North Block is worried the continued losses suffered by IDBI Bank and the erosion of LIC’s investment in the lender, made at its insistence, may force it to eventually step in with rescue capital or allow the bank to be sold off.

“The Life Insurance Corporation invested around Rs 21,624 crore in IDBI, including buying a 26 per cent stake at a price of Rs 61.73 a share. That share price has now dropped to Rs 43.10, around a 30 per cent fall in price. This is a worrying phenomenon, especially as IDBI Bank does not look like turning around anytime soon,” said officials.

At a time when many stocks are experiencing extreme bouts of volatility due to various factors, including negative news flow, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the stock exchanges have increased the vigil on such stocks by introducing measures to minimise the probability of fraudulent activities.

Air India Pilot unions wrote to the company on Sunday saying they are yet to receive December’s flying allowance, which consists of around 70 per cent of total salary, and the pilots are working under “stressful conditions” that has “direct implications on flight safety”. Flying allowance is paid to a pilot on the basis of the number of flight hours he or she has clocked in a month.

In an industry-first, India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki has started a ‘car servicing at night’ initiative for its customers. It’s currently available at nine workshops in five cities: Gurgaon (Haryana), Sahibabad (UP), Bangalore and Mangalore (Karnataka) and Bhubaneswar (Odisha).

Partho Banerjee, Executive Director (Service), Maruti Suzuki, said, “Customer convenience is of utmost importance, and with this initiative, we strive to enhance the customer ownership experience.

The International Monetary Fund on Sunday warned governments to gear up for a possible economic storm as growth fall short of expectations.

"The bottom-line -- we see an economy that is growing more slowly than we had anticipated," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told the World Government Summit in Dubai.

Indian government subsidies for fossil fuels, including oil and gas, have decreased by 76% over the three years to 2017, but subsidies for the coal industry have remained stable over the same period, a new study by think-tank International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), has found.

India, the world’s second largest consumer of coal and the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide, accounts for 7% of global emissions and continues to subsidise the loss-making, polluting coal industry.

The BSE Sensex plummeted over 424 points while the Nifty finished below the 11,000-mark on Friday, led by a sharp selloff in auto and metal stocks amid renewed concerns over the US-China trade conflict.

Investors preferred to book profits following robust gains over the previous few days, even as the risk appetite was tempered by valuation and macroeconomic concerns, traders said.

Exporters body FIEO Friday said the rate cut by the Reserve Bank would help exports as it will increase flow of credit.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said the move would particularly benefit MSME sector of exports.

Tennis star Sania Mirza Friday announced that a biopic on her will be made by Bollywood film-maker Ronnie Screwvala.

Sania said she has signed a contract for the biopic and the initial work has already begun.

Mumbai: Home loan borrowers waiting for lower interest rates may be disappointed. State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, on Friday announced a marginal reduction in home loan rates of 5 basis points for loans up to Rs 30 lakh up to Rs 30 lakh, effective February 7.

One basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point.

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