New Delhi [India], Apr 26 : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday asserted that that the Centre has no plans to impose any tax on agriculture income, while acknowledging that as per the Constitutional Allocation of Powers, the central government has no jurisdiction to impose tax on agricultural income.

"I have read the paragraph in Niti Ayog Report entitled 'Income tax on agriculture income'. To obviate any confusion on the subject, I categorically state that the Central Government has no plan to impose any tax on agriculture income," said Jaitley.

However, NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy made strong case for taxing agriculture income, an opinion contrary to the government's stated position.

New Delhi [India], Apr 26 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday imposed monetary penalty on the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. and the Kotak Mahindra Bank for violation of instructions on reporting requirements of FEMA 1999.

The central bank penalised The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. for Rs. 70,000 and the Kotak Mahindra Bank for Rs. 10,000 in exercise of powers vested in the RBI.

As per the provisions under section 11(3) of FEMA 1999, the bank is required to take into account the violations of the instructions/directions/guidelines issued by the RBI.

The RBI had issued a show cause notice to the banks, in response to which the banks submitted a written reply and also made oral submissions thereon.

New Delhi [India], Apr 26 : The market on Wednesday witnessed a surge in the Indian rupee in its initial gains and breached the 64 mark against the US dollar.

The rupee was trading at 63.99 a dollar, the highest level since August 10, 2015.

Earlier, it opened higher by seven paise at 64.19 per dollar today versus 64.26 Tuesday.

As per the market analysts, the rupee can breach the stiff resistance of 64.20/dollar and may head higher. Expectations are high that the spot of USD-INR pair will trade in a range of 64-64.40/dollar in the days' trade. (ANI)

New Delhi [India], Apr 26 : Online recruitment marketplace AasaanJobs has announced phenomenal business growth of over 40 percent in its overall business via its mobile application, which helps thousands of candidates across India to find the right job based on their skills and requirements.

Mobile traffic on the platform saw significant growth in the last two quarters; with 500,000+ sessions in Q3, and over 700,000+ sessions in Q4 driven by increase in smartphone usage across the country.

This significant milestone has managed to strengthen AasaanJobs position as a leading recruitment platform in India.

New Delhi [India], Apr 26 : Siemens Healthineers has announced successful installation of India's first fully automated Aptio Automation track with multidiscipline modalities at the Aspira Pathlab and Diagnostic Limited, Mumbai.

The company aims to help healthcare providers worldwide to meet their current challenges and to excel in their respective environments using products and solutions that increase efficiency and reduce costs.

The new track will enable Aspira to perform all routine hematology, biochemistry and immunoassay tests with a comprehensive selection of pre- and post-analytical modules that automate sample loading, preparation and handling so as to free laboratory staff from time-consuming, low-value tasks.

New Delhi [India], Apr 25 : According to credit-rating body ICRA, the growth of the renewable energy (RE) sector was driven by the large capacity additions in the wind and solar power segments.

The RE sector in FY2017 reported a record capacity addition of over 11 GW, an increase of around 60 percent over 7.1 GW reported in FY2016, as per the provisional figures by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE).

"The capacity addition in wind energy was much better than our expectations due to a bunching up of commissioning in March 2017. This was due to the removal of the generation-based incentive (GBI) benefit and reduction in accelerated depreciation (AD) benefit with effect from April 1, 2017," said Sabyasachi Majumdar, Senior Vice President and Group Head, ICRA.

Washington D.C. [USA], Apr 25 : In the past, scientists typically avoided linking individual weather events to climate change, citing the challenges of teasing apart human influence from the natural variability of the weather. But that is changing.

"Over the past decade, there's been an explosion of research, to the point that we are seeing results released within a few weeks of a major event," said Diffenbaugh, who is also the Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

In a new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Diffenbaugh and a group of current and former Stanford colleagues outline a four-step "framework" for testing whether global warming has contributed to record-setting weather events.

