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The global cruise industry is booming. Now the fastest-growing category in the leisure travel market — estimated at $45.6 billion in 2018 — cruise vacations attracted more than 26 million travelers last year, up 3% over 2017. By the end of 2019, that number is expected to hit 30 million, according to Statista. 

One likely explanation for the surge is millennials' increased interest in cruise travel. To keep pace, the industry plans to pour about $65 billion into building more ships over the next 10 years.

Despite incidents of crime and reports of illnesses and outbreaks on vessels, cruise ships are operating at near 100% capacity and claim it's been almost impossible to keep up with demand. Many vacationers opt for cruises because of they offer an all-in-one experience, several entertainment and dining options and the ability for families to stay together while enjoying separate vacations. 

But by 2019 millennials will surpass boomers in population size (73 million vs. 72 million), and these young, savvy travelers will soon become the newest cruiser demographic. That means cruise lines will need to start making some serious changes, from offering creative food options and unique onboard activities to authentic experiences and more exotic destinations.

Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Frank Del Rio says he is prepared to meet the challenge. With a combined fleet of 26 ships with approximately 54,400 berths across its Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands, Norwegian offers itineraries to more than 450 destinations worldwide and plans to introduce 11 additional ships through 2027.

Del Rio says the company is also pouring millions into its existing fleet. "Back in 2015 we said we would spend in the neighborhood of $500 to $600 million on the Norwegian brand. Another $100 million plus was spent on the Region brand, and we just recently announced a $100 million refurbishment program for the Oceania brand," he said. He added that by the end of February 2020, the 1998 Norwegian Spirit will have "a $150 million head-to-toe refurbishment."

On May 9 Norwegian reported its Q1 earnings: a jump in revenue of 8.5%, to $1.4 billion. Today it is the third-largest cruise line in the world, controlling approximately 9% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market by passengers as of 2018. (Carnival controls the largest market share, at 45%, followed by Royal Caribbean, at 25%).

Yet while growth is strong, Del Rio says he's always aware of the competition — and the fact that customers are more demanding today. "How do you make your product different? How do you motivate the consumer to choose your brand, which is higher-priced than a competitive brand?

"When you come on board as a guest, we want you to think you are on that ship's maiden voyage. It's got to have that new car smell. The carpets have to be clean, that ... the art is relevant. Everything is new, and people are willing to pay for that kind of quality, for that kind of value. [The customer] is more demanding. I mean, the competition is fierce."

Norwegian, and the industry as a whole, is responding to the wishes of its guests and embracing innovation to develop new destinations, new and diverse onboard amenities and additional activities at port destinations. That's when social media, Del Rio says, can play a powerful role in marketing their brand.

"There's no question that the power of Instagram and similar apps out there are alive and well and very, very relevant. Today people communicate through photos and experiences, and we want to make sure that our guests — on any given day, there's over 50,000 guests on board our ships — we want to make sure that they get to experience and share those experiences with their friends."

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty cut her price target on Apple in a note distributed to investors this week, marking the latest downgrade for the iPhone maker.

The firm cut its Apple price target from $240 to $231, but has not changed its estimates for sales or profits — it said the downgrade was based on Apple's peer companies' performance.

"Given the risk of further restrictive trade measures ... we expect shares to remain choppy, with a near-term floor around $160," Huberty wrote in the note. The stock is currently trading around $177, and is down more than 15% since May 1.

Apple has seen six analyst price cut targets in May as China trade war fears drag the stock down.

Apple is vulnerable to the U.S.-China trade war because the Chinese market (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) is its third-largest market, and it also does a lot of manufacturing in China, making it vulnerable to the current batch of proposed additional tariffs.

"In the event Apple is unsuccessful in persuading the [U.S. trade representative] to remove key categories from the final list of taxed goods, Apple's representative will have to submit a request for each particular product they'd like to be excluded, and provide a rationale as to why it should be excluded from the tariff list," according to the note.

It continued: "The situation remains extremely fluid and we admit that quantifying the overall impact of geopolitical tensions on Apple is difficult given the unknowns around timing, demand impact, retaliatory measures, exclusions, etc."

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WATCH: Trade tensions could cut Apple earnings by 15 percent, says analyst

Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Mike Manley sold shares in the car maker for $3.46 million on May 28, the day after the announcement of a merger proposal to French rival Renault, a regulatory filing showed.

An FCA spokesman said Manley sold the shares to cover a personal expense. A filing by Dutch stock market regulator AFM showed Manley sold 250,000 shares at $13.85 each.

Shares in Fiat Chrysler lost 4.2 percent by 0726 GMT, underperforming a 2.6 percent drop in the European car sector driven by trade tensions. A Milan-based trader Manley's move was "not a good sign" and compounded the weakness in FCA's shares.

Around the world, a host of governments and businesses are looking to reduce their environmental impact by embracing renewable sources of energy.

In the U.S., for instance, the Energy Information Administration expects non-hydroelectric renewables — think wind and solar — will be the "fastest growing source of U.S. electricity generation for at least the next two years."

While this may be beneficial to the planet, it does pose some challenges, not least when it comes to energy storage. This is because while sources such as solar and wind are renewable, they do not promise a constant stream of power.

It's within this context that storage systems are seen as being so important to renewables, as they enable the storage of energy when it's available and then its usage when required.

"To integrate large amounts of renewable energy into the power system two issues need to be solved," Ilka Jahn, a PhD candidate at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology, told CNBC's "Sustainable Energy."

"One is that, usually, the energy is not produced where it's needed, so that's a location problem," she explained. "And the second one is that the energy is being produced at a time when it's not needed, so that's a timing problem."

