The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Union finance ministry are having discussion over the stricter corporate governance code prescribed by the former for listed companies.

The talks are on whether there is a need to have a different corporate governance code for listed companies than what is prescribed in the new Companies Act, said sources.

ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender, has introduced an equated monthly instalment (EMI) option for its customers on debit card purchases.

The EMI option, which was so far limited to credit card holders, will now allow even debit card holders to convert their high-value transactions into equated monthly instalments.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)'s British business process outsourcing subsidiary, Diligenta, on Tuesday announced a new multi-million pound and a multi-year contract with UK-based Friends Life Management Services for its international operations.

In a notification to the stock exchange, the country’s leading information technology services, consulting and business solutions company said Diligenta would configure and implement TCS BaNCS, a globally acclaimed core platform, to support the international operations of Friends Life—Friends Provident International.

NTPC’s largest power plant at Vindhyachal in Madhya Pradesh with a capacity of 4,260 Mw is facing shut-down due to paucity of coal supply from Northern Coalfields. The company said it would stop operations if fuel shortage continues.

Since early this month, two units of 210 Mw and 500 Mw have not been operating due to unavailability of contracted coal quantity. The rest of the 2,860 Mw is running at half the capacity.

NTPC is keen to join hands with Coal India Ltd (CIL) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) to augment its generation capacity and capability, which have been hit by coal shortage.

Minutes of a July meeting of an advisory group on integrated power development, headed by Suresh Prabhu, said, “NTPC’s performance was affected in recent years, and continues to be so, by the general situation of the coal shortage in the country. While this is true, it is also a fact that NTPC could develop the coal blocks allotted to it from 2004.”

In a setback to the petroleum ministry, gas utility GAIL and refiner Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL) have expressed their inability to deduct $115 million from the amount due to Reliance Industries (RIL) to make up for the additional profit petroleum from the flagging Krishna Godavari-D6 block.

Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had last month told the Parliament that his ministry has disallowed RIL from recovering $2.37 billion invested to develop offshore Krishna Godavari gas fields as output has fallen drastically and was way below the promised volumes in past four years.

When Lanco Infratech sold its 1,200 Mw thermal power plant in Udupi to Adani Power last week for Rs 6,000 crore, it divested its most profitable asset to trim debt. Now the company plans to sell another 3,000 Mw capacity for Rs 20,000 crore, wiping out its operational power portfolio.

The Hyderabad-based company, which has 16 operating firms in power, coal mining and road construction, had debts of Rs 34,297 crore in March 2014, nearly 13 times its equity.

Singapore: India on Saturday sought investments from Singapore in its infrastructure and connectivity projects along the ambitious Delhi-Mumbai and Chennai-Bangalore industrial corridors as well as in the north-eastern region.

Kicking off an year-long celebration to mark 50th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties jointly with her Singaporean counterpart K. Shanmugam, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said the occasion will be used to advance economic engagement, defence and security cooperation between the two countries.

Bangalore/Mumbai: Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd has changed the chief executive of Mahindra Retail Pvt. Ltd, which runs the Mom and Me and Beanstalk chain stores, after the kids wear retailer went on an expansion spree for several years that led to hundreds of crore in losses.

Mahindra has brought in Prakash Wakankar from its private equity arm Mahindra Partners to replace K. Venkataraman as CEO at Mahindra Retail. Wakankar is a former CEO of the Indian business of confectionery maker Perfetti Van Melle and also headed Mahindra Holidays and Resorts in a brief stint more than a decade ago.

German car maker Daimler AG's luxury brand division Mercedes-Benz has been found guilty of manipulating prices for after-sales services in China, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing authorities in Jiangsu province.

An array of industries, from milk powder makers to tech firms, have been coming under the spotlight in recent years as China intensifies its efforts to bring companies into compliance with a 2008 anti-monopoly law.

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