1) Mydala partners Viacom 18 for `Star Trek Beyond`.
- Mydala.com, India’s leading local services marketing platform, has joined forces with Viacom 18 as the media partner for `Star Trek Beyond`, the third installment of the iconic Star Trek Reboot Series that released in India.
- Mydala is giving its users a sci-fi thrill with a StarTrekBeyond contest where its 400 million consumers across 209 cities in India can win movie tickets as well as official merchandise.
- Mydala is also the largest mobile commerce platform in the country doing over 6.6 million transactions per month with 85% of these from mobile platforms.
2) Verizon to buy Yahoo in $5 billion deal.
- Verizon Communications Inc would buy Yahoo Inc`s core internet properties for $4.83 billion in cash.
- Verizon will combine Yahoo`s search, email and messenger assets as well as advertising technology tools with its AOL unit.
- Verizon has been looking to mobile video and advertising for new sources of revenue outside the oversaturated wireless market.
- Yahoo, founded in 1994, was a dominant player in the early days of the internet, but has long lost its leadership position in internet search and advertising to Google, Facebook and others.
3) Thomas Cook India inks pact with Matrimony Bazaar.
- Travel service provider Thomas Cook Ltd. is an integrated travel and travel related financial services company has entered into a partnership with Matrimony Bazaar to tap the ‘romantic leisure travel’ segment which is seeing an ``exponential`` growth.
- The company however did not disclose any financial details about the partnership.
4) VSoft develops app for instant transfer of money.
- VSoft Technologies, a banking technology solutions firm, has developed an app for smoother transfer of money.
- Unlike in mobile wallets, the app doesn’t require people to store money in it. The app helps people to transfer and receive money instantaneously.
- With `Jeb`, money remains in the respective accounts and thus continues to earn money unlike in mobile wallets where you are supposed to store money for payments
5) Vodafone M-Pesa ties up with Punjab power utility.
- Vodafone M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer platform, has tied up with Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) to enable consumers pay their electricity bills instantly.
- Vodafone M-Pesa offers customers a cashless, secure platform for electricity bill payments with the largest network of agents to enable digitisation of money for cash holding population.
- This facility is aimed at driving financial inclusion further along with providing the state electricity utility subscribers in Punjab the benefit and comfort of making payments instantly.
- New users of M-Pesa can earn 5 per cent cashback on the payment made through the App.
6) Flipkart’s Myntra acquires Jabong for $70 million.
- Flipkart Ltd has acquired Jabong through its unit Myntra in a cut-price deal that values the online fashion store at $70 million.
- Global Fashion Group (GFG) has been looking for a buyer for Jabong for more than a year now. GFG held discussions with several firms, including Snapdeal, Future Group, Aditya Birla Group and Amazon.
- Jabong offers more than 1,500 international high-street brands, sports labels, Indian ethnic and designer labels and over 150,000 styles from more than 1,000 sellers.
7) Amazon Prime comes to India.
- Amazon Prime, the online retailer’s loyalty membership programme, is now available in over 100 Indian cities with unlimited free one- and two-day delivery.
- With the launch of Prime, Amazon will take on Flipkart First, a paid annual subscription service for registered Flipkart users.
- Prime is being offered at an introductory annual subscription fee of ?499, at a discount of Rs. 500 over the list price of Rs. 999, which is Rs. 1 lower than Flipkart First’s Rs. 500.
8) Chinese tech giant LeEco to acquire Vizio for $2 billion.
- Chinese electronics firm LeEco is buying American TV manufacturer Vizio for $2 billion.
- VIZIO hardware and software businesses will be owned and operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of LeEco.
- The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2016.
9) Quikr acquires Hiree to boost job listings business.
- Online classifieds company Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired Bengaluru-based online recruitment platform Hiree (Abhiman Technologies Pvt. Ltd).
- Deal is an attempt to bolster its job listings business.
- Hiree will merge with Quikr and the Hiree team, including founders Manjunath Talwar and Abhijit Khasnis, will be absorbed into Quikr.
10) Cabinet increases the limit for foreign investment in Stock Exchanges from 5% to 15%.
- Union Cabinet has given its approval for raising foreign shareholding limit from 5% to 15% in Indian Stock Exchanges for a stock exchange, a depository, a banking company, an insurance company, a commodity derivative exchange.
- Cabinet has also approved the proposal to allow foreign portfolio investors to acquire shares through initial allotment, besides secondary market, in the stock exchanges.
- The move will help in enhancing global competitiveness of Indian stock exchanges by accelerating/facilitating the adoption of latest technology and global best practices which will lead to overall growth and development of the Indian Capital Market.
11) India signs $1 billion deal with the US for procuring four Poseidon-8I aircraft.
- India and the US underscored their military partnership with the signing of a deal worth over $1 billion for the purchase of four additional Poseidon-8I long-range maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft.
- The contract is a follow-up order to the eight P-81 planes already bought by India in a direct deal with Boeing’s Indian subsidiary worth $2.1 billion in 2009.
- The P-8I is a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft capable of broad area, maritime and littoral operations.
12) Pharma sector receives Rs. 4,975 crore FDI in FY16.
- Pharmaceuticals sector received FDI of Rs. 4,975 crore in 2015-16, down from Rs. 9,052 crore in 2014-15.
- India’s FDI policy provides for 100% FDI under automatic route in greenfield pharma and upto 100% under government route in brownfield pharma.
13) `GDP growth for FY17 may accelerate to 7.9 per cent`.
- India’s GDP growth could rise to 7.9 per cent because of good monsoon so far, with agriculture expected to grow by 4 per cent and consumer price inflation likely to be restricted to 5 per cent in 2016-2017, rating agency Crisil.
