Billionaire Sunil Mittal, arguably India 's most successful telecom entrepreneur, may be on the verge of starting another revolution in the country's corporate world. Mr Mittal, who has built his mobile operator Bharti Airtel from a bit player into a $40bn company in less than a decade, is now pondering a deal that could leave him holding a much smaller share in the group but turn it into a global player.
India 's threat to impose a blanket ban on agricultural commodities futures trading would not ease food prices, analysts, traders and food executives warned, describing the measure as political posturing.
But this week, after years of navigating red tape, the 202-room Four Seasons Mumbai became the first luxury hotel of its size to launch in the city's south in about 20 years.
The Hinduja family is planning investments of about $50 billion (Rs 2 lakh crore) in the next five years in India and abroad, led by a foray into oil and gas in Iran. The closely held group, run by four billionaire brothers, is also planning large investments in real estate, automotives, power and infrastructure, mostly in India, Europe and West Asia.
In the past few months, shell-shocked air travellers emerging from Mumbai's domestic terminal 1B could have been forgiven for thinking they had somehow landed in Singapore. The revitalised terminal was the first sign that the airport's new regime, led by GV Sanjay Reddy, the managing director of the Mumbai International Airport, was beginning to have an impact.
When the private consortium in charge of building and operating Bangalore's airport inquired last year about what was happening with the state government's road construction projects, it got some mixed news.
India 's airline sector is expected to report losses of $1bn for the year ended last month - double that of a year earlier, according to the head of one of the country's biggest airlines. Naresh Goyal, founder and chairman of Jet Airways, said he expected high costs and fierce price wars to prompt more consolidation in the industry and Jet was ready to seize the opportunity to acquire rivals in India and overseas.
Engaging India is an online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world. Engaging India appears on Thursday mornings exclusively on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India, and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times' South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.
The Bombay Stock Exchange could list on its own market this year either through an initial public offering or a direct listing, Rajnikant Patel, the group's chief executive, said. The move, part of efforts to reform India's second largest equities market after its demutualisation in 2005, comes as it seeks to raise its international profile.
India is expected to ask domestic iron ore producers to lower prices on Tuesday as part of a range of emergency measures aimed at stemming an alarming jump in inflation. The government is already considering reducing import duties and scrapping some export incentives for steel producers in response to rising inflation, which hit a 13-month high of 6.68 per cent in the week ending March 15.
One thing that has never been a hard sell in Mumbai over the past few years is property. But last week, for the first time in 13 years, Mumbai's metropolitan authorities failed to sell government land in an auction in India's financial capital.
Staff at India's second largest winemaker are preparing for their 10th annual harvest party in mid-March at a new amphitheatre in the vineyard, which lies in the some of the richest agricultural lands of the western state of Maharashtra.
Low earners, who only months ago were being courted aggressively by private banks and finance companies, have begun returning to him for small loans. The problem of rural debt in India was highlighted last month when the government used the budget to grant a $15bn waiver to indebted farmers. But bankers say the debt troubles in agricultural areas are being matched by rising defaults among urban lower earners.
India is beginning to experience its own version of the subprime crisis as banks tighten lending procedures to curb rising delinquencies, particularly in small unsecured personal loans. India's financial system has so far been spared much of the pain of the global subprime crisis because of the relatively small size of its banks and their conservative investment focus overseas.
A landmark court challenge by Vodafone against Indian tax authorities, which want it to pay an estimated $2bn in taxes on its acquisition of Hutchison Essar, has been adjourned for three months. The Bombay high court delayed the hearing until June 23. It is a case that has potential implications for mergers and acquisitions of Indian assets by foreign companies. The court said it wanted to allow time for changes to tax laws to come into force.
Takeover deals involving Indian companies were valued at a total of $8.3bn and numbered 153 in the first 10 weeks of this year, second only in non-Japan Asia to China, with $11.5bn deals numbering 372, according to figures from Thomson Financial. Even as the global credit crunch has damped the appetite among US groups for deals, cash-rich Indian groups have been able to continue their hunt.
In the case, which will begin on Tuesday and last for five days, Indian tax authorities will argue that Vodafone, the UK-based mobile phone group headed by Arun Sarin, is liable for an estimated $2bn in taxes on its $11bn acquisition of local operator, Hutchison Essar, last year.
In India, it is par for the course. A visitor cannot set foot in the country without seeing on every television channel or city billboard the monarchs of the country's movie industry, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, backing almost any product willing to pay their fees. That trend is extending ever more strongly to the country's other national passion, cricket. The launch of a new competition based on a popular short form of the game.
India's Tata Motors could sign a deal with Ford to buy the US carmaker's Jaguar and Land Rover marques as early as next Wednesday or Thursday, people familiar with the deal said on Tuesday.
India is at risk of sustained food price inflation as domestic production of key staples such as wheat and edible oil fails to keep pace with rising demand, according to the country's top official on commodities trading.
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