News digest: Maggi row, cash-rich promoters, fiscal deficit target and more

The Supreme Court on Thursday revived a class action suit filed by the Union government against Nestle for allegedly selling noodles that were unfit for consumption

Maggi fiasco returns to haunt Nestle India as SC revives class action suit

More than three years after the Maggi ban, the ghost of the 2015 fiasco seems to be back to haunt Nestlé India, the maker of Maggi noodles.

The Supreme Court on Thursday revived a class action suit filed by the Union government against the Swiss food major for allegedly selling noodles that were unfit for consumption. The quality of the widely sold instant noodle is again expected to be under the scanner of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC). Read more.

Azim Premji is India's most cash-rich promoter, Anil Agarwal comes second

Azim Premji of Wipro, Shiv Nadar of HCL Technologies, and the founders of Infosys are some of the most cash-rich promoters in the country. The promoters of the three technology companies together earned a little over Rs 20,000 crore through equity dividends and share buybacks in the last three years. Share buybacks accounted for 56.5 per cent of their cash earnings during the period. Read more.

Pace of revenue expenditure slows as fiscal deficit target looms

As the Centre strives to meet a very challenging 2018-19 fiscal deficit target in spite of committing itself to no let-up in capital expenditure in a pre-election year, the planners in the finance ministry hope for some savings on administrative and revenue expenditure.

The data available for April-October shows that the pace of revenue expenditure for most social sector ministries and some infrastructure ministries has slowed as compared to the same period last year. Some of these ministries and departments are commerce, coal, consumer affairs, corporate affairs, defence pensions, North-East affairs, housing and urban affairs, school and higher education, small and medium enterprises, Ayush, women and child development, panchayati raj, and youth affairs and sports. Read more.

Why Chinese market is the key for Apple?

With more than 40 stores and hundreds of millions of iPhones sold in the country, few US companies have been as successful as Apple in China — or have as much to lose. China is Apple’s third-largest market, with nearly $52 billion in sales in the company’s most recent fiscal year, mostly from iPhone sales. Read more.

Govt does U-turn in policy, says e-commerce firms can sell private labels

An aggressive push by e-commerce majors over New Year weekend to force the government into a parley seems to have paid off, with the latter on Thursday clarifying there are no restrictions on private labels being sold by e-marketplaces.

The sharp reversal of policy by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) comes barely a week after the government had explicitly restricted such sales and is the latest development in an intense ongoing debate on e-commerce rules. Read more.