Jahn added that, to overcome this, two things could be done. "One is to build more transmission capacity, so new power lines." The second solution Jahn proposed was the building of more energy storage. "How you actually do that depends on the specific project and the specific requirements."

On the Swedish island of Gotland, which is home to dozens of wind turbines, researchers from several organizations — including major Swedish utility Vattenfall, Schneider Electric and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology — have worked on a project called Smart Grid Gotland, which wrapped up in 2017.

Among other things, the project aimed to integrate wind and other renewable sources into the network while still ensuring reliability.

To give one example of how innovation was used during the project, households on the island were able to monitor their energy usage 24 hours per day. Using technology, they could adjust their heater's settings so that it switched on when cheap, renewable electricity was available and turned off when prices went up.

"The Gotland project was a very interesting project in that it looked at how to repurpose an existing distribution grid into a smarter grid," Daniel Mansson, an associate professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, told CNBC.

According to the ETIP Smart Networks for Energy Transition, which was set up by the European Commission, one result of the Smart Grid Gotland project was that it showed how it was "possible to make better use of renewable energy by incentivizing consumers to lower their energy consumption at times of limited renewable production."

Given that Swedish authorities want 100% renewable electricity production by the year 2040, the results of projects such as Smart Grid Gotland will be watched with a great deal of interest.

Chad Haag considered living in a cave to escape his student debt. He had a friend doing it. But after some plotting, he settled on what he considered a less risky plan. This year, he relocated to a jungle in India. "I've put America behind me," Haag, 29, said.

Today he lives in a concrete house in the village of Uchakkada for $50 a month. His backyard is filled with coconut trees and chickens. "I saw four elephants just yesterday," he said, adding that he hopes never to set foot in a Walmart again.

More than 9,000 miles away from Colorado, Haag said, his student loans don't feel real anymore. "It's kind of like, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it really exist?" he said.

Some student loan borrowers are packing their bags and fleeing from the U.S. to other countries, where the cost of living is often lower and debt collectors wield less power over them. Although there is no national data on how many people have left the United States because of student debt, borrowers tell their stories of doing so in Facebook groups and Reddit channels and how-to advice is offered on personal finance websites.

"It may be an issue we see an uptick in if the trends keep up," said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Outstanding student debt in the U.S. has tripled over the last decade and is projected to swell to $2 trillion by 2022. Average debt at graduation is currently around $30,000, up from an inflation-adjusted $16,000 in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, salaries for new bachelor degree recipients, also accounting for inflation, have remained almost flat over the last few decades.

Haag's student loan balance of around $20,000 isn't as large as the burden shouldered by many other borrowers, but, he said, his difficultly finding a college-level job in the U.S. has made that debt oppressive nonetheless.

"If you're not making a living wage," he said, "$20,000 in debt is devastating."

He struggled to come up with the $300 a month he owed upon graduation. The first work he found after he left the University of Northern Colorado in 2011 — when the recession's effects were still palpable — was on-again, off-again hours at a factory, unloading trucks and constructing toy rockets on an assembly line. He then went back to school to pursue a master's degree in comparative literature at the University of Colorado Boulder. After that, he tried to make it as an adjunct professor, but still he could barely scrape a living together with the one class a semester he was assigned.

Haag had some hope restored when he landed full-time work as a medical courier in Denver, delivering urine and blood samples to hospitals. However, he was disappointed to find that he brought home just $1,700 a month. He had little money left over after he paid his student loan bill. He couldn't afford an apartment in the city, where rents have been rising sharply. He lived with his mother and rarely went out with friends.

"I couldn't make the math work in America," Haag said.

Milestones that seemed like pipe dreams back home, like starting a family,and owning a house, are now on his horizon in India. Last year, he married an Indian citizen, a professor at a local college. He has a five-year spousal visa.

Adjusting to a new country, he admitted, has not been entirely easy.

"Some toilets here are holes in the ground you squat over," Haag said. Recently, he ate spoiled goat meat at a local restaurant and landed in the emergency room.

Still, he said, "I have a higher standard of living in a Third World country than I would in America, because of my student loans."

Moving to another country to escape student debt is risky, experts say. If the person wants or needs to return to the United States, they'll find their loan balance has only grown while they were gone, thanks to compound interest, collection charges and late fees.

Although the Education Department typically can't garnish someone's wages if they're working for a company outside of the United States, it can take up to 15 percent of their Social Security benefits when they start collecting.

"The loans do not disappear when you become an expat," said Mark Kantrowitz, a student loan expert.

The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Chad Albright attended Millersville University, in Pennsylvania, where he studied communications and history. He graduated as the Great Recession was beginning in December 2007, and couldn't find anyone to hire him in his chosen field. "I went to interview after interview after interview," Albright, 39, said.

Still, he had $30,000 in student loans and was soon faced with a monthly bill of around $400. Unable to support himself, he moved in with his parents in Lancaster and worked as a pizza deliveryman. "There was anger," Albright said. "I couldn't believe I couldn't find a job in America."

He fell behind on his student loans and feared the Education Department would garnish his wages.

Albright's credit score tanked as a result of his repayment troubles, making it difficult for him to buy a car and to land certain jobs, since some employers now pull credit reports. "I feel that college ruined my life," Albright said.

Seeing no future for himself in the United States, he decided to move to China in 2011. In the city of Zhongshan, he discovered he loved teaching students English. Unlike when he was delivering greasy boxes of pizza, he found his work meaningful and fulfilling.

Though he earned just around $1,000 a month in China, the school where he was teaching covered most of his rent and the cost of living was much lower than in Pennsylvania.

