The Reserve Bank of India has decided to extend the new Cheque Truncation System (CTS) across all bank branches in the country. The CTS is currently operational in major clearing houses in the country, but not in smaller branches of various banks.

The RBI informed in a fresh notification that banks need to ensure that all their branches participate in "image-based" CTS under respective grids by September 30, 2020.

"To leverage the availability of CTS and provide uniform customer experience irrespective of the location of her/his bank branch, it has been decided to extend CTS across all bank branches in the country," RBI said.

It is expected that India will have a law that bans cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin, in the country.

If this law is implemented, it will mean that holding, trading or mining cryptocurrency will become illegal in India.

There are expected to be provision for criminalizing any possession, trading, issuing, mining or transferring cryptocurrency assets in India.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time such a law has been mulled and has been in the works since the draft Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019 first emerged a couple of years ago. Could we see a digital currency launched by the government of India?

The government has submitted the first list of 12 public sector undertakings (PSU) set to be privatised, as announced in the Union Budget 2021 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month. The list includes public sector banks and insurance companies that are a part of the Centre's ambitious plan to privatise PSUs to meet the Rs 1.75 lakh crore disinvestment target.

The submitted list will be considered by the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and the Core Group of Secretaries on Divestment (CGD), headed by the cabinet secretary.

The NITI Aayog is the government's entrusted body with the strategic task of suggesting names of PSUs to be merged or privatised.

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani has left behind big names in the business world such as Mukesh Ambani, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. According to a report by Bloomberg, Gautam Adani, the Chairman of Adani Group has more wealth surge than Tesla founder Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. 

Gautam Adani's coffer rose from $ 16.2 billion to an astonishing $ 50 billion in the year 2021. There is a growth of $ 34 billion in just a year. In comparison to this, Mukesh Ambani grew $ 8.1 billion. Gautam Adani with a $ 34 billion wealth surge, has left behind big names in the international business arena such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

This has come after most of Adani stocks’ shares rose by around 50 per cent. A few of them have even grown more than 90 per cent. 

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) has signed a Share Purchase and Shareholders Agreement (SPSHA) with the Indian Gas Exchange (IGX) and the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) on 10 March 2021 to acquire 5 per cent equity in IGX.

The SPSHA was signed in the presence of Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas Tarun Kapoor and ONGC CMD Shashi Shanker at Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi.

On this occasion, ONGC CMD said that ONGC is aligned to the government’s vision of increasing the share of gas in the energy mix to 15% by 2030. “We believe that the gas markets are key to facilitating the efficient and competitive gas trade in India. ONGC is pleased to be part of the Indian Gas Exchange and we look forward to develop the gas markets in the country through joint and synchronised efforts in the coming years.”