As many as 72 changes to the Companies Act 2013 have been approved by the Cabinet. Briefing reporters, Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the priority is to "decriminalise" provisions in the Act. Sitharaman, who is also the Finance Minister, said the Cabinet has approved 72 changes to the Act.

The chamber said that in keeping up with most economies of the world to institute stimulus measures with 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Indian economy would need a transfusion of over $200 billion with an ability to go up to $300 billion, over the next 12-18 months.

It’s the lack of clarity that makes one wonder if the note was a knee-jerk reaction, or a well-thought-out strategy.

This is expected to boost manufacturing and supply of essential goods and services without violating the home ministry’s guidelines on working with reduced staff to maintain social distancing to curb the spread of Covid-19. Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat have already announced the change.

The government (GoI) has so far been very supportive and empathetic towards businesses and was quick to respond through delayed application of few amendments introduced in Finance Act 2020 (FA 2020) along with relief measures on various tax and other statutory compliances announced subsequently.

Technology does not come cheap and more often than not; it does call for substantial investment.

MSMEs need easy credit facilities to fulfil the financial requirements of their business. The DCE's Credit Guarantee Scheme provides easy, collateral free credit facilities to MSMEs.

ESOPs allow grantees to have a stake in the company which directly results in greater loyalty.

Equipping the business with cutting-edge technology is essential to ensure you stay competitive in today’s industrial environment.

Many research studies have shown that large numbers of projects do not achieve their assigned business goals and the failure rate is significantly higher for SMBs.

Making products meet international standards requires ISO Certifications, but getting it is an expensive affair. To get around this, the government provides reimbursement to SMEs seeking ISO 9000/ISO 14001Certification.

A personal loan is dependant on the credit profile of the individual borrower, if you already have other loans active, you may or may not be able to get a personal loan.

Preparation is the key to winning. Having adequate information, ability to influence, and the resources can work as the power to turn the negotiation in one's favor.

Conserving cash is the basic tenet of financial management.

Relevant business structure attracts a certain tax liability and it is important to consider the tax implications before finalizing the formation.

Competing with private companies for limited resources could cap the room for RBI to cut interest rates. Even if it does, market rates won’t ease due to higher government debt. Also, with inflation being predicted to ease by the second half of 2020 towards the target of 4%, prospects for sharp rate cuts diminish.

Organizations are struggling to implement an immediate crisis response mechanism while exploring long term sustainability solutions to build resilience against future black swan events.

Police should have welfare systems similar to the ones implemented by the armed forces, says Delhi Police Commissioner SN Shrivastava.

The year 2019 saw the launch of many smartphones. However, there were some of these which were game-changers and paved the way for the next generation of smartphones. ET Wealth rounds up the top six among these.

You can take your mobile photography to the next level if you have the right accessories. ET Wealth tells you about five must-have add-ons to get creative with mobile photography. Some of them can be purchased from prices starting as low as Rs 199.

If you are a heavy smartphone user and are looking for a smartphone that offers higher battery power but are running a tight budget for such a spend, then here are six options that will solve your problem. These fall in the below Rs 12,ooo price range.

Now all domestic airlines, including government-owned Air India, have announced a waiver on re-booking charges in case a customer does not want to travel on the designated date. Wadia group-owned private carrier GoAir, which was earlier offering free cancellation, has said it will now allow people to only reschedule their flights for no charge.

If you are someone who has been asked to work remotely and are looking for a laptop at a reasonable price, here are six of the best ones under Rs 40,000.

Customers can purchase the precious metal from two grams upwards following which a gold ownership certificate would be sent to them on the day of Akshaya Tritiya based on the customer recommended platforms.

Mobile phone manufacturers are focusing on increasing the screen size of devices. However, if you are someone who prefer a more compact phone, ET Wealth rounds up some of the best options.

Bengaluru: The Union Cabinet’s decision to freeze the DA of its employees till July 2021 and Kerala’s decision to absorb a month’s salary of its employees to the CM’s relief fund to fight Covid-19 has put pressure on chief minister BS Yediyurappa to bite the bullet.The chief minister or the Karnataka Cabinet is yet to take a call on reworking pay and compensation package of its employees in the face of a sharp drop in revenues, and enormous pressure on the finance department to meet the rising demand for funds for Covid-19-related activities and the farm sector.The chief minister had told ET last week that he will take a decision in two weeks after assessing the situation.Karnataka’s salary and pension bill per month comes to about Rs 5,500 crore, and the state has been able to hold on because of the impressive GST collections last month on account of good business climate in February. The commercial tax department does not have any hopes of decent collections over the next two months because of the host of relief announced by the ministry of finance to dealers on GST remittances. The department can hope to have considerable collections only in June. All other major revenue sources for the Karnataka government such as liquor sales, property and vehicles registration are nearly dry.Several IT companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro have deferred annual increments.