A few years later, Albright moved to Ukraine, where he is now a permanent resident. He first taught in Kiev and now does so in Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea. He has no plans to return to the United States. "I am much happier in Ukraine," he said, adding that he hasn't checked his student loan account in nearly eight years.

There are more reasonable ways of dealing with student debt, said Nassirian, at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Struggling borrowers should enter into one of the government's income-based repayment plans instead, in which their monthly bill will be capped at a portion of their income, he said. Some payments wind up being as little as $0 a month.

But the fact that people are taking this drastic measure should bring scrutiny to the larger student loan system, said Alan Collinge, founder of Student Loan Justice.

"Any rational person who learns that people are fleeing the country as a result of their student loan debt will conclude that something has gone horribly awry with this lending system," Collinge said.

Katrina Williams was in a rush to find a job after she graduated from the University of South Alabama in 2013. She was looking at a monthly student loan bill of $700.

"I had to take whatever I could so I could pay on the loans," Williams said.

She picked up multiple jobs, as a part-time barista at Starbucks, a substitute teacher and a delivery-woman for the United States Postal Service. At one point, she worked full time at a call center for Sears.

"I was working every day," Williams said. "I had enough money left over to put gas in the car."

She lived with her mother and couldn't afford health insurance.

Williams had a friend who had moved to Japan, and the idea of leaving the United States grew on her. In 2015, she moved to Chiba, also to teach English to students. "I love my work," she said. Her job sponsors her visa.

On Wednesday, a new email from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to all employees at the electric car company called for employees to focus on making end-of-quarter deliveries better than they have been, historically.

As he did in recent weeks, Musk hammered home the notion that every employee should be individually focused on controlling costs.

In this installment, Musk reminds Tesla employees that the company's first quarter results fell short of investors' expectations, in part because Tesla was unable to make deliveries efficiently and on time.

Sales of Tesla's electric vehicles hit $3.72 billion in the first quarter which represented a 41% drop from the fourth quarter of 2018, when the company generated $6.32 billion in automotive revenue. In its first quarter vehicle deliveries and production report, Tesla said it delivered 63,000 vehicles during that quarter, down from a record 90,700 in the fourth quarter of 2018.

The company has given guidance that it will deliver around 90,000 vehicles in the second quarter, and between 360,000 and 400,000 for the year.

Tesla's relatively new CFO Zack Kirkhorn told investors on its first-quarter earnings call this year that "unwinding the wave" of uneven deliveries would be critical in helping Tesla achieve profitability later this year.

Here's the Musk's e-mail about deliveries from Wednesday.

WATCH: Tesla owner frustrated, so repairs his own Model S and says it's as easy as Legos

The market sell-off has reached the "emotional stage" and investors should begin scouting opportunities to buy stocks, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Wednesday.

The three major U.S. indexes all declined less than 1% during the trading day as traders confidence in stocks as an asset class, he said. That makes it a good time to get ahead of the curve and reenter the market at discounted prices, he said.

"Now that people are really freaking out ... I think it's time to start picking up stocks into weakness. That's not cheerleading, it's discipline," the "Mad Money" host said. "So if you've got some cash on the sidelines, I think you can possibly begin putting it to work. But slowly and surely, and not with a degree of gusto because it's not warranted."

Emotions have overtaken the market, Cramer said.

Take Johnson & Johnson: In the first day of a high-profile trial, Oklahoma state prosecutors blamed the company for playing a role in more than 46,000 opioid-related deaths over a decade. In response, shares of the pharmaceutical giant plummeted more than 4% during the session.

Cramer argued, however, that Johnson & Johnson was a much smaller contributor in the country's opioid epidemic, including the state of Oklahoma. The "real bad actors" were Purdue Pharma, which downplayed how addictive its OxyContin drug was, and Teva, which sells painkillers, he said. The two companies settled with state prosecutors for $270 million and $85 million, respectively, in recent months.

Johnson & Johnson, whose involvement was much smaller than the aforementioned drug makers, lost about $15 billion of market share Wednesday. The "pullback has become ridiculously overblown," Cramer said.

"To the worn out and despondent, JNJ's become yet another nightmare," he said. "But to me, the decline here is simply another buying opportunity, even as I accept there could be more downside from frightened investors."

Workday, which tanked nearly $10 per Wednesday, suffered a similar overblown fate, Cramer said. The cloud software firm reported a "fantastic" quarter on Tuesday — the best out of Cramer's "Cloud Kings" stock group thus far, he said. The company picked up more business with Cisco, Geico, Procter & Gamble, Siemens and Airbus, he noted.

"This pullback was totally predictable. The stock had run up dramatically going into the quarter — it was cruising for a bruising, even with great numbers," Cramer said. "But today's action sends a chilling message: Even if you shoot the lights out [and] do an amazing job, it won't matter, your stock is going to be sold."

Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Cisco and Johnson & Johnson.

Tech giants, civil society groups and Ivy League security experts have condemned a proposal from Britain's eavesdropping agency as a "serious threat" to digital security and fundamental human rights.

In an open letter to GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), 47 signatories including Apple, Google and WhatsApp have jointly urged the U.K. cybersecurity agency to abandon its plans for a so-called "ghost protocol."

It comes after intelligence officials at GCHQ proposed a way in which they believed law enforcement could access end-to-end encrypted communications without undermining the privacy, security or confidence of other users.

Details of the initiative were first published in an essay by two of the U.K.'s highest cybersecurity officials in November 2018. Ian Levy, the technical director of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, and Crispin Robinson, GCHQ's head of cryptanalysis (the technical term for codebreaking), put forward a process that would attempt to avoid breaking encryption.

