New Delhi, December 20 (PTI): Privatisation of Air India may spill into next fiscal year as the divestment process is unlikely to conclude in the remaining a little over three months of 2020-21, an official said. Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group and US-based fund Interups Inc were among "multiple" entities that put in preliminary bids last week for buying loss-making carrier Air India. A group of over 200 Air India employees also submitted an expression of inter

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 20 (IANS): Petrol and diesel prices were unchanged for the 13th consecutive day on Sunday across the four metro cities. In the national capital, petrol was priced at Rs 83.71 per litre. In the other key cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the fuel was sold for Rs 90.34, Rs 86.51 and Rs 85.19 a litre respectively. Oil market companies (OMC) have gone on a wait-and-watch mode at a time when news of successful coronavirus vaccine and expectations of big pick-u

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 20 (IANS): Centre has granted permission for additional mobilise additional financial resources to the tune of Rs 16,728 crore through open market borrowings to five states. The permission has been granted as the state have so far completed the stipulated reforms in the ease of doing business. These states are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, said a Finance Ministry statement. In view of the resource requirement to meet the

BENGALURU, DECEMBER 19 (IANS): One week after violence broke out at Wistron Corporation's plant near Bengaluru where iPhones and other IT products are manufactured, Apple on Saturday placed the Taiwanese tech giant on probation after finding that the company failed to implement proper working hour management processes. Apple said Wistron will not receive any new business from Apple before they complete corrective actions. "Apple employees and independent auditors hired b

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 19 (IANS0: Healthy festive and export demand lifted the prices of textile products in November 2020, said India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra). According to Ind-Ra, cotton prices inched up by 2-4 per cent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis and were even higher on a year-on-year (YoY) basis during November 2020. "The incremental demand from spinning mills coupled with a higher demand for cotton seeds amid a continued supply deficit led to the rise in cotton pr

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 19 (IANS): Oil marketing companies continued to hold back any change in retail price of petrol and diesel continuing with their wait and watch stance that has kept the prices of two auto fuels static for past 12 days. Accordingly, there was no change in retail price of auto fuels on Saturday with price of petrol remaining at Rs 83.71 a litre and diesel Rs 73.87 a litre in Delhi. It remained unchanged across the country as well. OMCs have gone on a pause mode a

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 18 (IANS): Bharti Global and the UK government-led satellite communications company OneWeb on Friday announced the launch of 36 satellites from a Soyuz launch vehicle, which began from the Vostochny Cosmodrome (Russia). A statement by OneWeb said that the development brings the total in-orbit constellation to 110 satellites, part of OneWeb's 648 LEO satellite fleet that will deliver high-speed, low-latency global connectivity. It said that the launch puts

Jerusalem, December 18 (PTI): Veteran industrialist Ratan Tata will be honoured by the Indo-Israel Chambers of Commerce for promoting innovation that supports sustainability and peace in the region, including with the Palestinians. The chairman emeritus of the Tata group will be honoured with 'Global Visionary of Sustainable Business and Peace' award during the launch of the Federation of Indo-Israel Chamber of Commerce's international chapter in Dubai on December 2

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 18 (IANS): Automobile manufacturer MG Motor India on Friday said it will introduce the 'MG Hector Plus' seven-seater version in January 2021. Besides, the company would also undertake a price revision across its product range in view of miscellaneous cost increase. Accordingly, the price hike will range up to 3 per cent depending on the model and will be applicable from January 1, 2021. The company currently retails three models in India -- MG Hecto

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 18 (IANS): Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP on Friday announced the start of production from the R Cluster, ultra-deep-water gas field in block KG D6 off the Kakinada coast. RIL and BP are developing three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6 - R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ - which together are expected to meet 15 per cent of India's gas demand by 2023. These projects will utilise the existing hub infrastructure in KG D6 block. RIL is the o

