Oil refiners Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) Thursday said they will contest tax authorities demand for over Rs 4,000 crore in excise duty on ethanol used for doping petrol, saying the sugarcane extract for mixing in fuel is exempt from tax. The Director-General of GST in Pune has slapped IOC, the country’s biggest oil firm, with a tax demand of Rs 4,002 crore for alleged non-payment of excise duty on ethanol mixed in petrol. HPCL has been asked to pay over Rs 346 crore.

The Reserve Bank of India Thursday said it has done away with charges on fund transfers through RTGS and NEFT routes to boost digital transactions and asked banks to pass on the benefits to customers.

The Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) is meant for large-value instantaneous fund transfers while the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) System is used for fund transfers up to Rs 2 lakh.

Digital payments firm Paytm has achieved a gross transaction value (GTV) of $50 billion, while recording 5.5 billion transactions in 2018-19.

GTV refers to the sales or transaction volume through a platform.

Indian Railways big plan for faster travel! Buoyed by the success of Vande Bharat Express, Piyush Goyal-led Indian Railways is now hoping to reduce travel time drastically on shorter routes. To begin with, semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express-style trains may start plying between Mumbai to Nashik, Pune, and Vadodara. Manufactured under ‘Make in India’ initiative, the Train 18 or Vande Bharat Express became India’s fastest train during trials, clocking speeds of 180 kmph.

Amazon.com Inc. has unveiled a revolutionary new drone — part helicopter and part science-fiction aircraft — that the company expects to use for test deliveries of toothpaste and other household goods starting within months.

The new device takes off vertically, then tilts to fly horizontally like a plane. It also features artificial intelligence, using a suite of sensors the company said will allow it to fly robotically without threatening traditional aircraft or people on the ground.

There was a sharp 10% decline in the approval of H-1B visas by the US in the fiscal year 2017-18 which experts attributed to the “aggressive” policies of the Trump administration to clamp down on the use of the work visa program, popular among highly-skilled Indian IT professionals. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

IT company Wipro on Wednesday announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire International TechneGroup Incorporated (ITI), a global digital engineering and manufacturing solutions company. Wipro would buy the American firm for $45 million (around Rs 312 crore). ITI is a Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) interoperability software services company. Through its solutions for Model-Based Enterprise (MBE), data interoperability and data migration, ITI helps firms go digital.

The Reserve Bank of India is likely to cement its position as Asia’s most dovish central bank with a third straight interest-rate cut Thursday.

The six-member monetary policy committee led by Governor Shaktikanta Das will reduce the repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 5.75% on Thursday, say 31 of 43 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, while three are penciling in a 50 basis points cut.

Shares of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) tanked 15 per cent to Rs 95, hitting an over five-year low on the BSE in early morning trade after rating agencies downgraded its commercial papers (CP), citing delays in debt servicing. The stock was trading at its lowest level since December 23, 2013 on the BSE.

Industry chamber Assocham has demanded cut in effective corporate tax to 25 per cent, doing away with dividend distribution tax (DDT) and indexing of allowances and deductions under personal Income Tax with inflation.

In its pre-budget meeting with the Revenue Secretary last week, Assocham also demanded reduction of excise duty on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), and a cut in customs duty rates on raw materials used in domestic manufacturing.

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