Mumbai: India’s No. 3 mobile phone carrier, Idea Cellular, strongly denied a news report on Tuesday that it was in exploratory talks about a merger with larger rival Vodafone India.

A spokeswoman for Idea’s parent, conglomerate Aditya Birla, called the CNBC TV18 report of talks between Idea and Vodafone “baseless and absolutely false”.

State-owned refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and gas utility GAIL India Ltd will divest up to 50 per cent stake in the Rs 30,000 crore petrochemical plant which is being set up in Andhra Pradesh.

HPCL and GAIL are looking at setting up a 1 million tonnes Ethylene Derivatives plant, which will produce a wide range of petrochemical raw materials for the manufacture of detergents, paints and coatings, cosmetics, textiles and adhesives.

Starting this fiscal, the government will bear the entire fuel subsidy burden, doing away with the practice of shifting part of it to upstream oil companies. The move, enabled by the steep decline in under-recoveries since FY15 due to the global oil price decline, the decontrol of petrol and diesel and cut in LPG subsidy, would boost the bottom lines of ONGC, Oil India and Gail India, and make them more attractive to investors.

State-owned power producer NTPC on Monday reported a 4% year-on-year increase in its standalone net profit at R2,369.53 crore during the April-June quarter on account of higher power production and better utilisation of coal-based power plants. Gross sales during the period was up 11.34% at R18,940 crore.

Despite rumours regarding a delay in the production of the Ignis compact crossover, the company will launch the vehicle around Diwali. This will allow the company to benefit from the festive season sentiments of consumers. Earlier, the market was flooded with rumours that the company might delay the launch of Ignis due to an order backlog for the Vitara Brezza and the Baleno. India will be the second market globally to receive the Ignis after Japan.

NEW DELHI: After Air India, the government now wants the Railways to lower transaction charge for online reservations and is also urging banks to cut charges as it seeks to reduce the usage of cash and promote use of plastic money.

Reducing the use of cash has been identified as a key priority of the government as it seeks to put curbs on black money. Several steps have already been initiated, which were expected to be in place during the coming weeks.

NEW DELHI: Korean auto major Hyundai today launched the all new Elantra priced upwards of Rs 12.99 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).

While the petrol variants are priced between Rs 12.99 lakh and Rs 17.99 lakh, the diesel variants are tagged between Rs 14.79 lakh and Rs 19.19 lakh.

The National Stock Exchange is following the steps of the BSE, and moving towards launching an IPO to list its shares.

In a press release from the stock exchange, the bourse said, that the NSE Board had held a meeting on August 22, to appoint investment bankers for its IPO.

Boeing's fuel-efficient 787 aircraft has helped government-owned Air India (AI) achieve operating profit, said Dinesh Keskar, the plane maker's senior vice-president (sales) for the Asia-Pacific.

“The 787 aircraft is a key part of AI's turnaround strategy. It has been able to lower its loss and enhance profitability, owing to fuel savings and reduced maintenance cost offered by the aircraft,” Keskar said on the sidelines of an Indo-American Chamber of Commerce event.

Tech giant Microsoft has acquired artificial intelligence (AI)-based scheduling service Genee that simplifies the scheduling and rescheduling of large group meetings for companies.

Microsoft will integrate the AI technology into Office 365 before shutting down Genee.

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