TopNews

Kochi, July 31: A hand-painted Tata Nano car was sold for over Rs. 13 lakh at an online auction here.

The Nano, painted by artist Bose Krishnamachari, fetched Rs. 13,01,402 ($22,438) at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in a 24-hour online bidding organised by Saffronart at www. saffronart. com.

The online bidding ended 8.00 p. m. Tuesday, bringing down the curtains on the country's debut art car auction, said a statement from the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF).

A Nano costs around Rs. 1.20 lakh.

Taxpayers' last-minute rush to file returns for the assessment year 2013-14 has made the website of the income tax department run slow, ahead of the soon-to-be-concluded July 31 deadline.

More taxpayers are filing their returns online as the central board of direct taxes (CBDT) has made e-filing of the returns mandatory for even people who have an annual income of up to Rs 5 lakh.

Some problems in accessing the website for e-filing returns are primarily because of network restrains of the local Internet service providers (ISPs).

The government has decided to sell just 5 per cent of its stake in Coal India Ltd (CIL), half of the size it previously planned to offload, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal confirmed on Tuesday.

In May, the government was all set sell 10 per cent of its stake in the coal miner, but worker unions opposed the plan and issued warnings that they would go on an indefinite strike if the government went on with its stake sale plan. The severe opposition forced the government to postpone the plan.

The government is in search of a successor to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D. Subbarao as he does not want an extension in his term.

Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters that Subbarao had told him that he wanted to move on and would not like to be considered for an extension.

New Delhi, July 31 : The government will soon bring in more clarity to the foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations in multi-brand retail which would help attract investments into the country, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said Wednesday.

"The Commerce ministry is in the last leg of clarifying the policy," the finance minister said at a press conference here.

Chidambaram said the commerce ministry is likely to place the proposal at Thursday's cabinet meeting.

Sahara Group Chairman Subrata Roy along with the directors of two group companies Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corp Ltd (SHICL) should be punished for violating the Supreme Court's order directing them to return investors' Rs 24,000 crore, capital market regulator Sebi told the apex court.