New Delhi, March 23: Narendra Modi's project of appropriating political icons from the non-BJP political arena continues.

After extolling Bhagat Singh for two days, the Prime Minister paid homage to socialist stalwart Ram Manohar Lohia on his 106th birth anniversary today. "Remembering Dr Ram Manohar Lohia on his birth anniversary. A scholar & original thinker, he inspires people across party lines," Modi tweeted.

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave bankers more flexibility in maintenance of liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) under Basel III by tweaking certain norms and allowing some corporate bonds to be included in the calculations.

In a circular on Wednesday, RBI said banks can include corporate bonds and commercial papers for reckoning level 2B high-quality liquidity assets (HQLA) provided these corporate papers have a long-term rating between “BBB–” and “A+” from a recognized credit rating agency, are traded frequently in the cash or repo markets and have a track record as a reliable source of liquidity even during stressed conditions.

New Delhi: The income tax department on Wednesday asked individual taxpayers to declare their income earned from interest on bank deposits in their tax returns in a bid to check tax evasion.

It has also asked taxpayers to file revised income-tax returns for the past two years to reflect this interest income.

New Delhi: The government plans to introduce five new labour bills in the second half of the budget session, resuming an effort to reform labour rules after a year’s hiatus, in a move likely to be resisted by opposition parties and unions.

These bills are the Industrial Relations Code Bill 2016, Wage Code Bill 2016, the Small Factories (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Bill, the Shops and Establishments (Amendment) Bill, and Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment) Bill.

FMCG major ITC Ltd had acquired Technico Agri Sciences Ltd India (Technico India), the company announced on Thursday.

"The company has acquired the entire equity share capital of Technico Agri Sciences Limited, India, from Technico Pty Limited, Australia," the company said in a BSE filing.

Reliance Communications (RCom) and the shareholders of Aircel are going to discuss a potential merger exclusively for another two months.

Rcom said on Wednesday it had extended the exclusive period to negotiate a possible merger with Aircel to May 22, 2016. The decision to merger is part of the consolidation witnessed by the industry to derive benefits in opex and capex synergies and revenue enhancement.

Air India is in the process of evaluating several options to bring down the government's stake once it turns profitable. The national carrier expects to turn profitable in 2018-19, two years ahead of the original turnaround target of 2020-21 through better revenue generation and restructuring of the Rs 10,000-crore term loans with government guarantee backed non-convertible debentures.

One of the options being considered is conversion of debt into equity such that the government's stake comes down to 51 per cent. Aviation ministry officials said in every internal meeting of Air India, privatisation was discussed at length, though there is no clarity on how the airline plans to rope in private investors.

Apple’s plan to target buyers in emerging market with its smaller and cheaper iPhone SE could boomerang in India as the country’s mobile first population, whose primary computing device is a smartphone, has already shifted to larger screen phones or phablets.

With similar specifications to its outgoing flagship iPhone 6s Plus and a price tag of Rs 39,000, the iPhone SE costs approximately Rs 5,000 more and Rs 2,000 less than the base variants of the iPhone 6 and 6s respectively on popular e-commerce websites. The device is slated for launch in India sometime in April.

Shares of automobiles companies are on a roll with Hero MotoCorp, Ashok Leyland and TVS Motor Company touching their respective 52-week highs on the BSE in intra-day today.

The S&P BSE Auto index ended up 1% at 17,731 as compared to 0.18% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex which ended at 25,330. Thus far in March, auto index rallied 12% against 10% gain in the benchmark index.

State-owned IDBI Bank said Tuesday it plans to raise Rs 20,000 crore from bonds in one or more tranches next fiscal to fund business growth.

The bank, at its board meeting held today, approved in-principle the rupee bond issuance limit of Rs 20,000 crore, IDBI Bank said in a regulatory filing to stock exchanges.

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