Washington: India is a great place for innovation and there is a lot of opportunity for Indian firms and start-ups to work with Microsoft and develop cloud-based tools and platforms for a global marketplace, according to a senior official of the software giant.

Alyssa Fitzpatrick, general manager of Microsoft’s worldwide channel sales, on the sidelines of the ongoing annual partnership meet of Microsoft ‘Inspire’, said that some of the great things have been happening in the Indian market from an innovation perspective.

Country’s largest bank SBI has waived charges for fund transfer of up to Rs 1,000 through its IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) to promote small transactions. State Bank of India had been charging Rs 5 along with the applicable service tax for IMPS fund transfer of up to Rs 1,000. IMPS is an instant interbank electronic fund transfer service through mobile phones as well as internet banking. “In order to promote small ticket size transactions, SBI has waived off IMPS charges for transfer up to Rs 1,000,” the bank said while informing about the revised IMPS transfer charges under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

Volvo Cars has introduced the V90 Cross Country, a station wagon based on the S90 sedan in India at a price of Rs 60 lakh, ex-showroom. Like the S90 and the XC90, the V90 Cross Country will also be underpinned by the company's SPA (Scalable Platform Architecture) platform. The station wagon would carry forward the Thor's Hammer LED headlamp setup with DRLs (Daytime Running Lamps) from the S90 and is also offered with vertically positioned LED tail lamps, 20-inch alloy wheels, skid plates at both ends, redesigned bumpers as well as Aluminium brushed roof rails. Inside the Volvo V90 Cross Country, the most prominent change when compared to the S90 sedan is the replacement of faux wood inserts with silver.

The heavyweight IT companies TCS and Infosys have capped the previous two-day gains and are dragging the Nifty IT index down ahead of the first quarter earnings. Stocks of IT companies mostly trade up except TCS which was down 0.89% at Rs 2,453.8 while Infosys shares were mostly flat, down 0.11% at Rs 974.25. NSE’s Nifty IT index trade slightly under pressure, down 0.14% at 10,415.1 points.

With the third tranche of linkage auction on the anvil, the coal ministry now wants to adopt a flexible mode of transportation using both the roadways and railways for easy evacuation of coal. Following the second tranche of linkage auction in which Coal India (CIL) offered 15 million tonnes, the miner could not conclude the fuel supply agreements since there were supply constraints from Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL), South Eastern Coalfields (SECL) and Central Coalfields (CCL).

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel is slated to appear before the Parliamentary panel on Wednesday in order to provide clarification on an array of queries related to demonetisation.

The agenda of the meeting is -Evidence of the representatives of the RBI on the subject demonetisation and transformation towards digital economy and banking sector in India-Challenges and the way forward.

Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting said it has shut down its lighting manufacturing unit at Mysuru due to a sharp decline in the demand for CFL products and increasing preference for LED products.

"As required, we notified the government and relevant authorities of the decision to shut down the plant two months ago and have complied with all regulatory requirements," the company said in a statement.

A NASA spacecraft, Juno, has successfully peered into the giant storm raging on Jupiter, known as the Great Red Spot, and its first pictures should be out in days, the US space agency said today.

"My latest Jupiter flyby is complete!" said a post on the @NASAJuno Twitter account.

Even as West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra upped his pitch over State Bank of India (SBI) — the country's largest bank — to increase its credit-deposit ratio (CDR) in the state by disbursing more loans, the bank's Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya questioned the state's ability of credit absorption.

At an event organised by industry body FICCI, Mitra alleged that SBI's CDR in West Bengal stands at 50.58 per cent against the sector's CDR of 64 per cent in the state and 74 per cent pan-India.

The Tamil Nadu government today sought to allay fears over discovery of the first Zika case, saying the victim has already been cured and the village from which it was reported is under close watch.

The man affected by the virus "has been cured and is doing well ... There is no need for panic," Health Minister C Vijayabaskar told the state assembly.

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