Top Headlines: India airspace coordination, blockbuster M&As, and more

Business Standard brings you the top headlines at this hour

India's civil aviation sector set to expand to up to 70% of airspace, despite the volatility in global markets, Indian M&A's buzzing with blockbuster deals, and more in our top headlines this morning:

 

Friendly gains: Airspace coordination in India helps airlines save big

Coordination between defence and civilian authorities has freed up airspace for commercial airlines in India, resulting in routes becoming shorter and costs coming down, apart from mitigating pollution. “Due to various restrictions of the military, only about 58 per cent of the Indian airspace was being utilised. It is close to 70 per cent now,” said an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Read more...

Blockbuster M&As keep India's deal street buzzing despite market volatility

India's deal street is buzzing yet again despite indices remaining volatile across the globe. Several blockbuster deals like Reliance Industries’ (RIL) potential $10-billion (Rs 76,000 crore) acquisition of European medicine chain Walgreens Boots; Adani and JSW groups bidding for Ambuja Cements and the merger of the HDFC twins are leading the merger and acquisitions (M&A) pecking order. Read more...

India to launch open e-commerce network to take on Amazon, Walmart

India will on Friday launch an open network for digital commerce (ONDC) as the government tries to end the dominance of U.S. companies Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market, a government document showed.The launch of the platform comes after India's antitrust body on Thursday raided domestic sellers of Amazon and some of Walmart's Flipkart following accusations of competition law violations. The companies did not respond to request for comment on the raids. Read more...

Fuel tussle: Petrol dearer 5% since November in states with no VAT cut

Consumers in seven states that have not cut value-added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel since November 3 last year when the Centre announced a reduction in excise duty by Rs 5 and Rs 10 per litre on these two fuels, respectively, bore the brunt of high prices, particularly petrol. A detailed look at retail prices showed that the average prices of petrol in captials of the seven states increased by Rs 4.66 per litre, starting from November 3 last year until April 27 this year. Read more...

LIC eyes investments from corporate and bank treasuries in IPO

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is pulling out all stops to ensure its Rs 21,000-crore initial public offering (IPO) is a success. The insurance behemoth is hopeful that the country’s large corporate and bank treasuries will submit bids in its IPO, which will hit the market on Wednesday. Read more...