The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is in the process of issuing a show-cause notice to Vodafone Idea (Vi) for delaying the payment of licence fee. Companies pay 8 per cent of their adjusted gross revenue as licence fee. This also includes a universal service obligation levy. The fee is collected from each of the 22 telecom circles in the country on a quarterly basis.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 12.4 million subscribers in the first quarter of FY22, the most since the fourth quarter of FY20, as the second wave of Covid hurt its operational and financial performance. Vi had managed to trim subscriber losses in the third and fourth quarters of FY21. However, it lost 12.4 million subscribers and its customer base shrunk to 255.4 million in the first quarter of FY22. Sequential fall in 4G users was modest, indicating that most of the loss was in the low-margin 2G segment.
The talk of governance reforms at public-sector banks seems to remain on paper, as a majority of them continue to be working with just a handful board members. Half of the board seat at these banks have been vacant. Ten of the 12 public-sector banks, even large ones like Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank and Union Bank of India - all except State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda - don't even have a chairman. In 2014, while splitting the post of chairman & managing director (CMD), the government had decided to appoint non-executive chairmen at these banks. SBI, which has an executive chairman and four managing directors, was an exception.
Minimum one-way air fares between Delhi and London are priced upwards of Rs one lakh in August due to limited number of seats, data collected by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows. The United Kingdom has included India in the amber list and the change came into effect from Sunday. With this, passengers from India needn't undergo institutional quarantine and can self-isolate at home for 10 days.
Public sector banks (PSBs) have written off a massive Rs 8 trillion of loans in the seven years of the Narendra Modi government in office. This is more than twice the capital infused by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government during the period. Between 2014-15 and 2020-21 (FY21), the Centre had infused Rs 3.37 trillion into PSBs. At Rs 1.06 trillion, FY19 saw the highest capital infusion.
The government should convert Vodafone Idea's (Vi) debt into equity to avoid a duopoly in the telecom sector, Deutsche Bank Research said in its report on Monday. This, the bank suggested, would be the only viable solution in the backdrop of the Supreme Court dismissing the telecom company's application for recomputation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
Tata Sons has started the process of due diligence of state-owned Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express. Sources said the group has appointed Bain and Company and Seabury Group for this purpose. Once complete, a financial bid will be submitted and a deal to take over the airline is likely to fructify by end of this year or even earlier, people involved in the process said. Simultaneously, the group has brought in veterans in the aviation business from Delta and United Airlines to prepare a plan for post-merger integration of Air India with its existing airline ventures. Tata Sons operates Vistara - a 51:49 percent joint venture with Singapore Airlines and Air Asia India, in which Tatas hold 83.67 per cent stakes.
Serbia has become one of the transit points for Indians heading to Canada and the US. Canada requires passengers from India to take an RT-PCR test from a third country, while the US wants them to spend 14 days outside of India. As a result, many students are taking the Serbia route to Canada, and the US.
As and when Jet Airways applies for slots, these would be allocated among all airlines according to guidelines, without any claim of historicity in favour of any airline. Slots would be given to Jet only from the available remaining pool.
At least 95 per cent of Jet Airways employees will have to give their consent to the Kalrock-Jalan consortium's proposal or lose benefits offered to them under the revival plan. Voting on the consortium's offer for employees and workmen began on Monday and will go on till August 4. The National Company Law Tribunal cleared the consortium proposal to revive the airline on June 22. While Jet Airways had admitted claims of around Rs 15,000 crore, the consortium has offered to settle claims of Rs 475 crore of financial and non financial creditors.
Only when we are part of the same family, which will happen down the line, then, of course, we will give them (PMC depositors) all the assurance and the comfort.'
The Kalrock-Jalan consortium - new owners of Jet Airways - has got an assurance from around 30 airports that if the airline restarts operations, 170 pairs of slots can be made available. However, whether those slots will be according to the airline's demand will depend on the order of the insolvency court, which is slated to come next week. Sources said the new management feels it is extremely important that some of those slots are restored or else its business plan of operating Jet as a premium carrier will not be viable.
Experts disagree with the idea and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which has the sole right to print money, is not comfortable with it as well.
The Navi Mumbai international airport will boast three interconnected multi-level terminals with a lotus-inspired design, according to the master plan prepared by its outgoing developer. The GVK group, which completed 15 years of airport business, shared the first look of the Navi Mumbai airport. The group in 2018 had commissioned British firm Zaha Hadid Architects to design the main terminal and air traffic control tower. The master plan of the airport was approved by the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) in 2019.
Airlines are slashing salaries and re-negotiating vendor contracts as drastic fall in passengers has hurt revenue. Go First has cut staff salaries by around 16 per cent while IndiGo and SpiceJet are enforcing a leave without pay (LWP) policy and pay by the hour structure respectively to prune expenses. Vistara, which reversed pay cuts for junior staff including managers and cabin crew in March, is not touching employee salaries at the moment and instead focusing on vendor renegotiation and maximising cargo revenue. An Air India executive said efforts are on to pay salaries by 7th or 8th of June.
Banks operating in India reported fraud of Rs 4.92 trillion as on March 31, 2021, which represents nearly 4.5 per cent of the total bank credit, showed Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, which was sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by Saurabh Pandhare. The data showed 90 banks and financial institutions reported a total of 45,613 cases of loan fraud till March 31, 2021. State Bank of India - the country's largest lender - reported the highest amount of loans as fraud - Rs 78,072 crore as on March 31, 2021.
The flow of deposits from non-resident Indians (NRIs) hit a four-year low in the financial year 2020-21 mainly due to contraction in foreign currency deposits, latest data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows. Total NRI deposits during FY21 were $7.3 billion as compared to $8.6 billion in FY20 - the lowest since 2016-17, when such deposits had contracted by $12.3 billion. Indian banks have three kinds of deposit accounts where NRIs or PIOs (persons of Indian origin) can park their funds: non-resident external-rupee account (NRE); non-resident ordinary rupee account (NRO); and foreign currency non-resident bank account (FCNR [B]).
EU and UK laws require airlines to incorporate data protection measures and report data breach to regulators within 72 hours. Non-compliance can invite steep fines.
Record liquidity infusion by the central bank in the banking system during the financial year 2020-21 amid sluggish economic activity resulted in banks investing more in safe government papers than in extending loans, data from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed. This trend has not been seen in nearly two decades, barring 2016 - the year of demonetisation.
The Indian regulatory framework forced Citi to hibernate -- contrary to the claim that it never sleeps!