Finance Minister Arun Jaitley met business captains on Friday in his pre-Budget consultations, who pressed him for “bold decisions” to ensure a return to high growth.

Taxation laws were a prime point in their lobbying. They want Jaitley to end any retrospectivity for income tax, simplify these rules and further defer implementation of the General Anti-Avoidance Rules from the scheduled 2016-17 financial year. They also wanted early rollout of a Goods and Services Tax and a review of the Direct Taxes Code.

HDFC Bank's Managing Director (MD) Aditya Puri retained his position as the highest-paid banking chief in the country in financial year 2013-14 (April-March). Puri, who is also the longest serving chief of an Indian bank, received remuneration of Rs 6.07 crore in 2013-14, or 20.9 per cent more than what he earned in the previous year.

Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO (chief executive officer) of ICICI Bank — the largest private sector lender in the country — received an increment of only two per cent during this period. She earned Rs 5.23 crore in 2013-14.

Commercial banks plan to involve restructuring agencies such as SBI Caps and IDBI Capital Markets to examine the feasibility of forming a special asset reconstruction company (ARC) to manage and revive large-size infrastructure-stressed loans.

On Wednesday, the Union government held discussions with ARC representatives and some bankers on the proposal. A senior executive with Indian Banks Association (IBA) said the pressure on balance sheets of public sector banks (PSBs) due to provisioning for stressed loans is immense.

The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) under the Ministry of Environment and Forests has turned down a request by the GMR Group to extend the validity for preparing the terms of reference for a hydel power project being set up in Arunachal Pradesh.

They had been living harmoniously for decades until work on a sewer line ruptured ties between Hindus and Muslims at Chausana village in UP’s Shamli district late Wednesday night.

The two communities clashed over displacement of a Hindu place of worship for the purpose of laying down a sewer pipeline, which was proposed by the Muslim pradhan of the village.

Mumbai: State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) have shown interest in buying crude oil from Cairn India Ltd.

Cairn sells crude only to two Gujarat-based private refiners —Reliance Industries Ltd in Jamnagar and Essar Oil Ltd in Vadinar. A 590km pipeline moves crude oil from Cairn’s Barmer fields in Rajasthan to Salaya in Jamnagar district.

Mercedes-Benz India today announced the local production of the new S-class 350 CDI from its manufacturing facility in Chakan, Pune. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, managing director and CEO Eberhard Kern spoke about the company's upcoming plans. The luxury car market in India registered growth even as the rest of the passenger car market skidded to its worst performance in years.

The Andhra Pradesh government’s proposal to waive farm loans of around Rs 54,000 crore is a negative for the banking sector, feels Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman, State Bank of India . In an interview with CNBC-TV18's Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy, she said the Indian Banking Association was likely to protest the move.

Narendra Kumar Patni, pioneer of India’s information technology (IT) services revolution, passed away in the US on Tuesday. He was 71.

Patni is survived by wife Poonam and children Anirudh and Ambika.

He was to undergo a surgery in Boston. However, before the surgery, he suffered a cardiac arrest, said a person closely associated with Patni. “The funeral will be held here in Boston at 10 am on Thursday,” he added.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is set to raise the foreign direct investment (FDI) threshold in insurance to 49 per cent with two riders. All companies will have to provide health insurance, and voting rights of foreigners will be limited to 26 per cent, the current investment cap.

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