The pair said it would be "relatively easy for a service provider to silently add a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call."

In practice, the proposal suggests a technique which would require encrypted messaging services — such as WhatsApp — to direct a message to a third recipient, at the same time as sending it to its intended user.

Levy and Robinson argued the proposal would be "no more intrusive than the virtual crocodile clips" which are currently used in wiretaps of non-encrypted communications. This refers to the use of chat and call apps that can silently copy call data during digital exchanges.

Opposing this plan, signatories of the open letter argued that "to achieve this result, their proposal requires two changes to systems that would seriously undermine user security and trust."

"First, it would require service providers to surreptitiously inject a new public key into a conversation in response to a government demand. This would turn a two-way conversation into a group chat where the government is the additional participant, or add a secret government participant to an existing group chat," signatories of the open letter, which was first sent to GCHQ on May 22, said Thursday.

"Second, in order to ensure the government is added to the conversation in secret, GCHQ's proposal would require messaging apps, service providers, and operating systems to change their software so that it would 1) change the encryption schemes used, and/or 2) mislead users by suppressing the notifications that routinely appear when a new communicant joins a chat."

Apple, one of the signatories of the open letter to GCHQ, previously took a stand over data privacy in a widely publicized standoff with the FBI in 2015 and 2016.

Apple publicly opposed the FBI when it asked for access to the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter, Syed Farook. The technology giant refused to help the FBI, citing issues of data privacy. Eventually, the FBI backed down, finding another way into the device without Apple's help.

"The overwhelming majority of users rely on their confidence in reputable providers to perform authentication functions and verify that the participants in a conversation are the people they think they are, and only those people," the letter said.

"The GCHQ's ghost proposal completely undermines this trust relationship and the authentication process."

In response to the open letter, the National Cyber Security Centre's Ian Levy said: "We welcome this response to our request for thoughts on exceptional access to data — for example to stop terrorists. The hypothetical proposal was always intended as a starting point for discussion."

"We will continue to engage with interested parties and look forward to having an open discussion to reach the best solutions possible," Levy said, in an emailed statement to CNBC on Thursday.

A European pilots' group Thursday urged the region's aviation regulator to conduct its own thorough and independent review of the Boeing 737 Max before allowing the planes to fly again.

International air safety regulators, including the Federal Aviation Administration, grounded the close to 400 Max jets that were in service in mid-March after two fatal crashes within less than five months of one another killed a combined 346 people.

"Simply accepting the FAA's word on the Max's safety won't be enough," the European Cockpit Association said in a statement. The group represents 38,000 European pilots, including those at airlines that have purchased the Boeing 737 Max, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Ryanair.

The group's comments come as the FAA meets with its international counterparts in Texas on Thursday to provide an update on its process of approving Boeing's changes to the planes in an effort to get them flying again.

Operators of the Boeing 737 Max are grappling with how to reintroduce the plane in their fleets if the FAA and other authorities approve its return. The absence of the plane has forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights during the busy summer travel season. Confidence from pilots and flight attendants is key to that strategy, and Boeing has met with both groups in recent weeks to discuss the changes it's preparing.

"If there's an American Airlines pilot ready to go, so am I, so is my family. And we'll be among the first people, if not the first people, on board," American Airlines' CEO Doug Parker told NBC News in an interview that aired Wednesday evening.

Boeing last week said it completed software changes to an anti-stall system that has been implicated in the October crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max and another operated by Ethiopian Airlines in March. That software along with updated pilot training materials will need FAA's approval.

The manufacturer and the FAA are under fire for how the plane was approved, which included delegating some functions to Boeing. Although the practice is legal, lawmakers have questioned the agency's relationship with Boeing, and several investigations are examining how the planes received a green light with a system that pilots say they didn't know about until after the first crash.

The pilots group also wants answers.

"For European pilots, having closely followed the developments and revelations in the past months, it is deeply disturbing that both the FAA and Boeing are considering a return to service, but failing to discuss the many challenging questions prompted by the Max design philosophy," it said.

For its part, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency said it does plan to conduct an independent review of the plane.

"The information made available so far through the preliminary investigations of the two accidents are deemed to provide sufficient understanding of the safety issues to be addressed and we will continue to analyse any new information that the investigations make available," EASA said in an e-mailed statement.

Separately on Thursday, an international airline trade group is meeting with 737 Max operators to discuss Boeing's update and the potential return to service.

U.S. stock index futures were sharply lower Wednesday morning, as bond yields fell again triggering concerns about the economic outlook. Increasing trade tensions in the China-U.S. trade fight also weighed on markets.

Around 8:15 a.m. ET, Dow futures indicated a negative open of 174 points. Futures on the S&P and Nasdaq were also both pointing lower.

The Dow was set to add to its 4.7% decline so far in May with risk aversion increasing in recent days as bond yields dropped. The 10-year Treasury note yield, which touched a 19-month low on Tuesday, declined again in early trading Wednesday to 2.24%. A portion of the so-called yield curve further inverted as 3-month Treasury bills last yielded 2.3456%, well above the 10-year rate.

It comes at a time when the world's two largest economies are locked in a protracted trade dispute.

Washington and Beijing have imposed tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of one another's goods since the start of 2018, battering financial markets and souring business and consumer sentiment.

In the latest move, China made a veiled threat this week through state media regarding rare earth minerals, a market crucial to the U.S. technology and defense industries which China dominates.

Chipmakers, which have gotten pounded this month on fears of disrupted supply chains and lost customers due to the trade war, fell again in premarket trading Wednesday. Micron and Nvidia were lower.

