The Income-Tax Department on Wednesday warned people to “keep away” from benami transactions, cautioning that violations under the newly enacted law invites criminal prosecution and rigorous imprisonment up to seven years.

The department put out its alert in an advertisement published in leading national dailies.

After German automaker Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal, it is now the US auto giant Ford Motor that was accused of emissions cheating in a bid to promote its diesel engine trucks. A class action lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in Detroit in the state of Michigan, claiming Ford and German auto supplier Bosch of knowingly installing emissions-cheating software devices in 2011-2017 Ford 250 and 350 Super Duty diesel pickup trucks.

Bajaj Auto, which had overlooked its line-up in the executive segment of motorcycles (or bikes between the price range of Rs 50,000-60,000), on Wednesday re-launched Discover 110cc and a refurbished Discover 125cc. The company claimed while it now sells about 8,000 units in the executive segment per month, the aim is to ramp this up 10-fold to 70,000 units within a year. Eric Vas, president (motorcycles), Bajaj Auto, said, “In a year’s time, we want to sell around 70,000 units in the executive segment every month.

Infosys has announced an Advanced Pricing Agreement (APA) with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), under which both companies have agreed on a methodology to allocate revenues and compute taxable income of the company’s US operations. The agreement covers a 10-year period from FY11-21. Infosys will reverse tax provisions of $225 million that were made in the previous period and are no longer required.

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said neither it nor its researcher were any way connected to a study on security aspects of Aadhaar by one S Ananth.

As per media reports, a staff paper published by the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology has flagged safety issues related to the unique identity number.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) late on Wednesday banned Price Waterhouse (PW) from providing audit services to listed companies and market intermediaries for two years in the Satyam fraud case. Two PW partners have been banned for three years.

The regulator also imposed a disgorgement of Rs 130.9 million on Price Waterhouse, and two of its chartered accountants — S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri.

The government on Wednesday allowed foreign entities to own up to a 49 per cent stake in Air India to increase the prospect of successful disinvestment in the carrier.

In a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government clarified that substantial ownership and effective control of Air India would continue to be vested in Indian nationals.

Coal India (CIL), the world’s largest coal miner, will be adopting a new billing mechanism for consumers from the coming financial year, in line with global practices.

According to the plan, sales bills will now be raised on the basis of the actual consumption of gross calorific value (GCV), expressed as kilo calorie per kg of coal. Currently, consumers are charged on the basis of the coal grade.

Bank of Baroda (BoB), India's third-largest state-run lender, is seeking to sell unit Nainital Bank as it sheds non-core assets to bolster its balance sheet, people familiar with the matter said.

A decision on the size of the stake to be sold will depend on approvals from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. BoB holds 98.6 per cent stake in the 96-year-old Nainital Bank, which had assets of about Rs 77 billion ($1.2 billion) as of March end, information available on the lender's website shows.

Second largest private sector lender HDFC Bank expects an uptick in GDP growth in FY19 to 7.3 per cent from the 6.5 per cent estimated for FY18, expecting a rural push by Government and rise in consumption.

"We expect GDP growth to pick up to 7.3 per cent in FY19 and the gross value added growth to stand at 7.1 per cent," its economists said in a note.

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