Passengers travelling from or transiting through "at-risk" countries will have to undergo RT-PCR test on arrival in India and will be required to wait for the results before leaving the airport or taking a connecting flight, according to revised guidelines issued on Sunday after the emergence of the new Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Travellers coming from countries other than those listed as "at risk" will be allowed to leave the airport and shall self-monitor their health for 14 days after arrival, but five per cent of them will be randomly tested at the airport, the revised guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry stated.

Reliance Industries Ltd is considering an offer for British telecom company BT Group Plc, the Economic Times reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Reliance might make an unsolicited offer to buy into BT Group or will try to get a controlling share in it, the report said.

After a turbulent debut for the company behind India’s largest initial public offering, Paytm’s top executives spent 90 minutes on a call with investors and analysts on Saturday as they dissected its business model and raised questions on monetization.

Whether officials have done enough to ease doubts on revenue streams and profitability prospects remain to be seen when markets reopen. One97 Communications, the parent of the digital payments giant, ended last week 17% below its offer price of 2,150 rupees ($28.68), after falling to as low as 1,271 rupees at one point.

Realty firm Macrotech Developers, which has projects in Mumbai and Pune regions, is looking to enter the Bengaluru market to tap huge property demand in the IT city and will invest Rs 3,000 crore equity capital for growth as it aims to increase its annual sales bookings by almost three times to Rs 20,000 crore by 2025-26, a top company official said.

The Mumbai-based company, erstwhile Lodha Developers, is one of the leading real estate firms in the country and markets its properties under 'Lodha' brand.

Future Retail said on Sunday that it firmly believes that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) will not be intimidated by the arrogance of Amazon. Future hopes that instead, CCI will take action on its show cause notice against the US-based e-commerce company, in accordance with the law.

This statement comes after Amazon walked out of CCI proceedings on Nove­mber 24. “The counsels to Amazon, in utter disregard to the norms and utter disrespect to the Indian statutory regulatory authority, refused to argue the matter. They walked out of the proceedings in an attempt to browbeat the CCI,” the Indian retailer said in a stock exchange filing.

India’s largest mobile service operator, Reliance Jio, hiked its rates by 20 per cent on Sunday, joining industry rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) which went for a price revision earlier last week. Jio’s new rates will come into effect from December 1.

In a press release, the telco announced new unlimited plans. Upholding the promise of providing the best quality service at the lowest price globally, Jio customers will continue to be the biggest beneficiaries, it said.

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said that India is the most secular country in the world, despite that, the western media belittle the Indian government on issues of secularism and free speech.

He added that they cannot digest the fact that India is on the rise. Some of them suffer from indigestion.

The southern states that have been facing excessive rains for more than 10 days have clocked in record rainfall in November with Andhra Pradesh receiving 156 per cent excess rains, Kerala showing 148 per cent departure, while Tamil Nadu witnessed a 115 per cent departure, IMD data showed on Friday.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) data has also shown that Karnataka has received as much as 292 per cent excess rainfall for the month.

The new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529, first detected from South Africa this week, was on Friday designated as a “Variant of Concern” by the World Health Organisation, which named it “Omicron”.

A “variant of concern” is the WHO's top category of worrying Covid variants.

India’s digital payments giant Paytm is set for another bout of scrutiny on Saturday when it reports earnings in the wake of its record-breaking initial public offering and tumultuous stock market debut.

Ahead of the results, Paytm’s shares dropped as much as 7.7% in early Mumbai trading on Friday. While the stock had jumped about 32% over the last three days, it is still well below the price set in the $2.5 billion IPO as investors continue to weigh its longer-term prospects.

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