MUMBAI: Liquidity risk is increasing for Indian-based real-estate developers, as non-bank financial institutions (NBFI; including housing finance companies) are shying away from lending to the sector, said Fitch Ratings.Developers that rely on refinancing from NBFIs, particularly those with weak financial profiles, will be affected the most should conditions persist. The availability of unencumbered assets among large developers may be of limited use, as NBFIs are looking to shed their already-high exposure to the sector, especially to large borrowers.NBFIs have disproportionately increased their share of real-estate sector credit in the previous few years, owing to heightened risk aversion by banks; banks have been cutting exposure due to their own funding challenges that began in late 2018, which have become more acute in the previous few months; domestic bank exposures fell to 2.3% of loans in the financial year ending March 2019 from 2.8% in 2015-16.NBFIs are now also shying away from refinancing maturing debt of even large, proven developers to limit concentration risk to the sector. This is pushing developers towards alternative funding channels, such as private equity. The availability of such funding could be more limited than the value of maturing debt and may only be available to established developers with sufficient unpledged assets. It would also come at a higher cost. We believe banks may still consider exposure to quality real estate, but overall exposure continues to decline.Developers that are focused on high-end projects may face higher risk, as sales of such projects have slowed in the last two years. We believe these developers would be wary of taking sharp price corrections on unsold inventory to boost sales, except in extreme circumstances, as this could diminish the value of unsold inventory and weaken collateral cover for existing lenders.In addition, any boost in sales would be temporary. Meanwhile, developers with substantial exposure to affordable housing may still benefit from marginal access to lenders in light of healthy pre-sales growth, supported by India's substantial housing deficit and government incentives for buyers via the credit-linked subsidy scheme as well as for developers, including tax deductions and grant of infrastructure status, which entitles companies to some benefits and concessions.The government has announced measures to improve NBFI-sector liquidity, but their efficacy remains to be seen. For example, we believe the government's July 2019 announcement to provide a first-loss guarantee of 10% on securitised assets issued by NBFIs to banks could ease funding pressure for NBFIs in the short term. However, the provision refers only to financially sound issuers and there is a lack of clarity about the duration of the guarantee and the definition of what comprises a 'financially sound' entity. In addition, most of the actions by the authorities to alleviate the liquidity squeeze will benefit the largest and least risky NBFIs and is unlikely to address the pressure on the more property focused players.Defaults by two NBFIs - Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) in September 2018 and Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) in June 2019 - have contributed to the sector-wide liquidity squeeze, as investors have become more risk averse. Banks' low appetite for lending to real-estate developers is evidenced by the usually high risk weights attached to such loans. These are due to developers' typically low credit ratings amid high leverage, making exposure to the sector an inefficient use of banks' already-limited capital.Substantial bank recapitalisation to increase lending capacity could benefit NBFIs as well as real-estate developers, subject to the banks' risk appetite. Although a structural improvement in NBFI asset books would take time. Nonetheless, even under better conditions we expect NBFI's to tighten credit standards, with developers facing funding pressure until there is a broader improvement in their operations, with better end-user demand and pricing support.