Trade bellwethers Boeing and Caterpillar were also lower in premarket trading.

Italy's dispute with the European Commission over its budget, wins for europskeptic parties in EU elections and political turmoil in Austria and Greece have all added to the gloomy market outlook.

On the data front, the Richmond Fed manufacturing survey for May is expected at around 10 a.m. ET, with Dallas Fed services data set to follow slightly later in the session.

Amid falling sales in key sectors, India's consumption-fueled growth is hitting a roadblock, spelling trouble for Asia's third-largest economy.

The country now wants to pivot away from that reliance on consumption, and move toward exports — typically not a key driver of its economy — to generate growth instead.

Sanjeev Sanyal, principal economic advisor at India's Ministry of Finance, said Tuesday that the country's plan for an "exports-oriented economic policy" is in play.

"Many people often say India's story is about the return of consumption. We are challenging that," he told the Nomura Investment Forum in Singapore.

In fact, the present moment may be offering an opportunity to do just that, he said, adding that India should view the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute as a chance to win some of the international export market.

"Do not worry about the fact that the global exports environment may or may not be conducive. Our share of global exports is so small ... The fact that global supply chains are disrupted should be seen as an opportunity," Sanyal said.

His comments came amid doubts that consumption can continue to be a strong driver of Indian growth. The last few months have featured a slew of weak sales data for key sectors in the country.

India's vehicle sales dropped 17% in April — the worst monthly fall in nearly eight years, and its fifth consecutive monthly decline.

According to Nielsen data, growth in India's fast moving consumer goods sector slowed to 13.6% in the first three months of this year, from almost 16% in the last three months of 2018.

Additionally, data showed the country's economy grew 6.6% in the last three months of 2018 — the slowest pace in five quarters. India's top industry body — the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry — flagged that slowing growth as a "serious concern" and said the big worry was that domestic consumption was not growing fast enough to offset a weakening global economic environment.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India trimmed its growth projection to 7.2% for the 2020 financial year, from an earlier target of 7.4%.

The move toward export-driven growth would come with a few key tasks: identifying the type of goods and services to export and determining what's needed to support those sectors, according to Sanyal.

"New areas could be areas like defense, for example ... even in areas like services exports where we are big but, in fact, we are not growing as fast as we should be. We need to also revive our IT industry and get that going. The key here is we need to find whichever sectors, focus on those clusters, help them out," Sanyal said.

But Sanyal stressed that India will not be "using our exchange rate in any strategic way" in a bid to make its exports more attractive, in response to a question which suggested that China, which was a trade powerhouse in the 2000s, relied on a weaker yuan to drive its sales.

"We do have a tilt towards accumulating reserves in general, but we do not want to use the exchange rate as an active weapon ... Even in the case of China, they made one big devaluation, (but) the rest of the time actually they really played the game through productivity gains," he told the conference.

"And we have got to do that productivity gain, there is no escaping it," concluded Sanyal.

Uber said in a Friday filing that Ryan Graves, its first employee, is leaving the company's board, effective Monday.

Graves was the company's first CEO, hired by Travis Kalanick after he responded to a Kalanick Tweet seeking a "Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service." He stepped down from his position as senior vice president of global operations in 2017.

The filing says:

The filing includes a note to the board from chair Ron Sugar:

Graves is leaving the board almost two years after Uber named Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO.

The announcement comes just two weeks after the ride-sharing company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange, closing at $41.57 per share, for a decline of 7.6%. On Friday the stock closed at $41.51 per share at a valuation above $69 billion.

"Mr. Graves was selected to serve on our board of directors because of his experience as one of the early leaders of our company, and as such, his innovation, technology, and high-growth experience, as well as his consumer and digital experience," Uber said in the prospectus for its initial public offering. 

In the prospectus Uber said it had bought more than 1.1 million shares of the company's stock from Graves. Following the IPO he owned 1.9% of Uber, according to the prospectus. 

Graves, who has served on the Uber board's compensation committee, is now founder and CEO of Saltwater Capital, which has invested in companies like Calm and Equator Coffees & Teas.

WATCH: Uber is a volatile stock despite being a great company, says Greycroft's John Elton

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, whose grandniece was killed in the March crash of a 737 Max jet in Ethiopia, is accusing the Federal Aviation Administration of being beholden to Boeing.

The FAA is hosting dozens of international aviation regulators in Texas on Thursday to discuss the ongoing review of the Boeing 737 Max jets, which the agency and others around the world grounded in March after two deadly crashes that happened less than five months apart.

In an interview with CNBC's Phil LeBeau, Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell reiterated that the agency has no set timetable for allowing the Max planes to return to service.

Elwell also responded to Nader's criticism, saying he has "great respect" for Nader's work on consumer product safety. But the FAA chief said on "Squawk on the Street " that his agency is the expert on whether or not to green light the Max for service again.

Nader, in an earlier "Squawk Box" interview Thursday, called on federal regulators to recall the jets, saying the issue is not about how much the software may "overpower the pilot" or "empower the pilot." He said: "The basic problem is the design of the plane. And there is no way you can fix that without recalling the plane, the way they recall cars."

Some U.S. aviation officials believe a bird strike may have contributed to the crash in Ethiopia, feeding faulty data into one of the plane's autopilot systems. Crash investigators have indicated that bad sensor data triggered an anti-stall system aboard the Ethiopian Airlines flight that went down shortly after takeoff, a similar scenario to the crash of a Lion Air jet in Indonesia.

