Mumbai: India’s smokers are favouring cheaper options such as chewing and leaf-wrapped tobacco over cigarettes, as rising taxes prompt ITC Ltd to sell shorter sticks with lower duties.

“Earlier on, as the taxation was increased, the cigarette industry showed resilience. Now, it has suddenly begun to drop,” Yogesh Deveshwar, chairman of Asia’s third-biggest listed tobacco-seller ITC, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV India. “The tobacco consumption basket continues to grow, whereas the cigarette share continues to shrink.”

After HDFC and State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank on Tuesday cut home loan rates, triggering a rate war in the segment.

ICICI Bank reduced home loan rates by 25 basis points for all customers. With this announcement, women as well as applicants from weaker sections will get home loans at 9.85 per cent. The rate will be 9.90 per cent for others. The reduced rate will be effective from April 14.

India’s push to accommodate a booming urban population and attract investment rests in large part with dozens of “smart” cities like the one being built on the dusty banks of the Sabarmati river in western India.

So far, it boasts modern underground infrastructure, two office blocks and not much else.

The government has finalised a list of 23 coal blocks to be auctioned in the third tranche beginning next week. These ready-to-operate mines are to be offered through forward and reverse bidding mechanism, which, the Centre is expecting, would fetch proceeds of over Rs 2 lakh crore.

The coal ministry had originally planned to auction nearly 16 blocks, but last week it is learnt to have added eight more mines to the auction list. Of the 23 mines, 15 have been earmarked for the power sector while eight are for unregulated sectors like steel,cement and captive power.

State-run Air India will add as many as 50 aircraft to its existing fleet in the next five-six years as it looks to expand its operations, both domestic and international, in its quest to turn profitable by flying to more destinations and carrying more passengers.

The airline, which currently has 102 aircraft in its fleet, excluding that of its subsidiary Alliance Air, plans to increase its fleet size to 152 by 2021.

The capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), under pressure to tighten scrutiny, is taking as long as a year to approve initial public offerings (IPOs). This has prompted criticism from companies, already grappling with unpredictable demand and a lack of alternative funding sources. The stock market has soared, touching record highs last month. It was Asia’s second-best performer last year, thanks to largely $16 billion of foreign investment.

But the boom has failed to translate into many IPOs, a vital source of capital, especially for small companies which make up the bulk of the economy yet often struggle to access keenly priced bank loans.

Ashok Leyland (UAE) LLC (ALUAE) has bought 49 per cent equity in Avia Ashok Leyland Motors s.r.o, a Czech Republic subsidiary, as part of the latter selling its non-core assets.

According to a clarification provided by the company to Bombay Stock Exchange, “the buyer is Ashok Leyland (UAE) LLC (ALUAE), a company incorporated under the laws of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, in which Ashok Leyland holds 49 per cent of the equity.”

Bajaj Auto, on Tuesday, expanded its Pulsar range in the adventure sport motorcycle category, AS200 and AS150, priced at Rs 79,000 and Rs 91,550 (ex-showroom Delhi).

The Pulsar Adventure Sport series is launched targeting the young bikers, and the company will expand the category further in the next few months, said Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj. “We sell almost 60,000 Pulsars a month across categories.”

Shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank and ING Vysya Bank have touched their respective lifetime highs today ahead of record date fixed for the merger.

At 1321 hours, shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank were up 1% at Rs 1,459 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). It opened at Rs 1,447 and hit a record high of Rs 1,475 in early morning trade.

Benchmark indices are trading marginally weak after trimming losses on gains in select index heavyweight and bank stocks as the continuing deflation in wholesale prices have raised hopes of a rate cut by Reserve Bank of India.

At 2:07PM, the 30-share Sensex and the 50-share Nifty were flat at the mark of 29,043 and 8,828 respectively.

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