened an hour ago and they have touched another all—time high, breaking the record after it became clear that prime minister narendra modi's coalition would lead and win. the reason for that is very clear, the markets have been

expecting prime minister narendra modi's party to get a majority and so modi's party to get a majority and so far it looks like there on track to get that. the markets are hoping and the reason for that is they want and the reason for that is they want a stable government and they expect if prime minister modi gets a second term then he will usher in fresh reforms that the indian economy needs. lots of analysts believe prime minister economy when he started out unleashed a few reforms at the beginning of the first term but then took some populist measures which really had an impact on india's financial situation, the treasury. they expect if he comes back to power he will take tough measures which are needed to reboot the economy given that it is facing so the economy given that it is facing so many challenges. sameer hashmi, thank you very much indeed. stay with bbc news for the latest on the indian election results throughout the day. profits rise at companies which have women in top positions. that's one of the main findings of a new report from the un's international labour organization which surveyed 13,000 firms in 70 countries. almost three—quarters of companies that tracked gender

diversity in their management reported profit increases of between 5% and 20%. there's a catch — the benefits are only seen when women account for 30% of leadership roles. deborah massin—france from the ilo says more half of companies don't meet this target, and therefore aren't getting the financial rewards. companies on paper quite often have great gender initiative policies, but it takes a little bit more than that of than just having a policy, it actually needs to be implemented and followed through with a message from senior leadership that this is how the business wants to run itself. to encourage more women in senior positions, the report lists three key policies companies should have flexible working hours for both male and female employees, hire women in operational and strategic roles that lead to leadership positions and help coach female workers up the corporate ladder. here's deborah massin—france again.

the number of companies who are really moving the needle in terms of females in their senior management are looking at how they coach and mentor males and females, but particularly females for senior management roles, because sometimes it is women who hold themselves back by saying, oh, no, i couldn't possibly do that. now let's brief you on some other business stories. in the last couple of hours, the japanese electronics company panasonic has announced it is suspending business with the chinese telecoms giant huawei and its 68 affiliates to comply with a us ban. panasonic said it had stopped shipments of certain components to the chinese firm. brazilian cosmetics group natura has announced that it is buying uk—based direct—selling cosmetics business avon. natura, which already owns the body shop and aesop, is brazil's top business in cosmetics, perfumes and toiletries.|ts all—stock offer

of about $2 billion means natura shareholders will hold 76% of the combined company, which will have annual revenue of over $10 billion. the tech giant amazon has seen off a shareholder rebellion over it's facial recognition technology. investors rejected a proposed ban on selling the kit to us government agencies. the company says it is useful for catching criminals, preventng crime, and finding missing people. civil rights campaigners have criticised it as perhaps the most dangerous surveillance technology ever developed. that's it for the business briefing this hour. but before we go, here are the markets trade tensions worrying investors. investors await more meetings between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies and hope the trade

war can be stopped. goodbye. a tracker to find abandoned supermarket trolleys and an app to locate public loos — these are the winning entries in a uk space agency competition for teenagers, searching forfresh ideas on how satellites can improve life on earth. the winners will now go on to pitch their inventions to industry experts in the hope of developing them further. tim muffett has this report. satellites have changed the way we live our lives, because they also prevent sites like this, or this. this woman hope so. it was seeing

trolleys like this in car pikes, on the sides of roads, in waterways and that's why my idea of trolley tracker, which uses gps to track abandoned trolleys, first came into being. there's a gps, if it's gps goes out a certain bound, it sends a supermarket signal to tell them where the trolley is so that helps the supermarket keep track of where these trolleys are and eventually leads to the supermarkets being able to re— collect the trolleys. so the actual device is trying to go in the handle instead of replacing the entire trolley, which makes the actual solution cheaper and means that supermarkets are more incentivised to take this idea on board. it still just an board. it stilljust an idea but it's landed her the individual first prize of the uk space agency competition. you can see the roots people take to abandon them, where they are commonly abandoned, at what time of day, what day of the week and that allows supermarkets to better route plan, so they're able to but in better preventative methods. it's thought hundreds of

thousands of trolleys are abandoned every year, thousands of trolleys are abandoned every yea r, costly thousands of trolleys are abandoned every year, costly notjust thousands of trolleys are abandoned every year, costly not just to supermarkets but the environment as well. they can cause flooding and damage wildlife. i'm going to present my idea to a panel of people who hopefully will give me some support for my idea, and i hope to work with supermarkets and local governments to solve this issue. this is the briefing from bbc news. the latest headlines: british prime minister theresa may's widely expected to quit within days. a cabinet minister resigns saying the government's approach can't deliver brexit. votes are being counted in india. about 600 million ballots were cast. prime minister narendra modi is seeking a second term. now it's time to look at the stories that are making the headlines in the media across the world. we begin with the daily mirror, which says history looks to be repeating itself as prime minister theresa may apparently gazes

tearfully out of her car window in a scene reminiscent of margaret thatcher's departure from office back in 1990. meanwhile, the independent asks why moderate tory mps are moving towards backing borisjohnson? this comes as former foreign secretary reaches out to a group of centrist tory mps, organised around work and pensions secretary amber rudd. the guardian looks at the falling pound, which has suffered its longest losing streak against the euro since the creation of the single currency two decades ago. the chaos over brexit is the main culprit for that. also in the independent, according to a new study, europeans all need to work far shorter hours each week to help combat the climate crisis. it says with the existing carbon intensity of our economies we would need to adopt a nine—hour working week in order to cut emissions enough to keep global warming below two degrees celsius.

that sounds good to me. when do we begin? and finally on the bbc news website, public health experts are calling for fair provision of public toilets for women, saying the aim should be to have two female loos to every male one. with more urinals than cubicles, men — unlike women — rarely queue, that's according to a royal society for public health report. with me isjonathan charles, who's director of communications for the european bank for reconstruction and development. let's talk about the front page of every single papal except the daily telegraph. —— every single paper. what is happening? everybody more or less has this picture of theresa may looking pensive in the back of her car. many newspapers say that she has tears in her eyes and they say that history is repeating itself. some of them use the picture of margaret thatcher as she left downing street in 1990 after stepping down as prime minister. it

is interesting. there is no