"In all the product defects that I have worked on over the years, I have never seen so many whistleblowers [and] so many authentic aerospace experts condemning the Boeing practice here," Nader added. "The FAA has been in the pockets of the Boeing company for years — pressured by Congress and the White House on both parties to cut budgets, to cut staff, [and] reduce their talent pool to oversee Boeing."

Nader said he sent letters to the FAA and Boeing and never got a response. "Boeing had a good record for 10 years or so. But that does not allow Boeing to have any free crashes that are preventable by standard aeronautical safety stability."

Nader's grandniece, Samya Stumo from Massachusetts, was among the 157 people killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa. The other crash involving a 737 Max was in October, when a Lion Air flight went down in Indonesia's Java Sea, killing 189 people.

Boeing was not immediately available to respond to CNBC's request for comment.

— CNBC's Leslie Josephs and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

When California real estate investor Manny Khoshbin spent $2.2 million on the fastest street-legal car in the world, he had no idea it would also become the fastest-appreciating asset he'd ever own.

"Quickest $1.9 million I ever made," Khoshbin told CNBC.

Khoshbin is an Instagram influencer with almost 1 million followers who eat up the almost daily car porn he posts. His feed is filled with pics and videos or his personal collection of insanely expensive rides — many of which sit in the middle of his real estate office, which doubles as a private super-car showroom.

Parked next to his 1,400 pound black aluminum desk, which is shaped like a stealth-bomber, are more than a dozen cars, including a one-of-a-kind Pagani Huayra Hermès edition, a Bugatti Mansory Linea Vincero and a full-body exposed carbon matte finish McLaren P1.

But none of those wheels are as fast as the Koenigsegg Agera RS he had delivered 12 months ago. The hypercar set at least five world records for speed for a street-legal car, with the fastest run clocking in at just over 284 miles per hour. Only 25 were ever made during its three-year run and they sold out in the first 10 months of its debut at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show. Khoshbin was in line for the last one, an Agera RS Gryphon that crashed in a test run when the driver lost control at a wet track in Trollhattan, Sweden, in 2017.

Koenigsegg said on its Instagram page at the time that it reached "a mutually satisfactory outcome" with Khoshbin "to spec an all-new Agera RS that will blow everyone's mind."

Khoshbin added some over-the-top upgrades, including a 1,400 horsepower engine, a $300,000 tail wing for increased aerodynamics and lots of 24 karat accents, including the gold-covered exhaust pipe. Parts of the engine and the stripes that run around its entire carbon body are covered in gold.

Khoshbin dubbed it the Agera RS Phoenix, rising out of the ashes of the Gryphon. Besides the pricey add-ons, it was the last Agera RS Koenigsegg ever made — making it highly desirable to collectors.

"I wasn't thinking about selling it. Honestly, I was buying to keep it permanently, but I got an offer I couldn't refuse," Khoshbin told CNBC.

He says a mutual friend connected him to a prospective buyer who, like Khoshbin, had an appreciation for carbon fiber dripping in gold.

"He had another Koenigsegg in carbon and gold and this was a perfect match to the other in his collection," Khoshbin said. Just like the Agera RS, the deal moved super fast. It took about a week to negotiate a price, he said. "I said $5 million, we negotiated and landed at $4.1 million."

In just over five months, Khoshbin pocketed $1.9 million in profit — which works out to roughly $365,595 a month, $11,875 a day or $495 an hour.

While the real estate investor says he's made millions of dollars buying and selling buildings, he's never made this much money in so little time.

Soon after closing the Phoenix deal, he used the cash to buy a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Rembrandt with just 770 miles on the odometer. The bronze-colored beast, which can go from 0 to 60 in a mind-blowing 2.6 seconds, was a bargain at $2 million. The car's previous owner, a Texas billionaire, bought the Bugatti new in 2014 for just north of $3 million.

"I love cars, but at the end of the day you got to be strategic and smart with your money," said Khoshbin.

He's passionate about rare cars and says investing in them is more fun than other collectibles like art. "You can't take your Picasso to lunch, but you can drive your Bugatti to the restaurant," he said.

When I asked Khoshbin if there was a car in his collection that he won't sell after some thought he answered.

"Yes, my Pagani Hermès Edition. It's my Picasso," he said.

His car obsession continues in the meantime. He's already put a deposit on a replacement for the Phoenix, ordering a Koenigsegg Jesko with 1,600 horsepower that will cost him around $3 million.

A schoolgirl and an adult man were killed and 15 other young girls injured in a stabbing at a bus stop just outside Tokyo on Tuesday, Japanese national broadcaster NHK cited authorities as saying, and another man detained at the scene also later died.

The girls, aged between 6 ands 12, were students at a private Catholic school in Kawasaki city, south of Tokyo, and were boarding their school bus when the suspect attacked them, according to NHK.

The driver of the Caritas Elementary School bus told police he saw a man approach the bus stop and start slashing at people, holding a knife in both hands, the broadcaster said.

It said the girl who was killed was aged 12. A 39-year-old man was also killed and another woman was severely injured along with the 15 other schoolgirls who were hurt, NHK said.

A suspect was detained at the scene after stabbing himself in the neck but died later, NHK cited police as saying. It said the man, a Kawasaki resident probably in his 50s, was unconscious when he was detained.

The motive for the attack was not yet clear but there were no immediate fears of a wider security threat. There have been previous examples of mass stabbings in Japan, sometimes involving the vulnerable.

The attack occurred on the final day of U.S. President Donald Trump's four-day state visit to Japan.

"On behalf of the First Lady and myself, I want to take a moment to send our prayers and sympathy to the victims of the stabbing attack this morning in Tokyo," Trump said as he toured Japan's largest warship, the Kaga.

