The country's second largest telecom player Vodafone expects Jio's 'effective free phone' with unlimited calling to erode operators' revenues which are already under pressure and sought reduction in various levies imposed by the government as a breather to the industry.

"...The new operator continues to aggressively under- price its services, including announcing launch of 'Effective Zero Price Feature Phone' with unlimited voice.

New Delhi: The second volume of Economic Survey 2016-17 presented on Friday signalled the reduced heft of crude oil prices in India’s national economic policymaking.

“It has become almost an involuntary reflex to cite geopolitics in the list of risks to oil prices, and hence to domestic inflation. But these risks may well be diminishing substantially,” the Survey said.

New Delhi: Mahindra and Mahindra group on Friday said it will exit from its China joint venture for tractor business, Mahindra Yueda Yancheng Tractor Company, by selling entire stake for RMB 82 million (nearly Rs80 crore). The Indian conglomerate has plans to independently operate in China.

Mahindra and Mahindra holds 51% stake in the Chinese JV through its wholly owned subsidiary Mahindra Overseas Investment Company (Mauritius) Limited.

Facebook Inc. has found a new way to enter China: secretly launching an app under a different name.The photo-sharing app, called Colorful Balloons, was released in May to help Facebook enter a market that it’s been blocked from since 2009, according to a person familiar with the matter. Facebook has said its goal of connecting the world wouldn’t be possible without the world’s most populated country, but declined to confirm the details that were first reported by the New York Times.

Hosur based two-wheeler manufacturer TVS Motor Company has confirmed that the company is working on introducing hybrid and electric scooters and said that the new hybrid scooter will make its market debut in India in December 2017. The hybrid scooter will be powered by both battery and petrol. TVS also confirmed that it will introduce an electric scooter as soon as in March 2018. The company has been working on electric bike for over six years now, Venu Srinivasan, Chairman and MD, TVS Motor Company said “Last month we have decided to unwrap our electric push. The main obstacle of it has been the life of lead acid battery”.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced sale of government securities worth Rs 10,000 crore via open market operations (OMO) which will be conducted on August 29. An OMO sale is conducted to suck excess liquidity from the system while an OMO purchase is done to infuse liquidity. The RBI is selling five different securities — 7.28% GS 2019, 8.79% GS 2021, 7.16% GS 2023, 8.33% GS 2026 and 8.60% GS 2028. This is the fourth OMO sale announced by the RBI this financial year. The first one was announced on June 30.

WASHINGTON: India is "behaving like a mature power" in the Doklam standoff in the Sikkim section and making China look like an adolescent throwing a tamper tantrum, a top American defence expert has said.

India and China have been locked in a face-off in the Doklam area for the last 50 days after Indian troops stopped the Chinese People's Liberation Army from building a road in the area.

The State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest lender, reported on Friday a consolidated net profit of Rs 3,105.35 crore for the 3-month period that ended on June 30. This is the first quarterly result after the merger of its five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank, which took effect on April 1, 2017.

But the large accretion of bad loans was a dampener to an otherwise smooth exercise. The fresh bad loan additions during the quarter were about Rs 26,249 crore, taking the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank to Rs 1,88,068 crore. Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman, SBI, said, "About 95 per cent of the quarter's slippages are from the watch-list.

Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) will launch the country's first gold options contract in September allowing even smaller players in the bullion industry an instrument to hedge their risk, a senior company official told Reuters.

"Somewhere around end September we will launch gold options. We have already conducted mock drills," Murgank Paranjape, managing director of MCX, said on the sidelines of a conference.

The most interesting – and the most heartening – bit about Akshay Kumar’s latest, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, is that it’s devoid of a villain. We don’t need one, the film suggests at one point, for we’ve been letdown by our people’s insistence on “sabhyata (civility)” and “sanskriti (culture)”. It’s an argument that merits some attention, more so because it comes in a Kumar film, which is usually known for its nationalist fervour. It’s also a rare instance of a Hindi film looking inwards, telling us that instead of holding someone else responsible for the quandary we find ourselves in, maybe we ought to look in the mirror more often. It’s a pity, however, that this line of inquiry, or introspection, pops up in a film that doesn’t have a lot going for it otherwise.

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