New Delhi [India], Apr 25 : Aiming to strengthen its engineering footprint in Eastern Europe, IT major Infosys Ltd. on Monday announced the opening of its first office and delivery center (DC) in Karlovac, Croatia.

In line with the company's strategy to establish global competency centers, offer the best talent in the market and make it available to customers globally, this DC also marks its expansion into Eastern Europe's heavy engineering sector. The new facility will meet near-shoring requirements, support engineering clients worldwide as well as offer R&D services.

New Delhi [India], Apr 24 : Accenture on Monday announced the launch of its new platform for automated, analytics-driven software testing, after successfully completing pilots with 10 clients around the world.

The company's 'Touchless Testing Platform' brings together leading open source, commercial and Accenture proprietary tools and algorithms to automate a robust, touch-less testing process for software - all guided by artificial intelligence and analytics.

It allows testing teams to easily integrate tools from leading players such as Conformiq, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel Saffron, Sauce Labs, Tableau, Tricentis and Worksoft, along with key Accenture innovations, to bring new enterprise software solutions to market faster and with higher quality.

New Delhi [India], Apr 24 : Taxi aggregator Ola on Monday announced the launch of 'Ola Partners League' - a unique virtual cricket game for its driver partners.

The four week-long contest will see Ola driver partners score runs by completing simple tasks and redeeming them against exciting prizes such as cars, TVs, laptops and scholarships in leading cricket academies for children of driver partners.

Kick starting today, OPL is open to all Ola driver partners across Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Pune, and will be LIVE till 20th May, 2017. Popular Indian all-rounder cricketer, Irfan Pathan and famous TV personality Mandira Bedi have been roped in to be the ambassadors to cheer and promote the OPL among driver partners.

New Delhi [India], Apr 24 : L&T Technology Services Limited, a leading global pure play engineering services provider, announced the development of Smart City and Campus solutions that will be used to develop a smart office campus in Israel for a leading technology company - a result of its expanded partnership with Microsoft.

The smart office campus being developed by the firms will use IoT- enabled sensors and predictive analytics. L&T Technology Services' smart buildings i-BEMS platform will provide energy saving technology and cloud-based asset management that complement Microsoft's Digital User Experience design solutions.

Cotton on MCX settled down -0.75% at 21110 on profit booking after prices gained as the arrivals in the domestic market slow down in April. India's cotton imports during the current crop year (Oct-Sep) may jump 36% on strong rupee and poor quality of domestic cotton. Import of the fibre is expected to rise to 3 million bales in 2016-17 compared to 2.2 million bales cotton imported during 2015-16. Comparatively poor quality of domestic cotton is also responsible for increased imports despite higher output. The Cotton Advisory Board

Cardamom on MCX settled up 0.65% at 1185.6 taking positive cues from spot market on rising demand. Supply continued to show a shrinkage following the continued dry spell. Harvesting is nearly complete and hence arrivals are unlikely to pick up. Exporters and north Indian dealers have slowed down because of the higher prices. The production and export of cardamom, has been increasing over the past three years. Despite competition from Guatemala, the largest producer of cardamom, there are good days for cardamom sector in the country. India grew just over 20,000 tonnes of cardamom and exported around 4,700 tonnes in 2013-14. However, during 2015-16, 27,300 tonnes of cardamom were produced and over 6,000 tonnes were exported globally.

Maize on NCDEX settled up 0.32% at 1551 tracking firmness in spot demand despite pressure in overseas prices amid plentiful global supplies and an improved weather outlook for the winter crop in the United States. Corn export sales came in at 848,200 tonnes, near the low end of expectations. Brazilian farmers should produce a record 2016-17 corn crop of 93.2 million tonnes this year, topping the 89.6 million tonnes expected in a previous survey. Farmers in China will plant less corn this season, resulting in the nation’s smallest crop in six years. A poll finds that, during the spring planting season, growers in China plan to cut corn acreage for the second straight year to 35.2 million hectares, the equivalent of roughly 85 million acres, and 4.1 percent less than a year ago.

Jeera on NCDEX settled down -1.42% at 19100 tracking weakness in spot demand on profit booking. However downside seen limited amid lower production estimates by Gujarat Agriculture Department in its 3rd advance estimates for 2016/17. As per third advance estimates for 2016/17, production of Jeera in Gujarat revised down to 2.12 lt, down 4% from its 2nd estimates and almost 11% compared to last year production of 2.38 lt. The arrivals have been lower during the first half of current month compared to second half of last month. As per data, during first half of April about 16,441 tonnes of jeera arrived compared to 22,108 during second half of last month.

Turmeric on NCDEX settled up 1.37% at 6216 on lower arrivals and steady increase in demand at lower levels. Moreover, rising exports demand at the spot market too fuelled the uptrend. On the export front, country exported about 89,704 tons during April-Jan period, up by 28.3% compared to last year exports of 69,870 tons. Turmeric arrivals in the country is declining in first 20 days in April to 66,025 tonnes (Apr 1-20) compared to 1,15,768 tonnes during the same period in March, as per data. There are expectations of improved demand in coming weeks as prices are lower. At Erode market arrivals were reported at 8000 quintals, higher by 2500 quintals as compared to previous day. At Nizamabad market arrivals were reported at 15000 quintals, lower by 3000 quintals as against previous day.

Rmseed on NCDEX settled down -0.44% at 3804 tracking weakness in spot demand on oversupply woes in local mandis. Prices of the mustard were down as demand is lower after the crushing disparity fell to Rs 700 per quintal. However, sharp fall in the prices was cushioned by lower arrivals in the local mandis. Mustard arrivals in the country totaled at 460,000 bags (85kg each) against 490,000 bags previous session. Farmers are reluctant to offload their produce at the lower level. Further they mostly prefer in marketing of rabi wheat crop, which is giving them good remunerations.

CPO on MCX settled up 0.16% at 516.8 amid higher export data from Malaysia spurted demand hope. Malaysia palm oil exports during Apr 1-20 jumped 5% as compared to same period a month ago on higher demand from European Union, China, Japan, India Egypt and South Africa, data showed. Malaysia palm oil exports jumped to 719,175 tons during Apr 1-20 compared to 686,741 tons for the same period a month ago, DowJones reported citing data from SGS, a private surveyor. India's palm oil imports from Malaysia during Apr 1-20 rose by 16.07% to 94,600 tons as compared to 81,500 tons imported during Mar 1-20.

Ref. Soya oil on NCDEX settled down -0.19% at 622.05 tracking weakness spot demand despite of lower arrivals in local mandis and on hope of improvement in demand. India's edible oil imports fell a little over 7% on year to 1.10 mln tn in March, according to data from Solvent Extractors' Association of India. In March, overall imports of vegetable oils--comprising edible and non-edible oils--were at 1.11 mln tn compared with 1.19 mln tn a year ago. During Nov-Mar, the country imported 5.7 mln tn of edible oils, down from 6.3 mln tn a year ago. Total imports have declined this year because of a larger crop of oilseeds and consequent higher availability of edible oils, SEA said in a report. A slowdown in consumption growth has also kept imports under check.

Soyabean on NCDEX settled up 0.23% at 3057 on account of diminishing supplies in the domestic market. Meanwhile, soybeans ticked higher in overseas markets, but slowing demand for US shipments kept a lid on the market. The US Department of Agriculture said weekly export sales of soybeans fell to 225,000 tonnes (old-crop and new-crop combined), below trade forecasts for 400,000 to 800,000 tonnes. Soybean arrivals in local mandis are expected to gather pace after May 20. Earlier, data published by SOPA showed. Soybean arrivals in local mandis during March fell by 23% compared to previous month as farmers were reluctant to sell the crop at lower prices.