"All Americans stand with the people of Japan and grieve the victims and for their families," he said.

TV footage showed scores of police officers and emergency vehicles at the crime scene, with large areas cordoned off.

A witness told NHK he saw people lying on the ground covered in blood and one police officer was seen hosing down the sidewalk.

"I saw a boy carrying a school bag with scratches on his face, wrist and legs in a parking lot," NHK quoted an unidentified witness as saying.

"He was visibly trembling — frightened and shocked."

The girls' school was located just over a kilometer from the scene of the attack, NHK said.

Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan but occasional high-profile incidents have shocked the nation.

A knife-wielding man broke into a facility for the disabled in a small town near Tokyo in 2016 and killed 19 patients in their sleep. In 2001, eight children were stabbed to death by a former janitor at their school in Osaka.

More than a dozen people were injured in a 2010 stabbing spree on a school bus and a commuter bus in a Tokyo suburb.

Facebook has decided to keep an altered video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on its site that makes her speech appear slow and slurred. Commenters, including President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, have used the video to call into question Pelosi's competence and mental state.

In a since-deleted tweet, Giuliani shared a link to the altered video and wrote, "What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? Her speech pattern is bizarre." Giuliani later appeared to apologize on Twitter for sharing the video.

Experts told The Washington Post that the video, which is taken from Pelosi's appearance at a Center for American Progress event, appears to have been slowed down to about 75% of its original speed and modified for pitch. The alteration gives Pelosi an unnaturally slow, slurred speech pattern, which made several commenters wonder if she was drunk during the talk. An aide to the speaker called the attacks sexist and said Pelosi does not drink, a New York Times article reported.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said: "There's a tension here: we work hard to find the right balance between encouraging free expression and promoting a safe and authentic community, and we believe that reducing the distribution of inauthentic content strikes that balance. But just because something is allowed to be on Facebook doesn't mean it should get distribution. In other words, we allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we're not going to show it at the top of News Feed."

Facebook said it has begun limiting the video's distribution in the News Feed and adding additional context after one of its fact-checking partners reviewed the video and rated it as false. But the video has already been viewed and spread extensively. As of Friday, an altered version of the video remained on the Facebook page Politics WatchDog and had been viewed more than 2 million times. The Facebook spokesperson added early Saturday that users who view or share the video will see an alert that it's false.

Versions of the altered video could still be found Friday on Twitter as well. One user posted the altered video with the comment, "Please come get your drunk grandma @AOC #pelosi," and the video had been viewed more than 400 times. Twitter declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Google-owned YouTube removed the video from its platform, apparently determining the alteration did go too far. Like Facebook, YouTube has also suffered its share of criticism in the past for continuing to host content that walks the line of its policies.

"YouTube has clear policies that outline what content is not acceptable to post and we remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. "These videos violated our policies and have been removed. They also did not surface prominently. In fact, search results and watch next panels about Nancy Pelosi include videos from authoritative sources, usually at the top."

The video has drawn attention to the potential dangers of new technology that enables convincing alterations. Even though experts believe simple aspects like pitch and speed were changed in the Pelosi video, so-called deepfake technology uses artificial intelligence to modify videos even further. With the ability to mimic facial expressions, the possibilities for spreading misinformation could greatly expand.

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The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Novartis' $2.1 million gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy — making it the world's most expensive drug.

The therapy, Zolgensma, is a one-time treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, a muscle-wasting disease and leading genetic cause of infant mortality that affects one in every 11,000 births. Novartis had previously said it could price the treatment between $1.5 million to $5 million.

Novartis said the treatment will cost $2.1 million — or $425,000 a year spread out over five years. The company said it's "working closely with insurers to create 5-year agreements based on success of the treatment as well as other novel pay-over-time options." It's currently in "advanced discussions" with more than 15 insurers on payment options. Shares of Novartis were up nearly 4% late-afternoon Friday.

This marks a new era in medicine where new therapies can cure patients in a single treatment — but at a high price. Insurers and governments will need to figure out how to pay for these therapies and society will need to decide whether any drug, even lifesaving ones, are worth millions of dollars.

"Zolgensma is a historic advance for the treatment of SMA and a landmark one-time gene therapy," Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said a statement Friday. "Our goal is to ensure broad patient access to this transformational medicine and to share value with the healthcare system."

In rationalizing the expensive price, Novartis said the one-time treatment costs 50% less than the 10-year cost of current chronic management of the disease.

"We believe by taking this responsible approach, we will help patients benefit from this transformative medical innovation and generate significant cost savings for the system over time," said Narasimhan, who has called for new ways to pay for innovative gene therapies.

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which evaluates drug prices, earlier this year said Zolgensma was worth up to only $1.5 million. On Friday, ICER said that after further studying the clinical results and the FDA's approval, it decided Zolgensma's price "falls within the upper bound of ICER's value-based price benchmark range."

"Insurers were going to cover Zolgensma no matter the price, and Novartis has spoken publicly about considering prices that approached $5 million," ICER President Steven Pearson said in a statement. "It is a positive outcome for patients and the entire health system that Novartis instead chose to price Zolgensma at a level that more fairly aligns with the benefits for these children and their families."

Another current treatment for spinal muscular atrophy for children and adults is Biogen's Spinraza, which has a list price of $750,000 for the first year and $375,000 annually thereafter. Biogen's stock was down more than 1% on Friday.

"As a global leader in the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, a life threatening, devastating disease, Biogen welcomes additional therapeutic options to help individuals with this rare disease," Biogen said in a statement.

Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless lauded the approval, saying in a statement that it marked "another milestone in the transformational power of gene and cell therapies to treat a wide range of diseases. With each new approval, we see this exciting area of science continue to move beyond the concept phase into reality."