THANE, December 18 (IANS): Swedish furniture giant IKEA welcomed the first customer at its second store in India, which was opened at Turbhe in Navi Mumbai on Friday. Spread across 5.30 lakh square feet, the store will permit only pre-registered customers up to 2,500 daily in view of the Covid-19 restrictions and following all the protocols, said a company spokesperson. On Thursday, Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray made an inauguration-eve visit to the IKEA store, went around th

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 18 (IANS): The railways is operating 1,089 mail and express trains as compared to 1,768 trains which used to run before the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said on Friday. Addressing a virtual press conference here, Railway Board Chairman and CEO V. K. Yadav said, "As of now we are operating 1,089 mail and express trains as compared to 1,768 trains." He said that the railways is operating 264 Kolkata metro trains and 3,936 suburban services. The Chairma

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 17 (IANS): Airline major SpiceJet will launch 30 new domestic services including six new flights from Darbhanga in Bihar. Accordingly, the new flights will commence in a phased manner from December 20, 2020. "Enhancing connectivity from Darbhanga, SpiceJet will launch flights connecting the city with Ahmedabad, Pune and Hyderabad," the airline said in a statement. "While the flights on Ahmedabad-Darbhanga-Ahmedabad will operate daily, flights

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 17 (IANS): Oil marketing companies continued to hold back any change in the retail price of petrol and diesel continuing with their wait and watch stance that has kept the prices of two auto fuels static for the past 10 days. Accordingly, there was no change in retail price of auto fuels on Thursday with price of petrol remaining at Rs 83.71 a litre and diesel Rs 73.87 a litre in Delhi. Across the country as well the price of the two petroleum products remained u

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 17 (IANS): After facing the flak for being the worst performing digital platform on the Fairwork India Ratings, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has taken the full responsibility for such an abysmal performance, saying the company will try its best to improve the working conditions to perform better next year. According to the Fairwork survey, Zomato, along with rival platform Swiggy and cab-hailing app Uber, ranked the lowest this year, scoring only 1 out of 10 points

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 16 (IANS): The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the next spectrum auction of a total of 2251.25 MHz. Addressing the media, post the Cabinet meeting, Union Minister for Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the auction will be held for spectrum in the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz frequency bands, for validity period of 20 years. A total of 2251.25 MHz will be offered with total valuation of over Rs 3.92 lakh cro

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 16 (IANS): The Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India on Wednesday reported a de-growth of 34 per cent in industry's turnover during April to September 2020 period on a year-on-year basis. Accordingly, the turnover of the automotive component industry stood at Rs 1.19 lakh crore (USD 15.9 billion) for the period April 2020 to September 2020. "The auto industry witnessed a downturn in FY2019-20, the situation further aggravated with th

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 16 (IANS): Oil companies may have provided relief to consumers by keeping the pump prices of petrol and diesel static for the past nine days even on rising global oil prices, but it is the heavy load of taxes that has kept the two auto fuels price closer to all-time high levels now with the pandemic-affected revenue stream preventing the government from considering a duty cut. Taxes and duties now account for 62.5 per cent of the retail price of petrol and 57.77

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 16 (IANS): Tech giant IBM has acquired Montreal-based fintech company Expertus Technologies for an undisclosed sum - a move that is aimed at strengthening IBM's portfolio as an end-to-end digital payments solution provider and further advancing IBM's hybrid cloud and AI strategy. Founded in 2001, Expertus offers payment-as-a-service cloud solutions to banks, credit unions and enterprise players. Over $50 billion is processed through the Expertus platform d

New Delhi, December 15 (IANS): Oil marketing companies continued to hold back any change in the retail price of petrol and diesel continuing with their wait and watch stance that has kept the prices of two auto fuels static for the past eight days. Accordingly, there was no change in retail price of auto fuels on Tuesday with price of petrol remaining at Rs 83.71 a litre and diesel Rs 73.87 a litre in Delhi. Across the country as well the price of the two petroleum products remained