For Air India officials and passengers, a major cause of concern with the ongoing repatriation flights to and from different countries are the visa regulations and immigration policies of different lands. Late on Thursday night, Air India was informed by an official from an Indian ministry that US visa rules have changed to restrict passengers with student visa and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders from entering the US.

The govt on Friday said it will borrow about Rs 12 lakh crore from the market in fiscal year 2020-21, an increase of Rs 4.2 lakh crore, or 54% jump over the Budget estimate of Rs 7.8 lakh crore. This, the economists said will push the fiscal deficit from 3.5% for 2020-21 to 5.5%. The decision for higher borrowing has also been prompted by severe loss of govt revenues.

The Vande Bharat Mission gained momentum, with two flights — one from Singapore and another from Riyadh — landing in Delhi and Kairapur airport in Kerala. The Operation Samudra Setu by the Indian Navy to evacuate Indians stranded abroad using naval ships kicked off from the Maldives on Friday. ​​The ship of the Eastern Naval Command is scheduled to reach Kochi by Sunday.

Many have argued that while India’s lockdown has been the harshest, its stimulus package is one of the smallest — so far. To fund bigger public spending programme, the govt can either ask the RBI to print more money or raise money through borrowing. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has explained how the two paths work and why ‘monetisation’ is a good option.

Reliance Jio has come up with new top-up plans to support extra data usage at up to 75 per cent lower rates and also made annual recharge plans 33 per cent cheaper compared to rivals by enhancing data usage limit at 4G speed to 2 GB per day.

Cognizant Technology Solutions’ revenue in the quarter ended March rose by 3.5% in constant currency, better than TCS and Wipro, but lower than HCL and Infosys. Revenue stood at $4.2 billion, including a $23 million headwind from their decision to exit content related services.

The Pune labour commissioner’s office recently issued a notice to technology giant Wipro after receiving complaints of the alleged benching of 300 employees, and salary cuts of an undisclosed number of entry-level staffers, most of whom are BPO employees. The May 1 notice of labour office told the company to “refrain from laying off any employee or face legal action.

Three promoters of Ram Dev International, recently booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly cheating a consortium of six banks to the tune of Rs 411 crore, have already fled the country before the State Bank of India (SBI) reached the agency with the complaint, officials said on Saturday.

ICICI Bank on Saturday reported a 26 per cent rise in standalone net profit at Rs 1,221 crore for the quarter ended March 2020. The bank had posted a net profit of Rs 969 crore in the corresponding January-March period of 2018-19.

Anecdotally, it is often said that engineers tend to lean rightwards in their politics. In their new book, Engineers of Jihad, sociologist Diego Gambetta and political scientist Steffen Hertog back up that gut sense with data. They find that Islamist radicalism and other far-right movements are dominated by engineers, doctors and those with tech backgrounds, while left-wing movements draw people from the humanities and social sciences. They tell TOI why this may be the case

Women-only comedy shows create a safe space for female comedians and audiences to laugh out loud. Like Leddis Night, a number of comedy shows by and for women are encouraging young female comics to get on stage and more women to go out and laugh freely.

Owing to lack of adequate security and other infrastructural facilities, all the 72 liquor shops in the district remained closed on Monday despite the orders of the state government to open them from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm. Now, the administration will make adequate arrangements to open shops from Tuesday.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expecting a windfall from the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights auction, which gets underway here on Monday with top companies from across the globe participating.

Former NCP MP Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil and three others figure in the list of BJP candidates for the May 21 Maharashtra legislative council poll.

A fire brigade personnel in Pune city in Maharashtra has tested positive for novel coronavirus, a senior official said on Friday. The fireman went to a private hospital on Monday to get himself checked for some other ailment, and as part of procedure, his samples were sent for coronavirus testing and the report returned positive on Thursday, Pune fire brigade chief Prashant Ranpise said.

The Bombay high court on Friday directed the Maharashtra government to take an appropriate decision on sharing the transport costs of migrant workers returning homes.

Bombay high court on Friday sought a reply from the state on a public interest litigation by a Pune woman on permission to take pet dogs for their daily walks, while observing that walking them within housing society compounds for now, as permitted, was adequate for the moment.

The state government would be short of Rs1.4 lakh crore, or 40 % of the projected revenue for the 2020-21 fiscal, if any financial package were announced for the migrant workers’ assistance, sources in the finance department said on Friday.

Fewer non-essential shops opened shutters on Friday than the day before with the traders’ association insisting on total resumption of business after the lockdown exit.