Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], Apr. 6 : Madhabi Puri Buch took charge as Whole Time Member of Securities and Exchange Board of India ( SEBI) in Mumbai on Wednesday for a tenure of three years or until further orders.

Buch will handle the Market Regulation Department, Market Intermediaries Regulation and Supervision Department, Integrated Surveillance Department, Department of Economic and Policy Analysis, Office of Investor Assistance and Education, National Institute of Securities Markets and Information Technology Department.

Prior to joining, Buch served as the Consultant to the New Development Bank in Shanghai and as the Head of the Singapore office of the Private Equity Firm, Greater Pacific Capital.

New Delhi [India], Apr 5 : PayU India on Wednesday announced the launch of a first-of-its kind premium deferral payment facility for consumers 'LazyPay' aimed at those who transact digitally for any amount between Rs. 500 and 2500, and is an option to pay later.

The aim of the product is to drive faster purchase experiences and convenience by reducing friction on online checkouts and achieving a zero drop situation for online payments.

It is a convenience product for anyone to pay later and the facility could extend for amounts from Rs. 3,000 and even up to Rs. 10,000, depending upon customer behaviour.

New Delhi [India], Apr 5 : Largest hotel network OYO on Wednesday announced its partnership with Ola Money, the digital payment solution from Ola, India's most popular mobile app for transportation.

Under the partnership, OYO customers will be enabled to make one-touch payments for their hotel rooms through Ola Money wallet for both web and app bookings.

New Delhi [India], Apr. 5 : The much-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill will be presented for discussion in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

The Lok Sabha earlier on March 29 passed four key GST Bills, rejecting amendments moved by the opposition. The Bills are related to Central GST, Integrated GST, UT GST and GST Compensation.

The Central GST deals with taxation related to Centre, integrated GST deals in taxation of inter-state movement of goods and services while the Union Territory GST Bill covers taxation in Union Territories.

The compensation law has been prepared to give a legislative backing to the Centre's promise to compensate the states for five years for any revenue loss arising out of GST implementation.

New Delhi [India], Apr 4 : Whirlpool has announced the launch of its most innovative range of Air Conditioners in the Indian market with a lineup of ACs includes Whirlpool 3D cool Inverter range and Fantasia Inverter, which are at par with the 2018 Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) norms.

The leading home appliance company, Whirlpool has also launched its new Magicool AC 5 star range to make energy efficient products available to consumer at entry price points. Whirlpool's 3D Cool range has been designed keeping in mind the extreme humid conditions in India and the capability to perform during temperature of 52-55 degrees C.

New Delhi [India], Apr. 4 : Accenture acquired UK-based Genfour, a pure play automation service provider with deep domain expertise and industry experience in assessing, implementing and managing automation solutions. The acquisition strengthens Accenture's capabilities as a leading provider of intelligent automation services. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The addition of Genfour expands Accenture's ability to apply intelligent automation solutions that help clients transform and re-engineer their business processes. Clients can take advantage of data-driven insights that enable faster, more informed business decisions and better quality of service to their customers.

New Delhi [India], Apr. 4 : JobsForHer (JFH), a connecting portal that enables women on a professional break to restart their careers, announced its Returnee Drive with some large women-friendly organisations.

These organisations, namely Sapient, Intuit and PayPal, extended support to help progress the gender agenda by making a strong commitment to increasing female participation in the workforce.

As business leaders, they recognise the industry's need to have a balanced workforce and enable career advancement for women. They know that gender-balanced companies with more engaged workforces achieve greater economic results.

New Delhi [India], Apr 4 : India's leading innovative solar solutions provider and one of the largest solar power EPC and Development companies RaysExperts on Tuesday announced that it has commissioned a 5.5 MV solar project for Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

This will be one of the largest distributed rooftop solar plants setup across India.

RaysExperts' solar installation will supply power to multiple metro stations, cleaning bays, parking yards and other metro rail supporting facilities. The project has the capacity to produce 87 million units of power every year.

New Delhi [India], Apr 4 : Credit rating agency ICRA on Tuesday said that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved certain amendments related to increasing the IPP-linked cap on urea production beyond re-assessed capacity (RAC) in the New Urea Policy-2015 (NUP-2015) in a meeting held on March 31, 2017.

Further, to address any future fluctuations in the import parity price (IPP) that would have an adverse impact on the production beyond the RAC by urea units, the Department of Fertilizers (DoF) has been authorised to take an appropriate decision in consultation with Department of Expenditure.

New Delhi [India], Apr.4 : Cyient, a global leader in communications engineering and service management assurance services and solutions, today announced a collaboration with Amdocs to implement GE's Geographical Information System (GIS), Smallworld, as part of the Next-Generation Business/Operations Support System (NGBOSS) project for NetLink Trust.

The NGBOSS project aims to improve the user experience for NetLink Trust's customers with faster deployment of new fiber networks while reducing fault repair and outage times, as well as delivering improved service quality.

New Delhi [India], Apr 4 : Central Board of Direct Taxes on Tuesday said that the provisional figures for revenue collections up to March, 2017 showed a gross Direct Tax collection of Rs. 10.09 lakh crore.

