Telephone and restaurant bills, airline tickets and visits to beauty parlours will turn dearer from June 1, when the 0.5 per cent Krishi Kalyan Cess (KKC) kicks in.

It will apply to all taxable services, and CENVAT (central value added tax) credit will be available to service providers on the cess paid on input services, the Finance Ministry has said. However, the input credit on the Krishi Kalyan Cess can only be used for discharge of the KKC liability.

 Global Technology major Apple on Wednesday announced a new initiative to support engineering talent and accelerate growth in India’s iOS developer community.

The US-based company will establish a Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru. This initiative will provide additional, specialised support for the developers who make applications for Apple's iOS operating system, Apple said in an official press statement.

 The rupee on Thursday fell by 6 paise to close at 66.62 against the US currency on fresh dollar demand from banks and importers on the back of higher greenback in the overseas market amid recovery in the domestic equities.

Foreign capital outflows also affected the rupee value against the dollar, a forex dealer said.

 The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a TRAI regulation that made it mandatory for telecom companies to compensate subscribers for call drops holding it as “arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent.”

“We have held the impugned regulation to be ultra vires, arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent,” a Bench comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and R.F. Nariman said.

 The benchmark BSE Sensex rose some 53 points in early session today after sentiment was boosted by Reliance Industries’ encouraging fourth quarter earnings numbers, which were announced last week.

Leading Indian e-commerce player Flipkart's founders Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal found place in the annual list of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.

"This acknowledgment validates that the path we have chosen of creating a world-class Indian internet company that delivers quality products and reliable service at an affordable price to millions of families across India," a Flipkart statement cited both the Bansals as saying.

The iconic magazine's profile of the Flipkart founders in 2016 Time 100 said: "Binny and Sachin do have modest lifestyles, by billionaire standards, but they're also nimble tacticians and hardheaded realists, and they dream big."

The Bansals were included in the list under the 'Titan' section with company from Yuri Milner, Pope Francis, Stephen Curry, Pricilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg, Dwayne Johnson and others, the statement added.

source: businesstoday.in/

The European Union (EU) charged Google on Wednesday with abusing the dominant position of its Android mobile operating system, opening a second front against the U.S. technology giant that could lead to large fines.

European Union anti-trust regulators said that by requiring mobile phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and the Google Chrome browser, the U.S. company was denying consumers a wider choice of mobile apps and stifling innovation.

Google is already facing EU charges over the promotion of its shopping service in Internet searches at the expense of rival services, in a case that has dragged on since late 2010 despite three attempts to resolve the issues.

The stakes are higher for Google in the Android case as it made about $11 billion last year from advertising sales on Android phones through its apps such as Maps, Search and Gmail, according to estimates by financial analyst Richard Windsor.

“A competitive mobile Internet sector is increasingly important for consumers and businesses in Europe,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

“We believe that Google’s behaviour denies consumers a wider choice of mobile apps and services and stands in the way of innovation by other players,” she said.

Internet Explorer-browser maker Microsoft Corp declined to comment.

Suppliers of browsers including Mozilla, which is behind Firefox, as well as Apple, with its Safari browser, and Norway’s Opera Software were not immediately available to comment.

The European Commission said about 80 per cent of smart mobile devices in Europe and the world run on Android, the operating system developed by Google.

Google, which has 12 weeks to respond to the charges, said in a statement that Android was a remarkable system based on open-source software and open innovation.

“We look forward to working with the European Commission to demonstrate that Android is good for competition and good for consumers,” Google's general counsel Kent Walker said.

FairSearch, the lead complainant, said Google had launched Android as an open source project, but was now hindering the development of versions that might lead to new operating systems able to compete with Android.

The Commission alleges Google has breached EU anti-trust rules by making phone manufacturers pre-install its search function and Chrome browser.

source:http://www.thehindu.com/business/google-faces-eu-charges-over-android/article8500452.ece

Bharti Airtel, the largest telecom services provider, is mulling the sale of a 5 per cent stake in its tower unit, Infratel, to raise close to Rs. 4,000 crore, according to sources.

Bharti presently owns 71.7 per cent in Infratel. The tower unit had a network of over 80,000 telecom towers as of December. The proceeds from the transaction, which will be an open market deal, are likely to be used to cut the company’s debt which stood at Rs.78,816 crore as at end December.

The company’s spokesperson declined to comment.

source:thehindu.com