Calling for a balance between business growth and consumer interest, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said he will remain tough on the issue of service quality of telecom companies.

“While I applaud telecom operators for spreading mobile services in the nook and corner of the country, I am equally concerned that quality of service must be maintained. I will do a lot of tough talking to make them understand the problem. Now, they are responding,” Prasad said. He was speaking at the annual general meeting of industry chamber Ficci on Saturday.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed new regulations for public issue of 'core capital' instruments by banks and for the public issue of Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InviTs).

The proposed norms for retail or public issuance of Additional Tier-1 (AT1) bonds set the minimum investment at Rs 2 lakh, due to the additional risk with these as compared to other debt products. “To ensure only well-informed retail (individual) investors, with adequate risk tolerance level, subscribe to these," explained Sebi in the draft norms, issued on Friday.

In a step towards greater customer service through technology, Axis Bank Ltd has introduced e-signature services through which individuals having Aadhaar numbers will be able to digitally sign documents to submit to the bank online, the lender said in a statement on Friday.

Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private sector lender, has partnered with digital security company eMudhra for the eSign service. “The service rides on Aadhaar authentication and generates the digital signature automatically. The generated signature is legally valid and secure,” said the bank.

In what could jeopardise the state-run thermal power producer Damodar Valley Corporation’s (DVC) debt reduction strategy, NTPC is likely to shelve a plan to take over DVC’s 2,520 MW Raghunathpur plant in West Bengal after the railways conveyed that it wasn’t interested in buying power from the utility.

The first phase of the Raghunathpur plant was scheduled for commissioning in 2010 but even after a delay of nearly five years and a revised cost estimate of R7,500 crore, the utility continues to suffer from issues related to land acquisition for the rail and water corridors. Besides, the plant has failed to tie up a buyer.

Indian key stock indices failed to hold the US Fed cheer on Friday and ended a percentage point lower. The Union government's mid-year economic review, which revised the gross domestic product (GDP) growth estimate from the earlier 8-8.1 per cent to 7-7.5 per cent weakened the sentiment.

The BSE's benchmark 30-share Sensex lost 284 points to close at 25,519.22. The National Stock Exchange's Nifty 50 closed at 7,761, down 82 points. Stocks in information technology (IT), pharmaceuticals, banks and metals dragged down the indices. The market breadth was weak, as out of the 50 shares in the Nifty, 40 closed in the red.

India’s largest sports utility vehicle maker, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), will launch a series of compact petrol engines in the near future, even as its mainstay diesel line-up faces an uncertain future. The company on Friday unveiled its new sports utility vehicle (SUV) christened the KUV1OO to be sold in petrol and diesel options.

The Mumbai-based company, which is to bear the brunt of the Supreme Court ban on sale of diesel vehicles above 2,000 cc in Delhi and national capital region (NCR), will have a petrol option ready for most of its offering, including heavy SUVs such as Scorpio and XUV5OO.

Nisaar Malik is a happy man. His income has trebled in about a year's time. Malik works as a guard at the labour colony right off the road from the main gate of Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Ltd's (SMGPL's) upcoming Rs 8,000 -crore plant here, 110 km from Ahmedabad. He is drawing a monthly salary of Rs 9,000, much higher than the Rs 3,000 he was earning at a mobile phone shop at Bahucharaji town, around two km from here.

Malik is hopeful that one day he will get work at the plant after it becomes operational by 2017. "My job (as guard) here is till 2017, by when the plant should be up and running. Let's see what the future holds for me perhaps, I could work at the plant," he says in an optimistic tone. Around 1,800 workers employed by Shapoorji Pallonji, which is building the plant, are working round the clock.

Reliance will launch Jio, pan-India 4G service, for its employees on December 27, marking Dhirubhai Ambani's birth anniversary. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and music composer A R Rahman are expected to perform at the event. Mukesh Ambani will unveil the company's much-awaited fourth generation mobile service at Reliance Corporate Park in Navi Mumbai.

In an invitation to all Reliance employees, Mukesh and Nita Ambani wrote: "This year we want to commemorate this momentous occasion and celebrate Dhirubhai's entrepreneurial spirit and innovative genius by launching our transformatiol digital initiative - Jio.

The rupee depreciated 10 paise to 66.52 against the US dollar in early trade today at the Interbank Foreign Exchange due to appreciation of the American currency in global markets.

Forex dealers said gains in the dollar against other global currencies and a lower opening in the domestic equity markets, weighed on the rupee.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that all banks will have to follow a new and uniform methodology from April next year. The announcement is likely to affect the calculation of the base rate as per the marginal cost of funds.

In a press release, the RBI said that apart from helping borrowers reap the benefit of lower rates, the step would also improve transparency in the methodology followed by banks for determining interest rates on advances.

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