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The government is considering to increase the foreign investment limit in public sector banks to 49% from 20 per cent with a view to attract overseas inflows. The finance ministry is looking into the proposal, sources said adding it may be announced in the forthcoming Budget 2016-17. Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 17th February 2016

Details of those with dues of Rs. 500cr & above to be produced in a sealed envelope in 6 weeks The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to furnish within six weeks details of all defaulters who have outstanding dues of Rs.500 crore and above. The list should be across public sector ( PSU) banks and all financial institutions, the court emphasised. The order passed by the Bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur said the central bank should also include details of restructured assets and names of institutions whose debts have been written off in the past five years. The court has asked for the list to be submitted in asealed envelope. According to RBI’s estimates, as of September 2015, the gross plus restructured and written off assets amounted to 14.1 per cent of bank loans. For PSU banks, the share was 17 per cent. If the December quarter numbers are added, this could shoot up further. Most of the stress has come from the medium industries segm

Interest rates on popular small savings such as Kisan Vikas Patra, National Savings Certificate and post office recurring deposit schemes are set to come down from April 1 as the government rejigs the interest rate framework for these schemes to align it with market rates. Interest rates of these schemes will now be reset every quarter as part of this rejig, a finance ministry statement said on Tuesday. "This is expected to help the economy move to a lower overall interest rate regime eventually and thereby help all, particularly low-income and salaried classes," it said, explaining the rationale behind this move. Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, senior citizen savings scheme and the monthly income scheme that enjoy interest rate and spread over the G-sec rate of comparable maturity that is of 75 basis points, 100 bps and 25 bps respectively have been left untouched by the government. instruments, such as the five-year term deposit, five-year National Saving Certificates a

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday launched a portal to electronically collect over Rs.2 lakh crore annually in non-tax receipts from sources such as dividends by state-owned firms, RBI and spectrum fee. “This (portal) has its own advantages and it will reduce a lot of manual work now,” Jaitley said while inaugurating the Non-Tax Receipt Portal (NTRP), developed by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA). State-owned NTPC remitted an interim dividend of Rs. 989 crore to government through the electronic mode. The annual collection of nontax receipts amounts to over Rs. 2 lakh crore. It mainly includes dividends, interest receipts, spectrum charges, licence fee, sale of forms and RTI application fees. According to the budget, the government aims to collect over Rs. 2.21 lakh crore as non-tax receipts during 2015-16. Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 16th February 2016

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on tightened its norms for mutual funds’ exposure to riskier corporate bonds, including capping the investment limit in bonds of a single company at 10%, in a move to safeguard investors’ interest. The single sector exposure limit would be lowered from 30% to 25%, while group-level investment limits of 20-25% have also been introduced for mutual funds (MFs) investing in debt securities. Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 16th February 2016

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) is fine with listing on the rival BSE exchange if all mandatory disclosures can be directly sent to either the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi) or another regulatory body. “We can be listed anywhere but disclosure should happen to the regulator or a neutral body,” sources in NSE told Business Standard. While BSE has said it is fine with cross- listing and providing compliancerelated details to NSE, the latter wants to list on its own platform. However, Sebi norms don’t allow a stock exchange to list on its own platform. “Any entity or stock exchange will be comfortable if regulated or supervised by a competent regulatory authority rather than by another exchange. The same logic holds true for NSE,” the sources said. Last month, Sebi issued a notification amending the Stock Exchanges and Clearing Corporations Regulations, making it easier for exchanges to list. The regulator, however, did not allow self- listing. “ A recognis

The Income Tax Department today said infrastructure companies will have the option to choose the year from which they desire to claim tax benefits for ten consecutive years, a move aimed at reducing litigations. Issuing clarification, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said 'initial assessment year' in the Section 80IA (5) of the Income Tax Act, dealing with tax holiday, would mean the first year on which a company would claim for tax benefit. Companies engaged in sectors like infrastructure, road and power get tax holiday under the Section 80 IA of the Act. The CBDT said it had representation that some Assessing Officers were interpreting the term 'initial assessment year' as the year in which the business activity had commenced. The CBDT clarified that an eligible assessee has the option to choose initial/first year from which it may desire the claim of deduction for 10 consecutive years. "It is hereby clarified that once such initial assessment