According to senior member Rajiv Mehra, no international flights are operating till May 1, so international ticket booking would not have happened during the first phase of the lockdown. "When there is no booking, the question of refund does not arise. As regards the domestic sector, everything is in lockdown, so virtually no bookings have taken place, so no refund would be required," he said.

Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd (MHRIL) on Sunday said it plans to first reopen resorts that are at drivable distance from the metro cities once the coronavirus lockdown is lifted.

Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality, the policy federation of all the national associations representing the tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India has revised upwards its value estimates at risk to Indian tourism.

Lockdown has pushed hotel business in tourism hotspot Sikkim to the brink where investors from Bengal and other states are the first tire victims. Equal sufferer is over 70% of Sikkim's population dependent on hospitality industry that generates around Rs 1.5 k croer business there in a year.

High mortality and fast-changing fortunes are a given when it comes to payments ecosystem, much like food-ordering and ecommerce marketplaces.

It has been billed as the 'WhatsApp of money'.

Bhavik Vasa, chief growth officer of ItzCash, contends the market opportunity is huge as 85% of the population is still dealing with cash.

Now, wire makers want their spot in the light after providing us safe ways to light our homes.

Author Jeetendr Sehdev says that he is living and breathing the KKP.

With over 50% share, Chinese smartphones have run roughshod over their Indian rivals. How did this happen and what next?

Default of a Portugese bank, Ukraine-Russia face-off, developments in Middle East and signs of weakness in US economy have subdued investor sentiment.

While the economy appears likely to rebound from a first-quarter contraction, Yellen said the progress “bears close watching.

IBM salesmen to now recommend Apple devices to their healthcare & banking clients

Huatong Road & Bridge Group Co, based in the northern province of Shanxi, said it may miss a 400 million yuan ($64.5 million) note payment due July 23.

By comparison, the US had a 260% total-debt-to-GDP ratio in 2013 and Japan has 415%, according to the Financial Times.

China shares rose sharply as investors plowed into blue chips, cheered by progress of a trading plan that will soon make it much easier for foreigners to buy Shanghai stocks.

We asked dozens of our favorite analysts, economists, strategists, and portfolio managers on Wall Street and around the world to send us their most important charts.

The China Enterprises Index of the top Chinese listings in Hong Kong fell 0.6 per cent. They are now down 0.8 and 1.5 per cent this week, respectively.

China's stock market got wrecked with the Shanghai Composite index crashing by 7.4 per cent. The market now down 19 per cent from its high.

In an interview, Rogers said that instead of buying US stocks, he is investing in Asian markets - Japan, Russia, and China.

Thanks to the increasing penetration of smartphones India is transitioning from a 'mobile first' to 'mobile only' country.

Rules are created to protect organisations. Some rules create efficiency while others de-risk the company.

When you are hiring someone, they should basically understand the culture of your organisation, says Shaadi.com's Anupam Mittal.

Till about a year ago, I was fairly hands-on in the hiring process, says Zomato's Deepinder Goyal.

Management at Faasos are not people from food industry but mostly entrepreneurs who wanted to build something different on their own, says Revant Bhate.

Kalyan Jewellers has committed Rs 20 crore towards the initiative as part of its endeavour to support the communities with which it operates its business, it said.

Ambani visited the two districts and took a survey of the worst-affected areas to assess first-hand the primary and immediate requirements of the victims

Gross debt at Indian Oil, the nation’s largest refiner and fossil fuel retailer, has risen from ₹86,400 crore at the beginning of 2019-20 to ₹1,16,000 crore at the start of 2020-21. About 50% jump in debt in the January-March quarter came following the weakening of demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic, dividend outflow and delay in fuel subsidy transfer by the government.

Petrol in Delhi now costs Rs 71.26 a litre as against Rs 69.59 previously, oil industry sources said.

The increase in excise comes amid crude oil prices still remaining at relatively lower levels of $23.86 a barrel, compared to peak level prices.

