Company boards are operating under increased political and regulatory pressure to improve their governance standards, and the resultant risk averseness is a prime reason for the growth slowdown, HDFC Chief Executive Keki Mistry said on Wednesday.

The mortgage lender’s executive said bankers are not taking lending decisions because of this risk averseness syndrome, and warned it will hamper India’s animal spirit unless there is a change.

Telecom majors, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, on Wednesday sought an open court hearing of their plea seeking review of certain directions of the Supreme Court on recovery of past dues amounting to Rs 1.47 trillion from telecom service providers.

The recovery of past dues by the government was based on adjusted gross revenue of about Rs 92,000 crore.

Electors can carry smartphones at polling stations in 11 assembly constituencies for accessing QR codes from the voters' helpline app if they forget to get voters' slip to the booth. Delhi has 70 Assembly constituencies and one constituency in each of the 11 districts will have this tech-driven facility.

All 176 people who were travelling in the Ukraine bound commercial flight have died after the plane crashed minutes after taking off from the Tehran airport.

The Boeing 737-800 belonging to Ukrainian International Airlines took off from Imam Khomeini international airport at 6.12 AM Tehran time and went down about eight minutes later, according to Iranian news agency ISNA.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday came out in support of the strike by central trade unions and slammed the Modi government, saying its "anti-people and anti-labour" policies have created catastrophic unemployment in the country.

He alleged that this weakening of PSUs is being done to justify their sale to PM Narendra Modi's crony capitalists friends.

Suzlon, Jaypee Infratech, Hindustan Construction Co (HCC), Reliance Naval and Engineering, Gayatri Projects and many other companies on Tuesday disclosed their defaults in their regulatory filings to stock exchanges.

The disclosures were made after a November 2019 Securities and Exchange Board of India’s directive asking companies to disclose defaults of 30 days and above.

Bank unions have claimed that cheques worth Rs 21,500 crore will not be cleared on Wednesday due to the bank employees’ strike.

Five trade unions from the banking industry including AIBEA, AIBOA, BEFI, INBEF and INBOC, employees of RBI, co-operative banks, RRBs have joined the National General Strike called by the central trade unions - INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC along with various independent federations and unions in different sectors to protest against the alleged continued anti-worker labour policies of the government.

India on Wednesday issued a travel warning asking its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Iraq, hours after Iran launched missile attacks on US-led forces in Iraq.

Iran's attack came in retaliation for a US drone strike on an Iranian commander whose killing has raised fears of a war in the Middle East.

A day after Kolkata Police lathi-charged students of Jadavpur University amidst an agitation while they came face to face with the supporters of BJP, the students took out a rally to protest against the JNU incident on Wednesday.

The students of Jadavpur University started their march from Hazra in South Kolkata and ended at Nizam Palace – which houses the central government offices.

A 24-hour 'Bharat Bandh' (nationwide strike) has been called on January 8, i.e. on Wednesday by as many as ten central trade unions. The strike has been called as a protest against economic policies of the central government that are alienating the working class and demands for labour reforms.

The trade unions who have called the 'Bharat Bandh' include INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, SEWA, UTUC, LPF, AICCTU, TUCC, and other sectoral independent federations.

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