New Delhi: Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Thursday said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had failed the fiscal consolidation test that will have “serious consequences” on the economic growth rate. Chidambaram tweeted that the fiscal deficit limit of 3.2 per cent in 2017-18 had been breached and was now estimated at 3.5[Read More…]
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday announced a flagship National Health Protection Scheme under which Rs 5 lakh cover will be provided a year to 10 crore poor and vulnerable families in the country. “We are now launching a flagship national health protection scheme to cover 10 crore poor[Read More…]
New Delhi: A day ahead of the GST Council meeting, the Congress on Wednesday reiterated its demand for including petroleum products and real estate under the ambit of GST and said the government must consult all stakeholders before bringing any changes in the pan-India indirect tax law. “The Congress will demand[Read More…]
The two-day Bengal Global Business Summit organised by the state government has so far received new investment proposals worth Rs 2,19,925 crore, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced here on Wednesday. Addressing delegates on the concluding day of the meet, Banerjee said 50 per cent of last year’s business proposals and[Read More…]
Mumbai: Optimism around quarterly corporate earnings, along with healthy buying in IT, banking and capital goods stocks, lifted the key Indian equity indices to trade at fresh high levels during the mid-afternoon session on Wednesday. The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE scaled a new high of 34,966.94 points[Read More…]
Lending major ICICI Bank on Friday said that it foresees mobile banking to overtake internet banking. According to the lending major’s Group Executive and Chief Technology and Digital Officer B. Madhivanan, around half of the digital transactions of savings account are taking place on mobile banking. “I believe that in[Read More…]
Over a week after the incident, Jet Airways has terminated the services of two senior pilots who were involved in a mid-air fight while operating London-Mumbai flight on January 1. “Consequent to the review of the events on board Flight 9W 119 London-Mumbai of 1 January, 2018, Jet Airways has[Read More…]
The 15th Finance Commission, which the government notified on November 27, 2017, will have to first contend with the slowdown in the Indian economy. There is an upward trend in the fiscal deficits of states. The inter-governmental transfer system has become overly complex with different sharing arrangements for different taxes;[Read More…]
The “new” Reliance Communications (RCOM) will be “capex light” and emerge as India’s largest B2B (business-to-business) entity that is “focussed on the global and enterprise business”, according to Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani. It will also have a “strong strategic partner coming in the next few months”, Ambani said in[Read More…]
A major case of negligence of two pilots has surfaced on the Jet Airways’ London-Mumbai flight on Tuesday. On January 2, a Jet Airways’ flight moving towards Mumbai from London at around 5 pm escaped a major accident due to a fight between two pilot couple, reported Newscode. According to[Read More…]
There is no mechanism to prevent the misuse of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin by terror groups and other anti-national elements, the government said on Tuesday, adding it was awaiting the report of an expert group on the subject. “One of the features of cryptocurrency is that there is lack of[Read More…]
Late last year, business reporters from across the world were invited to Shanghai — China’s largest city — to witness the people of the most populous country in the world shop relentlessly for 24 hours. The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, one of the world’s largest retailers, has been celebrating the[Read More…]
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) introduced the Value Added Tax (VAT) for the first time from Monday. It is a five per cent tax on most goods and services to boost revenue. The VAT will be applied to food, clothes, electronics and gasoline, phone, water, and[Read More…]
New Delhi: Shashi Arora, CEO and Managing Director of Airtel Payments Bank, has stepped down, the company announced on Friday – nearly a week after the Unique Identification Authority of India, (UIDAI) suspended its Aadhaar linked e-KYC services because of alleged misuse. “Shashi Arora has been associated with Airtel in senior[Read More…]
After registering a 27 per cent growth in mobile business revenue for the financial year 2016-17 — touching a mammoth Rs 34,300 crore — Samsung has become the undisputed leader in the highly competitive and price-sensitive domestic smartphone market. “Samsung continues to be India’s smartphone leader by a fair distance.[Read More…]
New Delhi: Implementing the GST, the improvement in India’s World Bank ease of doing business rankings, the sovereign rating upgrade by US agency Moody’s and bank recapitalisation all contributed to make 2017 a historic year, the Finance Ministry said on Monday. Besides, the cleansing of the financial system instrumentalised by demonetisation[Read More…]
Assocham on Thursday urged the government to remove a clause in the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDA) Bill that seeks to treat bank depositors as other creditors and shareholders for “bail-in”. Assocham Secretary General D.S. Rawat said that in the Indian context, the concept of bail-in — especially by[Read More…]
In a case of Uber surge pricing rear its ugly head to one unfortunate Canadian, a rider was charged a whopping 18,518.50 Canadian dollars ($14,400) for a 20-minute ride in rush hour in Toronto. Rider Hisham Salama took an Uber X on December 8 for a ride which would have[Read More…]
India on Thursday became a member of the Wassenaar Arrangement, that controls the global trade of conventional weapons and dual-use goods and technologies. India was made the 42nd member of the grouping, at its two-day plenary in Vienna. The Ambassador of France Alexandre Ziegler tweeted his country’s congratulations. “As president[Read More…]
Bitcoin crossed $14,000 on Thursday, surging $2,000 in less than 24 hours, a new record high for the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin began the year below $1,000 but continues its sharp rise despite warnings of a dangerous bubble, reports the BBC. It hit the latest milestone during early trading in Asia, according[Read More…]
Investors everywhere (this is not a problem specific to India) are notorious for jumping on the newest, shiniest bandwagons without necessarily understanding what lies underneath the hood. What is a problem specific to India is the dichotomy of its burgeoning investor community lining up with alacrity for their golden tickets,[Read More…]
A joint team of CBI and ED is in London for the extradition hearing on Monday in a London court of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, wanted in India over non-payment of huge bank loans and a case of fraud and money laundering, an official said. The CBI-ED team will assist[Read More…]
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday said money never meant much to him and that as a resource, money enables the company to take risks. “Money has never meant much to me… I abhor the labels and the titles that all of you refer to me,” Ambani said at[Read More…]
There are now more than 25 million businesses on Instagram — up from 15 million in July — and the vast majority of them are small businesses, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app said on Friday. As 800 million use Instagram each month to discover and follow their passions, more and more[Read More…]
Expressing hope that India will be able to create “world-class infrastructure” in another 20 years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said that his confidence in the timeline was based on how the country has become an “aspirational society” whose energies have been unleashed by the 1991 economic liberalisation. Delivering[Read More…]
