Business

During the presentation of Budget 2020, Nirmala Sitharaman revealed that under the Study in India programme, an INDSAT exam is proposed to be held in Asian and African countries.

The finance minister broke her own record of a 2-hour-17-minute-long maiden Budget speech in July 2019.

This is in line with the target set by Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey after high-level meetings with senior officials of the tax department.

Congress leader P Chidambaram asked if the ministers will explain the downward revision in the last two years and the drastic slide in the current fiscal year.

Panasonic India and South Asia President and CEO Manish Sharma expects reforms in the union budget, saying that would drive consumption and improve the consumer demand.

In a pre-budget memorandum, the Life Insurance Council has sought a separate deduction in personal taxes or an increase in the present limit for the premium paid for individual life policies.

Earlier this month, Infosys had said its audit committee had found no evidence of financial impropriety or executive misconduct, virtually giving a clean chit to CEO Salil Parekh and CFO Nilanjan Roy.

The apex court has set January 23 as the deadline to pay adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened weak at 71.21 and slipped further to hit 71.22 against the US dollar.

Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan met visiting Brazilian Minister for Mines and Energy Bento Albuqueroque to review cooperation between the two countries.

The outbreak began in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei and has spread to the rest of the country, with 440 confirmed cases and nine deaths so far. It has also spread to the United States, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Bharti Airtel Ltd shares slipped 0.6% even as the telecom firm got approval from the Department of Telecommunications to increase the limit of foreign investment in the company to up to 100%.

The 30-share BSE index was trading 204.30 points or 0.49 per cent higher at 41,528.11.

Of the total USD 2.64 trillion of investment needed, the potential investment opportunity for the private sector is a whopping USD 1.12 trillion with USD 701.5 billion going into clean energy and USD 226.5 billion for digital access.

Brokerage firm Kotak Securities Ltd said it expected Zee Entertainment to witness a weak December quarter amid slowdown across advertising categories and due to the impact of a drop in reach or viewership of select channels.

Its per outlet throughput at 342 kilolitres per month was also nearly double that of petrol pumps operated by public sector firms such as Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL).