KOLKATA: The Idea-Vodafone merger is likely to close faster, as early as next March-April, six months before the more conservative September 2018 timeline recently suggested by Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao.

“Management expects all approvals for the merger to come in by March/April 2018,” Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said in a note, citing its recent meeting with the Idea Cellular leadership. ET has seen a copy of this note.

BSE benchmark Sensex ended over 67 points down in volatile trade today as cautious investors trimmed their portfolios ahead of RBI's policy announcement amid subdued macro cues.

The Reserve Bank's two-day monetary policy review kicked off today. The central bank is widely expected to keep policy rates unchanged tomorrow and will stay focused on controlling inflation, experts said.

The Indian government’s fraud case against tycoon Vijay Mallya is baseless and politically motivated, his defence lawyer told a London court on Tuesday as she battled to prevent his extradition to his home country.

Mallya, who lives in Britain, stands accused in India of fraudulently palming off losses from his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines onto banks by taking out loans he had no intention of repaying.

Two major Chinese lenders plan to support a move by China Development Bank to put Indian wireless carrier Reliance Communications (RCom) into insolvency court as they seek to recover about $2 billion in debt, said three people with knowledge of the matter.

Last month, CDB began insolvency proceedings against RCom, which has been trying for months to restructure its debt via a debt-for-equity swap. Now, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's biggest-listed lender by assets, and Export-Import Bank of China, plan to back CDB, the sources said.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday cautioned the "users, holders and traders" of Bitcoins about the security related risks associated in dealing with such virtual currencies (VCs).

The apex bank reiterated its stand that "it has not given any licence or authorisation to any entity or company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any VC".

The Madras High Court has dismissed a PIL seeking to restrain the Tamil Nadu government from observing former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death anniversary today.

The first bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice R Hemalatha dismissed the petition by one R Kumaravel seeking to restrain the state government from observing December 5 as the death anniversary of Jayalalithaa.

Ad wars in the automotive space are quite common in Europe and US but not so much in India. That, however, doesn't mean that things are completely boring here. Siddhartha Lal, CEO, Eicher Motors, recently tweeted that Royal Enfield's sales are equivalent to the global sales of Harley-Davidson, KTM, BMW, Triumph and Ducati combined. Yes, he actually said that! Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto, responded to the tweet through a statement to Business Standard, saying "By measuring solely on the basis of volumes at the exclusion of pricing power, it would seem that Maruti Suzuki is above and beyond brands like Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche put together."

New Delhi: Tech giant Google on Tuesday unveiled a slew of new solutions, such as Android Oreo Go edition for low-cost smartphones and a bike mode for Maps, aimed at driving Internet adoption across markets, including India.

The company has also worked with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio to bring a customised version of Google Assistant (virtual assistant) to the latter’s smart feature phones. Caesar Sengupta, vice-president, Next Billion Users, said Google’s India-first suite of products and features are aimed to help more people discover how the Internet can make life easier and more convenient.

Hyderabad: Planet Labs Inc., a US-based integrated aerospace and data analytics company, plans to set up a development centre in India to tap into the technical expertise and business opportunities.

The company last week announced that four of its Dove spacecraft will be launched aboard India’s PSLV-C40 flight, scheduled early January.

ADB’s financing package includes loans and partial risk guarantees for the power generation facility, as well as for the LNG terminal. The total project cost is approximately $1 billion.

“ADB’s partnership with Reliance Power will help Bangladesh scale up its energy infrastructure to sustain and support the country’s economic growth.” Michael Barrow, director-general of ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department, said: “ADB’s role as a direct lender and guarantee provider will enable Reliance Power to mobilize much needed long-term debt financing and will help in attracting new lenders to Bangladesh.”

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