India's government has shortlisted four mid-sized state-run banks for privatisation, under a new push to sell state assets and shore up government revenues, three government sources said.

Privatisation of the banking sector, which is dominated by state-run behemoths with hundreds of thousands of employees, is politically risky because it could put jobs at risk but Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s administration aims to make a start with second-tier banks.

The four banks on the shortlist are Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank and the Central Bank of India, two officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity as the matter is not yet public.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who on Sunday dedicated to the nation Bharat Petroleum's Propylene Derivatives petrochemical complex at Kochi Refinery worth Rs 6,000 crore and Inland Waterways Authority's Roll-on/Roll-off vessels, at Willingdon Island, said the government is taking many measures to improve tourism in Kerala.

“Today, we are here to celebrate the development of Kerala and India. With these new projects we will energise the growth trajectory of India,” he said at a function in Kochi.

“This new PDP complex will lead our mission to be Aatmanirbhar. With this new complex, foreign exchange will be saved, a wide range of industries would gain, and employment opportunities will be generated," he said, adding the RoRo container service will shorten distance and make operations cost effective.

Govt has raised fare limits for domestic airlines. In what could make air travel more expensive going ahead, the government has raised the upper and lower limits on fares of domestic flights in the first amendment to the restrictions after they were imposed back in May 2020.

Why did the government impost the fare restrictions in the first place?

Back in May, when the Centre announced resumption of domestic flights after a two-month Covid-19 lockdown, it announced an upper and a lower limit on air fares across seven bands based on flight durations. This was done mainly because of two reasons — the upper bands were put in place so that the consumers do not have to pay lofty fares upon resumption of flights, whereas the lower limit was imposed to prevent tariff wars among airlines on certain routes. The government later also indicated how it was crucial to prevent airlines from getting into tariff wars lest it could have led to bankruptcies in the sector.

In the ongoing legal fight between Jeff Bezos-led Amazon Inc and Kishore Biyani's Future Retail group, the e-comm giant has moved the Supreme Court, challenging the Rs 24,713 crore retail asset sale to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail Ltd.

As per Amazon, Future violated its contract with the company by signing a retail asset sale agreement with Reliance Industries in 2020. However, Future promoter Kishore Biyani has denied any of these wrongdoings and has accused Amazon of playing "dog in a manger" as the multinational e-commerce giant engages in a massive legal battle with Future Retail Ltd (FRL).

The latest action by Amazon comes in the backdrop of the Delhi High Court dealing a blow to Amazon by revoking a previous court order on putting a stay on the deal. The Delhi High Court also turned down Amazon's request to keep its order in abeyance for a week so that it can explore appropriate remedies.

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today said it was a misnomer to campaign in such a way that fuel prices are at an all-time high in the country. Fuel prices are determined by international mechanism, Pradhan said. Earlier, Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy had questioned fuel prices in India through a scathing tweet which read: "Petrol Rs 93 in Ram's India, Rs 53 in Sita's Nepal and Rs 51 in Ravan's Lanka". Fuel prices in Mumbai soared to an all-time high on Tuesday, with one litre of petrol being sold at 93.83 and diesel is priced at 84.36 in the city. However, Dharmendra Pradhan saw things differently when he said in Rajya Sabha, "In the last 300 days, there have been around 60 days of increase in price (and) in around 7 days in petrol and 21 days in diesel we have decreased the price. And for almost 250 days we have not increased or decreased prices... So, it is a misnomer to campaign in that way that it is all-time high."

Here's what Subramanian Swamy had tweeted.