- Crisil has developed a Deficient Rainfall Impact Parameter (DRIP) index, which measures the impact of rainfall levels on each crop across geographic regions.
- The Crisil analysis shows that rainfall was deficient in the middle of June in all regions except for the southern peninsula.
14) LIC signs up Axis Bank as bancassurance partner.
- Life Insurance Corporation of India and Axis Bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding to distribute LIC’s multiple life insurance products to their customers.
- In the preliminary phase, the private sector bank will distribute LIC’s life insurance products across its branches in West Bengal, Bengaluru, and Haryana.
- The bank will also provide post sales services such as premium collection and renewal of policies.
15) A10 Acquires Appcito, Makes Move into the Cloud.
- A10 Networks is accelerating its push into the cloud-based applications services market with the recent acquisition of Appcito, which sold application delivery services via the cloud.
- The company establishes a cloud business unit that will complement the application delivery controller and security services appliances.
- Appcito, which A10 bought in June but is only talking about now, has become the larger company`s cloud unit.
16) India’s $318 million aid for Sri Lankan railways.
- India approved $318 million loan for Sri Lanka Railways to upgrade the country’s rail communications system and rolling stock.
- Carrying an interest rate of 1.75 per cent, the line of credit will have a repayment period of 20 years.
- The financial grand from India will help to buy six power sets with AC carriages, 10 engines and 160 carriages, 30 wagons with oil tanks and 20 container wagons.
- The important condition attached to it is that 75 per cent of the goods and services should be sourced from India.
17) Sebi plans to ease listing norms for start-ups.
- The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) intends to further relax norms for listing by start-ups after poor response to rules announced earlier.
- Proposed to reduce the minimum trading lot from Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh.
- Even with the new rules, retail investors continue to be barred from companies listing on the institutional trading platform (ITP) and can only access it through devices such as mutual funds.
- According to SEBI, there over 3,000 companies in India that can benefit from the new listing platform.
- The total allocation to institutional investors has been brought down to 50 per cent of the issue (from the earlier 75 per cent) while the allocation to non-institutional investors has been increased from 25 per cent to 50 per cent.
- SEBI proposes to expand the definition of institutional investor to include a family trust, an NBFC, a category III foreign portfolio investor and pooled investment funds of a minimum size of $150 million.
- The ceiling on discretionary allotment to an individual investor has been raised from 10 per cent to 25 per cent of the issue size.
- SEBI is also considering doing away with the rule that no single shareholder can own more than 25 per cent of the company’s post-issue capital.
18) CBDT extends the date for filing income tax return for Assessment Year 2016- 2017 from July 31st to August 5th, 2016.
- Central Board of Direct Taxes extends the due date for filing returns of Income for Assessment Year 2016- 2017 from 31st July, 2016 to 5th August, 2016.
- In case of taxpayers throughout India who are liable to file their Income-tax by 31st July, 2016.
- Extension is given in order to avoid any inconvenience to the taxpayers while making payment of taxes due to reports of Bank strike.
19) Online foodgrains procurement by FCI.
- Food Corporation of India (FCI) has decided to develop an online procurement system for registration of farmers and procurement of foodgrains.
- System will send alerts through short message service (SMS) to the registered farmers on date of procurement, location of procurement center, weight of foodgrains procured and details of online payment made to the farmer for his procured foodgrains.
- The system will enable FCI to track payment to farmers and bring transparency in grain procurement.
- States like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh have already started e-procurement of food grains.
20) eBay India claims higher product listings than Amazon India.
- E-commerce marketplace eBay India shoppers can access over 100 million live product listings on eBay.in and its global easy buy platform geb.ebay.in across electronics, lifestyle, media and other categories.
- Smartphones are one of the most shopped products with an intensive product range and occupy 73% of the total share in the cell phones and accessories category.
- Women`s clothing is another emerging category in the clothing and accessories segment.
21) Oracle takes the cloud revenue fast track with $9.3 billion Netsuite deal.
- Oracle announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NetSuite, the very first cloud company. The transaction is valued at $9.3 billion.
- The deal will allow Oracle to serve a broader range of customers, including smaller businesses, and expand to more industries and more countries.
- NetSuite began offering cloud-based products way back in 1998, and Oracle called it the "very first" cloud company.
- NetSuite focuses on several industries, including healthcare, wholesale distributing, manufacturing, nonprofits, and media and publishing.
22) Collections under Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme Reach a New High.
- The aim of Sovereign Gold Bond is to reduce demand, including through imports, for physical gold, and in process reduce India’s Current Account Deficit (CAD).
- The GOI, in consultation with RBI, launched the 4th Tranche of Sovereign Gold Bond.
- The amount realized through the 4th tranche, at around Rs. 919 Crores, is the highest achieved as yet.
- With issue price fixed at Rs. 3,119 per gram, the amount was mobilized through over 1.95 lakh applications representing around 2.95 tonnes of gold.
- The minimum subscription limit was reduced from 2 gm to 1 gm.
- Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) scheme was launched as an alternative to physical gold in Nov 2015.
23) SEBI’s first phase of new enterprise portal.
- Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has initiated the first phase of its new enterprise portal to facilitate accurate and timely dissemination of information to the watchdog’s internal and external stakeholders.
- The new portal, which would replace the regulator’s existing portal in a phased manner.
- New portal is being developed by IT major Tech Mahindra.
- The first phase of the project provides the employees of the SEBI and some of its market intermediaries with an interactive portal.
- The portal provides an e-Platform to registered and prospective intermediaries to communicate in secure, simplified, transparent and paperless way with SEBI.