Mumbai: Robust demand for office spaces has pushed commercial property leasing in the first three quarters of 2019 by 30% from a year ago, taking it closer to entire 2018’s performance and making sure that this year surpasses the peak touched last year.Driven by tech corporates — accounting for about a third of the leasing activity — office space take-up touched 47 million sq ft in the first nine months against entire 2018’s performance of 48.9 million sq ft, showed data from CBRE South Asia. With this, office leasing activity is now expected to touch its highest level ever, estimated to be over 60 million sq ft in 2019.Leasing activity stood at about 15.4 million sq ft during the quarter ended September, rising by nearly 23% on an annual basis. This was dominated by small- to medium-sized transactions. Small-sized transactions of less than 10,000 sq ft accounted for over 40% of the transaction activity in the quarter. 71641558 “With office leasing scaling a historic high in 2019, we expect further strengthening of occupier sentiment in the medium to long term, backed by corporates looking to expand or consolidate their operations. Favourable government initiatives, transparency in the real estate sector and the right reforms will improve investor sentiment greatly in the coming quarters,” said Anshuman Magazine, CEO, India, South-east Asia, Middle East and Africa, CBRE.Like last year, he expects occupiers would put in greater efforts to incorporate flexibility in their portfolios due to changes in the business environment. Occupiers continued to futureproof their portfolios and hedge against future rental escalations by pre-leasing space across various cities.Bengaluru, followed by Hyderabad, dominated large-sized deal closures, while a few large deals were also reported in the NCR and Pune as well. Large-scale deal closures were mostly dominated by tech firms and flexible space operators. Firms belonging to sectors such as research, consulting & analytics, banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI), and engineering & manufacturing also closed large-sized deals.Tech corporates led the office space take-up, followed by research, consulting & analytics companies (19%) and flexible space operators (15%). The rise in the share of flexible space operators (10% in the second quarter of 2019) was primarily a result of their continued expansion across almost all cities.“The share of the tech sector rose from 31% to 40% annually during 2019 year-to-date, which implies that a rise in technology alternatives, insourcing / job preservation in the US and a global slowdown have not had any specific impact on India’s position as a preferred outsourcing destination for both high-skilled and low-skilled tech services, research and development,” said Ram Chandnani, managing director, advisory & transaction services, India, CBRE South Asia.Supply addition rose by more than 80% in 2019 YTD on an annual basis, with about 43.5 million sq. ft. of development completions reported.Four cities — Hyderabad, Bengaluru, NCR and Mumbai — accounted for almost 80% of this supply addition.Compared to the first three quarters in 2018, the share of SEZs in supply dipped from 40% to 27% during 2019 YTD. Supply addition in the quarter also rose by about 6% on a quarterly basis, touching about 15 million sq. ft. More than 70% of this supply was driven by Hyderabad and NCR, followed by Bengaluru.

People have a lot of misconceptions about what has been promised. Keep these things in mind when you make financial decisions basis the announcements in the relief package.

ICICI Bank, along with issuing details on availing the moratorium on loans and credit card dues, also issued a set of FAQs on moratorium for equated monthly instalments (EMIs) taken on debit cards.

To use UPI, you must have a bank account with a member bank, i.e., your bank should allow you to use the UPI facility.

If you have a credit card from Kotak Mahindra Bank, here are some of the details of its three-month moratorium facility.

Banks have been alerting their customers of cyber frauds that can happen while availing EMI moratorium.

As per the circular, EPF members can now correct the date of birth up to plus or minus three years instead of one year earlier. This would make the linking of Universal Account Number (UAN) with Aadhaar easier.

As the country is staying at home to fight against the coronavirus, investors are adapting themselves to the online way of working with their finances.

It must be recalled that the finance ministry had revised rules and introduced separate forms for each small savings scheme via a notification in December 2019.

The RBI announced a host of measures today aimed at increasing liquidity in the economy.

To get the benefit of the voice banking offering, customers need to download the Alexa / Google Assistant and link their ICICI Bank account through a secure two-factor authentication process.

Apart from small finance banks, certain private banks are also offering higher interest rate on savings accounts. Banks offering higher interest rates on savings account comes with certain conditions.

Dead souls are supposed to drink from this so as not to remember their past lives upon being reincarnated!

Instead of using traditional fire-and-wick ceremonial lamps, the priests use muslin bags filled with ashes to worship the ritually decorated icon.

His goals include building an emergency corpus, saving for his children’s (including another child in future) education and weddings, and retirement.

Any investment decision during this period should be made factoring in the short-term goals of an individual.

Applying this to financial markets helps investors to determine their chances of success in a fixed number of attempts (or trials). Another application of binomial distribution is to find out the probability of a company reporting positive growth in the EPS.

The looming uncertainty caused by coronavirus without a doubt requires cutting down on expenses. You need to start exercising monetary prudence and caution. However, don’t try to cut corners in these five expenses even at such a time.

Stores of value are worthwhile only if they can step up and be useful when we need them. Not if they also lose value, freeze up, or get locked when you must access them. In other words, you should be able to liquidate your assets without difficulty should the need arise.

No investment portfolio would have escaped the impact of coronavirus and the consequent financial troubles. Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in your financial plan in the following quiz and find out where you stand and what you need to do.