Rupee edged 4 paise higher to 64.97 against the dollar in early tradeon increased selling of the greenback by exporters and banks ahead of Reserve Bank of India’s first bi-monthly monetary policy meet for FY19.

The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), headed by RBI Governor Urjit Patel, is to meet on April 4 and 5.

Companies owned by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal may raise as much as 365 billion rupees ($5.6 billion) selling bonds as the telecom titans build a war chest in what investors hope will be the home stretch in India’s bruising tariff war.

Mittal-controlled Bharti Airtel Ltd., which sold its first-ever rupee bond of 30 billion rupees last month, has approval to raise 165 billion rupees, according to a March 12 filing.

Construction of highways hit 27 km/day in 2017-18, clocking a 20% growth over the 22.5 km/day in the previous fiscal, though the improved rate is a far cry from the government’s target to build roads at a scorching pace of 41 km/day.

Highway construction has been a priority for the Modi government. When the new dispensation took over in May 2014, the construction rate was at 11.67 km per day.

Microsoft became the latest global technology major to jump on to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) bandwagon as it enabled digital payments through its group communications app Kaizala.

Earlier, Google India’s Tez app and Facebook-owned WhatsApp had enabled UPI-based payments, and Amazon Pay, it is believed, may soon join in.

Punjab National Bank (PNB), the country’s second-largest public sector bank, has said it has not been collating data on recoveries made under its one-time settlement (OTS) scheme for small-ticket loans.

Amazon, the US-based online retail giant, has expanded its global selling programme in India by enabling its local sellers to tap business clients in markets of the US, Europe and Japan. Even though Amazon had opened its global platform to Indian sellers in 2015, they were allowed to ship products only to end-consumers. The company has opened the platform for business-to-business (B2B) channels as it sees an uptick in demand in that segment.

In September 2012, the Supreme Court passed detailed guidelines regarding the implementation of the RTI Act. Criteria for selection to the Central Information Commission and the composition of its benches were also evolved by the Court. None of these guidelines were envisaged under the RTI Act. The Centre immediately sought review of the judgment. It contended that these guidelines were legislative in nature. They could not have been passed by a court.

The government intervention for promoting Make in India in public procurement has resulted in garnering over Rs 50 billion benefits to Indian companies. The changed procurement conditions helped domestic companies to get business from the Railways, GAIL India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, among others.

New Delhi: After rationalization of rates in the first phase, the new phase of goods and services tax (GST) is focussing on anti-tax evasion.

From taxmen cracking down on tax evaders last week to rolling out the e-way bill from 1 April, the government has signalled that it will no longer go easy on evaders after nine months of introduction of this tax.

Content is king, until you ask customers to pay for it. India’s largest telecom companies are discovering this the hard way. They have been announcing a plethora of deals with content providers. Bharti Airtel Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd have announced tie-ups with Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Discovery Communications, etc., while Reliance Industries Ltd and its subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd have gone a step further and even acquired stakes in some content providers.

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