BT podcast: Indian Railways to create 10,000 km of high speed corridors to run faster trains

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Indian Railways to create 10,000 km of high speed corridors to run faster trains

With an aim to make inter-city travel faster, the Indian Railways is planning to construct 10,000 km of new high speed corridors to run trains at the speed of 200-250 kmph. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has asked the Railway Board to identify the corridors and work on cutting the cost of construction by less than half, the Times of India has reported. The report said that the minister may announce the plan sometime in April.

RCom calls bondholders' meet over asset-sale plan

Debt-laden telecoms carrier Reliance Communications Ltd will hold a meeting of its bondholders on March 6 to seek approvals for asset-sale plans, the company said in a regulatory filing as reported by Reuters. The company said it has given more information in the notice sent to holders of its $300 million 6.5 percent bonds due 2020.

PPF, NSC Act changes not to affect tax status

The government has clarified that no change in interest rate or tax policy on small savings schemes, which includes PPF and NSCs, is being made through the amendments proposed in Budget 2018. Budget 2018 has proposed to merge the Government Savings Certificates Act, 1959 and Public Provident Fund Act, 1968 with the Government Savings Banks Act, 1873.

More salaried jobs a must if India is to join the global middle class by 2047: World Bank

India needs to create regular, salaried jobs with growing earnings rather than self-employed ones in order to join the ranks of the global middle class by 2047 said the World Bank in a draft Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) for India. The bank said in a society with wide inequalities, the most urgent priority is to create productive, regular jobs. "The issue is not just the number of jobs but also the type of jobs. A transition into the middle class calls for the creation of salaried jobs, which is a rare privilege in India today where less than a fifth of workers are in salaried employment," the World Bank said in a first-of-its-kind draft report published on its website

Ad spends in India to grow at 13% in 2018: GroupM report

Advertising expenditure in India is expected to grow at 13% and can touch Rs 69,346 crore in 2018 over 2017, according to a forecast by Group M, the WPP-owned media agency in its report This Year Next Year (TYNY). This is higher than 10% that GroupM put out for 2017.he report, released yesterday stated that the ad spends in 2018 will be driven by a recovery in consumer demand and private investment

Delhi High Court upholds DIAL order to shift IndiGo, SpiceJet operations to T-2 from T-1

A proposal to partially shift operations of top carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet from Indira Gandhi International Airports Terminal-1 to Terminal-2 was upheld by the Delhi High Court. The court  has directed IndiGo and SpiceJet to approach Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) within one week to work out a plan to shift their operations. A source in DIAL said, this was just temporary shifting and for a larger cause. Globally, airlines do run from multiple terminals and this is no aberration.

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