ICICI Bank Ltd, India's largest private- sector lender, is in talks to sell a part of its stake in an insurance unit to Temasek Holdings and Carmignac Gestion for about $300 million, people familiar with the matter said.

The Mumbai-based lender plans to complete an agreement to sell about five per cent of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance by March-end, the people said, asking not to be identified.

Nasscom Foundation, the not-for-profit arm of information technology (IT) industry body Nasscom, on Wednesday suggested to its member companies to spend a higher portion of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds towards the government’s ‘Make in India’ and Digital India campaigns.

“A lot of companies are not imaginative enough on CSR activities,” Ganesh Natarajan, chairman, Nasscom Foundation, said during an event here. “We have a group working towards this where large companies can give us money to spend towards CSR activities.”

Mumbai: State Bank of India (SBI) will auction property worth at least Rs.1,000 crore that it has seized from defaulters in the biggest ever exercise conducted by the country’s largest lender.

The auction on 14 March will put 350 residential and commercial properties across 26 locations in India on the block. The minimum asking price of the real estate will be in the range of Rs.1,000-1,200 crore in total, an executive said.

After introducing the new structure which is exactly the mirror image of the verticals and service lines of Wipro’s global business, Wipro Infotech, the company’s domestic India and the Middle East business is now planning to introduce newer services and capabilities.

Starting from the current year, Wipro Infotech is planning to formally launch business process outsourcing (BPO) services in the domestic market with major focus on transaction processing works instead of pure voice-based BPO services.

Mumbai: India’s first auction of coal mines has presented an opportunity for smaller regional companies that have grabbed the opportunity, and some mines, although analysts question the ability of some of them to pay up the huge amounts they have bid.

On Monday, bids for the Lohari block closed at Rs.2,438 per tonne, the highest bid made in the second round of auctions of so-called Schedule III category coal mines (those ready to produce but underdeveloped, with even the land having to be acquired in some cases). This bid came from a relatively unknown company, Araanya Mines Pvt. Ltd. Mint could not independently ascertain the provenance of Araanya Mines or contact it.

New Delhi: In an indication of growing investor interest in India’s power sector, Sembcorp Industries Ltd of Singapore and Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco) are in separate talks to buy GMR group’s 1,400 MW power project in Odisha.

The GMR group has sold several of its power, road and airport projects as part of its “asset light, asset right” strategy. The project in question is GMR Kamalanga Energy Ltd at Kamalanga in Dhenkanal.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha poll campaign contention that huge amounts of black money are stashed abroad and once they are brought back each citizen could get Rs 15 lakh each was an “illustrative” statement.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Delhi, the BJP president had called Modi’s pronouncement an election “jumla”. Today, the finance minister avoided spelling out the quantum of black money stashed abroad.

Microsoft in India on Tuesday announced a exchange offer for existing Asha, (a brand formed under erstwhile Nokia which was recently acquired by Microsoft) consumers with the aim of offering the latest OS experience to its consumers through the Lumia 435.

The offer will enable existing Asha consumers to upgrade to a brand new Lumia 435. The ‘Smart Exchange’ offer as Microsoft calls it is valid from till April 15, 2015 or till stocks last across the country, giving existing consumers of Asha 500, Asha 501, Asha 502 and Asha 503 an assured discount of Rs. 1,500/- and an assured discount of Rs. 1,000/- for Asha 305, Asha 306, Asha 308, Asha 309, Asha 310 and Asha 311 consumers. This discount is applicable on MRP of Lumia 435 which is Rs. 5,999/-.

MUMBAI: The tax office is exploring all avenues to mop up revenue collection before March 31. In an unusual development, hundreds of companies have received letters from the income-tax department, "requesting" them to deposit the amount from tax deductions before the financial year closes — as against the normal practice of companies depositing the tax deducted at source (TDS) by the seventh of next month.

State-owned carrier Air India (AI), which began its recruitment process recently, is finding it hard to get the right kind of candidates, compelling it to re-advertise its requirement for 197 commander and senior trainee pilots.

A spokesperson of the national flag carrier said there were just not enough qualified candidates available in the market.

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