Following a resounding victory at India's parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to improve the country's manufacturing competitiveness to attract global investors, according to a top business leader.

For India to become a highly competitive manufacturing hub, several things still need to happen — including an improvement in infrastructure efficiency, compliance and the way the country's public sector works, said R.C. Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki, one of India's largest automobile manufacturers.

"This time, he has to make sure that India does become a highly competitive manufacturing hub, where global investors now look to India to invest," he told CNBC's Tanvir Gill in an interview on Saturday.

"Lots had been done but it's not enough. Public sector controls a lot of factors, which go into manufacturing competitiveness. The efficiency and the levels at which the public sector functions are not necessarily globally competitive," he said. For example, India's public sector banks are trying to resolve bad debts that have hampered their ability to lend in recent years.

Another big weakness in India has been the ability to implement good policies, he added. "They tend to remain on paper more than they actually become reality on the ground. I think (Modi) has to work to remove the factors which make India such a poor implementer of projects and policies," Bhargava said.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party snatched a resounding win in a single party majority with over 300 seats.

Analysts have said that the BJP's dominance could give Modi a bit of maneuvering room within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition to push major reforms in areas such as land and labor — that are important for India's long-term growth. But that's expected to receive some push back, especially from the states.

The government's lack of majority in the upper house of parliament and vested interest from state governments are likely to thwart immediate efforts to introduce those reforms, according to Priyanka Kishore, head of India and South East Asia economics at Oxford Economics.

State governments, Kishore explained in a recent note, can often follow a different agenda to the center — even if they belong to the same party — and "the initial experience with the labour reforms in the NDA's first term showed." Instead, she said, it is likely that Modi will temper expectations on those major reforms, focus on reviving short-term growth and maintain a favorable environment for businesses and investments.

Bhargava added that if the Reserve Bank of India cuts interest rates, it could help by reducing borrowing costs even though that's not the main determinant of growth. "I think a lot of the growth also depends on how management of industry is carried out," he said.

Earlier this month, data showed passenger vehicle sales in India dropped 17% in April, which was the worst monthly decline in almost eight years. Poor consumer sentiment, high insurance costs and the unavailability of liquid cash dented car sales, reports said.

That happened amid a global backdrop of slowing auto sales in major markets.

Bhargava said that India's auto sector, along with the rest of the economy, tends to slow down a year before elections before picking up again after the polls are conducted. That, he explained, is likely due to the uncertainty before the ballots are cast, as people tend to defer all purchases and investments until the final outcome is known.

The auto sales slowdown in India has "nothing to do with the fundamentals of the economy," he added. "Things like the China-U.S. trade war, oil prices going up and down — these keep happening, it's not unusual for this to happen."

He said that India's auto sector will remain the fastest growing car market for many years to come because it has a lot of distance to cover, while other major markets have become highly saturated, leaving them little room for growth.

"We're about 25 cars per 1,000 (people). The USA is over 800, Europe is over 500, China has already reached 150. So, you see the difference," he said.

— Reuters contributed to this report.

Chinese technology firm Lenovo, one of the world's largest PC makers, can shift production to other countries if the U.S. slaps more tariffs on China, the company's finance chief told CNBC.

President Donald Trump has threatened an additional round of tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports which could include consumer electronics.

Lenovo said it has a global manufacturing footprint and could shift production elsewhere if extra tariffs were imposed on China.

"We obviously are well-prepared in the event that it happens," Lenovo CFO Wai Ming Wong told CNBC.

"We have definitely the ability to shift some of the production … from the impacted countries like China to the countries where we can continue to without, I think, without having the impact of the tariffs," he added.

Lenovo reported profit of $597 million for its fiscal year which ended March 31, from a loss of $189 million in the previous year.

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says he is fully committed to Boeing's 737 Max jet once it's recertified by the Federal Aviation Administration and that an "absolute fix" does exist for the jet's anti-stall system, implicated in two deadly crashes.

"There's one that we will all be comfortable with, or the aircraft won't be recertified. And our pilots are gonna agree with that, or the aircraft won't fly," Parker said in an interview with "NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt that is scheduled to air Wednesday night.

Parker also acknowledged that it will be hard to restore public trust in the Max after it's recertified. The jet's anti-stall system has been linked to crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed a total of 346 people.

"Accidents like this, tragedies like this, are ... horrific," he said. "Now, in our case, we've always believed that, that airplane with our pilots, with our training was an airworthy aircraft."

"But ... it's not for us to decide whether or not the aircraft flies. It needs to be safe for everyone."

American has canceled thousands of flights through the summer — roughly 115 flights a day — as its 24 Max jets stay grounded. Boeing said Thursday that it has finished the development of a software fix and will work with the FAA to schedule a certification flight.

American anticipates a hit to pretax earnings of $350 million due to Max groundings and cancellations. Some airlines are demanding that Boeing provide compensation, and others have even announced that they will cancel all 737 Max orders due to safety concerns.

Parker said that if American Airlines pilots want more training after the Max is back in the air, "We'll work to do that."

"What I know is our pilots and other pilots are heavily involved in the discussions with the FAA about what training should be required," he said.

The FAA is meeting with civil aviation authorities on Thursday to discuss the agency's safety analysis and plans for the return of the Max.

"It's incredibly important to us that we get to a point where the entire aircraft aviation community feels comfortable that this airplane is ready to get back in the air. And when it is, we'll be flying in it," Parker said.

The full interview can be viewed Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. ET on "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt."

WATCH: 737 Max recertification flight could happen by end of May