MUMBAI: The tax department has sought explanations from banks and financial institutions, including multinationals, on transitional credit claimed by them in July under the goods and services tax (GST) regime, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners (central tax) have issued ‘information summons’ in the last seven days seeking data in five specific areas “by e-mail/hard copy".

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has raised the issue of reforms in the H1B and L1 visa processes during his talks with US Treasury and Commerce Secretaries and asked them to appreciate the contributions of Indian professionals to America’s economy.

Jaitley, who is in the US on a week-long tour, held bilateral meetings with his US counterpart and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. They discussed Indo-US Economic cooperation, in particular, how bilateral trade and investment can be improved between the two countries.

Shareholders of telecom operator Idea Cellular have approved the scheme relating to the merger of its mobile business with Vodafone India, a regulatory filing showed.

Over 99 per cent of Idea shareholders voted in favour of the merger at the shareholders' meeting on October 12, 2017, the filing by the Aditya Birla group firm stated today.

Automobile major Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M) on Friday launched a new model of its sports utility vehicle KUV100.

The updated version, 'KUV100 NXT', is packed with 40 new features, the company said.

Buoyed by higher margins from its core refining and petrochemical businesses, oil-to-telecoms conglomerat Reliance Industries today reported a 12.5% increase in second-quarter consolidated net profit at Rs 8,109 crore as compared with last year’s figure of Rs 7,206 crore.

Consolidated revenue increased by 24% to Rs 1,01,169 crore during the quarter ending September as against Rs 81,651 crore in year-ago period.

The Supreme Court, on Friday, referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the matter pertaining to a ban on the entry of women at Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan passed the order.

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court by the Indian Young Lawyers Association challenging the custom of the temple to bar entry of women in the 10-50 age bracket (of menstruating age), saying it was discriminatory. The Kerala High Court had upheld the custom in 1991.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has given the green light to a test championship and one-day international league, while countries are also welcome to experiment with four-day tests, the world governing body said on Friday.

A test championship has long been mooted as a means to make the longest form of the game more relevant for fans who have increasingly turned towards limited-overs matches.

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday released a discussion paper on foreign exchange trading platform for retail participation seeking comments from stakeholders. The central bank proposes that Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL), which operates an interbank USD/INR spot trading platform named FX-CLEAR, would develop an electronic spot trading platform for retail customers modelled on their existing platform. The paper proposes to extend the existing FX-CLEAR platform to retail customers of the FX-CLEAR member banks through an internet based application.

The Indian business process management industry is expected to nearly double its size to $50-55 billion by the end of 2025, IT industry body Nasscom has said. Revenues of the Indian BPM industry stood at $29.8 billion in FY17, as against $28 billion in the previous year, registering growth of 6.4%.

Nasscom said the BPM sector has created direct employment for about 1.2 million people, an increase of over 100,000 jobs when compared to the previous year. As per industry estimates in the last fiscal, the IT industry, including the BPM sector, had created about 170,000 jobs.

Lenders to Reliance Communications (RCom) recently turned down a proposal by the telco to sell 17 properties across the country to repay Ericsson Rs111 crore, bankers said. RCom’s move to partly repay Ericsson’s dues, bankers said, was an attempt at settling the insolvency petition filed against it at the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal. The proposal needs to be ratified by banks as they have initiated a strategic debt restructuring scheme for the company.

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