Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Sambit Patra, who is contesting from Puri, Odisha, in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, helped create a wave of criticism against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Ujjwala programme, under which the Union government claims to have provided over 51 million—51,407,565 at last official count—free cooking gas connections, distributed in standard-sized cylinders […]
Day: April 20, 2019
Don’t resort to predatory pricing of tickets: Govt tells airlines
NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Civil Aviation Thursday directed airlines to keep fares at affordable levels and not indulge in predatory pricing, amid rise in ticket prices. Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola said the movement of airfares is being closely monitored. During a meeting with representatives of airlines Thursday, Kharola said they have been […]
RBI MPC minutes show naysayers are worried about food and oil prices
Mumbai: Global crude oil prices have perturbed even the best of policymakers, as oil has been a slippery commodity to forecast. For a net importer like India, it skews the pitch for domestic inflation even more. For the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) six-member monetary policy committee (MPC), oil prices and their impact was a […]
Banks seek RBI’s special permission to convert Jet Airways’ debt into equity
Mumbai: In the absence of general guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), State Bank of India (SBI), on behalf of the lenders’ consortium, has sought special permission from the central bank for conversion of debt into equity in Jet Airways (India) Ltd. This comes after the Supreme Court quashed the RBI’s 12 February […]
Opinion | Jet Airways crisis: As winds of change blow, it is no more jet-set-go
It almost seems like T.S. Eliot wrote these lines in The Hollow Men, way back in 1925, just for Jet Airways. India’s favourite airline for the past more than 25 years folded up earlier this week. I felt all the more terrible, almost like a personal loss, as I had been one of the passengers […]
India should be wary of getting too cosy with Saudi Aramco
It’s funny how friendly someone gets when they’re trying to sell you something. Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is doing its best to make nice with one of its biggest customers. With the ink barely dry on the takeover of 70 percent of the country’s chemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and the issuance of its […]
ADAG shares under pressure; Reliance Capital plunges 14% in two days
Shares of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) companies are under pressure, slipping by up to 14 per cent on Thursday, and extending their Tuesday’s 6 per cent fall on the BSE on back of heavy volumes. Reliance Power (down 14 per cent at Rs 8.16) and Reliance Communications (down 5 per cent at Rs 2.20) […]
CERC asks power generating cos to pay fines for unused transmission lines
Stranded power-generating projects will now have to bear the cost of abandoning the allied transmission system. In its latest order, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) directed power-generating companies (gencos) to pay the transmission and relinquishment charges for the stranded transmission capacity resulting on account of the abandoned projects. This comes at a time when […]
Nepal’s Buddha Air to operate flights to Kolkata from May end
Kathmandu: Buddha Air, which is Nepal’s leading private air service provider, is all set to operate flights to Kolkata from May-end this year, according to a media report. The airlines had planned to start flights to the eastern Indian city from mid-April. However, it changed its flight dates considering upcoming Indian parliamentary elections, the Himalayan […]
Grounding of Jet Airways, Kingfisher casts doubt on India aviation boom
Jet Airways India Ltd, the second local carrier to ground its entire fleet in the past decade, is casting a shadow on India’s booming aviation sector. Once the nation’s biggest airline by market value, Jet Airways’ shares nosedived by a record 31% on Thursday in Mumbai after saying it would suspend operations on a “temporary” […]
Jet Airways issues gag order, fearing impact on stake sale
NEW DELHI: The grounded Jet Airways has issued a gag order to its employees advising them to refrain from speaking with external stakeholders. An internal mail accessed by IANS suggests that talking with external stakeholders especially the media might impact the bidding process for airline’s stake sale. “We are currently at a critical stage of […]
Stranded passengers face double whammy from Jet Airways crisis
Mumbai/New Delhi: Passengers booked to fly on Jet Airways (India) Ltd have been hit by a double whammy after the airline temporarily suspended operations on Wednesday night. Their travel plans are in a mess and no one knows if and when they will be refunded. The woes of passengers were compounded as International Air Transport […]