As per a notification by the company, the net collection after issue of refunds stands at Rs. 8.47 lakh crore which is 14.2 percent higher than the net collection for the corresponding period last year.

With this the CBDT has accomplished 100 percent of the direct tax target for Financial Year 2016-17.

Refunds amounting to Rs. 1.62 lakh crore have been issued during April 2016-March 2017, which is 32.6 percent higher than the refunds issued during the same period for FY 2015-16. This has substantially reduced the grievances of tax payers.

New Delhi [India], Apr.4 : Union Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia on Tuesday revealed that the provisional tax collection for fiscal 2016-17 shows net growth of 18 percent.

Addressing media in the national capital, Adhia said that the government would shortly be issuing a detailed report on provisional tax collection.

In a tweet, he said, "Provisional tax collection figures for 16-17 released. Total net tax revenue grows at 18% to 17.10 lac cr, highest in last 6 years. Direct tax growth rate is 14.2% and indirect tax growth rate is 22%."

He said that direct tax collections upto March 2017 stood at Rs. 8.457 lakh crore, while indirect tax collections (Central Excise, Service Tax and Customs) for fiscal 2016-17 stood at Rs.8.63 lakh crore

New Delhi [India], Apr 3 : Indian mobile wallet major MobiKwik on Monday announced its association with Google Play for the customers to easily pay for their favorite apps and games in just one click.

The association will give access to a wide range of games, movies, fun and other entertainment apps and purchase them anytime without going to various authorized retailers.

"By associating with Google Play we want our customers to enjoy their cherished movies, read books, enjoy games and more without any problem. The users don't have to compromise with their wishes of purchasing any app on Google Play due to shortage of funds. MobiKwik takes every initiative to make our customers content and happy with our services," said Chief Business Officer at MobiKwik, Vineet K. Singh.

New Delhi [India], Apr 3 : Taxi aggregator Ola on Monday announced its effort to promote digital economy across the country as it integrated with Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to further simplify digital payment options for millions of customers.

The integration will allow Ola customers to use their unique UPI IDs to pay for all their rides on the Ola platform. UPI integration will lead to one of the fastest mode of payment for millions of Ola users.

As the country has made significant stride towards cashless economy, UPI itself has seen great acceptance, with the value of transaction through the interface reaching to more than 1300 crore, according to recent RBI report.

For a nation that is looking to migrate completely onto a digital medium,

New Delhi [India], Apr 3 : World leader in digital security Gemalto released the findings of the Breach Level Index revealing that 33 reported data breaches led to almost 36.6 million data records being compromised in India during 2016, an increase of 14 percent compared to 2015.

Identity theft and unauthorized access to financial data were the leading type of data breaches in 2016, accounting for 73 percent of all data breaches. In addition, 61 percent of the data breaches in 2016 did not disclose the number of compromised records at the time they were reported in India.

New Delhi [India], Apr 3 : India's leading travel search engine ixigo has announced the launch of a wearable product that will change the way one perceives the world around them.

ixigo glass is a first-of-its-kind smart wearable that helps users see real-time comparisons for whatever they lay their eyes on. For instance, if a user is looking through the glasses and sees a bunch of cabs on the road, the glasses will project the various price offerings, telling them which one they can book at the lowest fare.

Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], Apr.3 : L & T Technology Services Limited, a leading global pure play engineering services company, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the Golden Peacock National Quality Award, 2017, as a recognition of the company's consistent focus in enabling cutting edge technologies for global businesses.

The Golden Peacock Awards Secretariat conducted an exhaustive review of applicants' Quality Management Systems across various criteria such as best practices implemented, product and services development process, customer satisfaction scores, audit mechanisms and corporate governance structure among others.

New Delhi [India], Apr 1 : Credit rating agency ICRA estimates the solar capacity addition to increase from 3.5-4 GW in FY2017 to at least 7-7.5 GW (in grid connected utility segment) in FY2018.

The magnitude of solar project awards, both under the National Solar Mission ( NSM) and the state policy route in the past 12-18 months has been quite significant, though currently there is a temporary lull in the announcement of fresh bids. The backlog against these awards itself would support the estimated solar capacity addition as per ICRA study.

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], Apr. 1 : The State Bank of India has merged its five Associate Banks - State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Travancore besides Bharatiya Mahila Bank - with itself with effect from April 1.

With this six-way mega merger, the SBI has joined the league of top 50 banks globally in terms of assets.

The total customer base of the bank is now expected to reach 37 crore with a branch network of around 24,000 and nearly 59,000 ATMs across the country.

The merged entity will have a deposit base of more than Rs. 26 lakh crore and advances level of 18.50 lakh crore.

New Delhi [India], Apr. 1 : Multiplex chain PVR Cinemas launched its first multiplex in the capital city of Jharkhand- Ranchi. With this, PVR Cinemas has successfully established its presence in 50 cities across India.

The newly launched four-screen property is the largest and the most premium multiplex of the city, situated in the heart of Ranchi. Being elected to be developed as a smart city under the Government of India's ' Smart City Project'; Ranchi has witnessed tremendous development in the recent times. This surge of expansion has also opened opportunities resulting in a diverse population with evolved entertainment consumption patterns.