Top headlines: LIC files for IPO, Reliance could spark another telco battle

Tata Sons, the holding company of the group, is likely to remove the age limit for Tata Trusts nominees on its board. More on that in our morning wrap.

The government will sell 5 per cent of its stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). Reliance Industries is set to enter the satellite broadband business. More on those stories in top headlines this mornig.

LIC files IPO papers with Sebi

The government will sell 5 per cent of its stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), through an initial public offering (IPO), of which 100 per cent is offer for sale. LIC filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Sunday, thus setting the wheels in motion for the country’s largest-ever IPO.

The market regulator, according to sources, is expected to give its nod for the LIC IPO in three weeks. The Union government has often reiterated that the public issue of LIC will happen within the current financial year (FY22). Read more
 

Tata Sons may drop age limit for Tata Trusts nominees

Tata Sons, the holding company of the salt-to-software group, is likely to remove the age limit for Tata Trusts nominees on its board, it is learnt. Till now, a Trusts nominee had to retire from the Tata Sons board at 70 years of age, though there’s never a fixed tenure for that position unlike in the case of an independent director.

The latest change implies permanent seats to the nominee directors on Tata Sons board unless recalled by Tata Trusts, sources said. A trustee or a nominee cannot be on the board of any other Tata group company. Read more
 

RIL preps for satellite broadband entry 

The satellite broadband business is heating up. A few weeks ago, Reliance Industries ended months of speculation when Jio Satellite Communications, a Reliance Jio subsidiary, applied to the Department of Telecom (DoT) for a global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMCS) licence.

The move will see Reliance locking horns with its chief rivals in the telecom sweepstakes — Sunil Mittal-backed OneWeb, which was the first to apply for the same licence and is awaiting a go-ahead. For the uninitiated, like the Unified Access Service Licence (UASL), which allows telcos to offer access for a range of terrestrial telecom services, GMCS offers satellite access services to customers. The only difference is that while UASL is given city- or “circle”-wise GMCS is given for pan-India operations. Read more
 

PSLV-C52 lifts off with satellites

ISRO's PSLV C-52, carrying earth observation satellite EOS-04 along with two co-passenger pay loads lifted off from the spaceport here early on Monday.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C52) blasted off at 05:59 am from the first launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, at the end of a 25-hour countdown, marking the space agency's first mission launch in 2022. Read more
 

IPL 2022 contests on cards after auctions

Imagine the fiery Jofra Archer serving up chin music to batsmen from one end, followed by searing yorkers from Jasprit Bumrah from the other. A new ball pair as lethal as one can dream of is not a figment of imagination for the formidable franchise, Mumbai Indians (MI), that has ad­ded more arrows to its quiver for the lat­est edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).  Read more