On Tuesday, Centre hiked excise duties on petrol by Rs 10 per litre and on diesel by Rs 13 per litre.

The move follows the Centre's decision on Tuesday to increase excise duty on petrol by a record Rs 10 per litre and Rs 13 per litre for diesel. The hike, however, did not push up fuel prices as global oil prices have dropped to a nearly two-decade low.

The tax hike will generate an additional revenue of Rs 100 crore for the UT administration in 2020-21. After the revision in prices, petrol in the city now costs Rs 68.62 a litre, a hike of Rs 2.8, and diesel Rs 62.02 per litre, an increase of Rs 2.72.

Centre and states are resorting to fuel tax hikes to capture gains from a global oil crash.

Before lockdown, the VAT rate on petrol was 30 per cent and on diesel was 22 per cent.

"We have to have a reasonable price. India is a major consumer. But at this juncture, India's viewpoint is the price should be reasonable and responsible. Very low prices are not the answer. Reasonable prices are the answer," he said.

State fuel retailers in India sold 50% less refined fuel in the first two weeks of April than the same time a year earlier as the country came to a standstill due to the lockdown that was put in place on March 24.

The Gautam Adani-led utility firm that sells piped natural gas (PNG) to households and compressed natural gas (CNG) for vehicles hopes to make up for the lost time on new projects once the lockdown is over and is sticking to its capital expenditure plan of Rs 1,500 crore for the current fiscal, its CEO Suresh Manglani has said.

Reliance, Paytm & BSE are among those interested in securing licences to run an entity with powers like NPCI.

In addition to the Rs 1,600 crore liquidity position, the company said it has undrawn sanctions of Rs 900 crore as on March 31, 2020. The Gurugram-headquartered micro lender also said that it will offer moratorium to all the existing borrowers across India.

Top fintech companies are, therefore, rushing to tap into this new consumer trend, with several of them offering digital solutions to small merchants. These range from instant loans to digital billing to even geotagging, as companies believe the merchant digitisation business will boom when the lockdown eases.

Microfinance institutions and non-bank lenders are set to resume full-fledged operations in green and orange zones, or areas designated as safe from the Covid-19 virus outbreak, after the government announced lifting of several restrictions.

Gold loans for business purposes are mostly used by small businesses as short-term working capital for stocking. With gold prices hovering around Rs 47,000 per 10 gm, small businesses will need to take loans to resume operations, said industry executives.

The lenders have also agreed to extend the three-month moratorium provided by the RBI on term loans to borrowers, the statement said, adding, collections will be made only from customers who have opted out of it.

​ NBFCs have also demanded for extension of the Reserve Bank of India's moratorium to them, relaxation on provisioning norms and additional funding from Small industrial Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) through refinance mechanism.

The bank which was under RBI's administration since 2014, failed to come up with a satisfactory revival plan, after which the banking regulator cancelled its license. Majority of the bank's depositors now get 100 per cent of their money back. The government hiked the minimum deposit insurance cover from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh in its budget announcement in February.

There is slight difference in Skymet’s estimation and the government’s second advance estimates, which was released in February this year. According to government’s second advance estimate, the out of wheat is likely to be 106.21 million tonnes while that of gram would be 11.22 million tonnes.

State Innovation & Transformation Aayog (SITA), Assam, is working on a Strategy Paper for the state government by engaging Ernst & Young (EY) on tea industry. Tea industry has suffered immensely during the lockdown .

Giving detailed information about this, Chief Minister Manohar Lal said that the dark zone, depleting level of groundwater and its excessive exploitation has become a challenge for us and we have started to solve these challenges for the coming generations.

Even though much of the stubble of wheat is used as animal fodder but farmers resort to open field burning to get rid of the leftover stalk. Around 11400 incidents of open field burning were recorded as per satellite imagery in Punjab and 7500 in Haryana last year post kharif harvest.