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UK government needs stronger response to VW emissions scandal: Committee The British government should take a tougher stance against   Volkswagen   (VW) after its emissions fraud, as well as increase the use of electric cars and reduce air pollution from transport, a parliamentary environment committee said on Thursday. Almost a year after US regulators found that VW had cheated in diesel emissions tests, the British government has yet to decide what action to take against Europe's largest automaker, even though it faces criminal investigations in the United States, South Korea and elsewhere. The worldwide scandal, dubbed "Dieselgate", has hurt VW's reputation and business, and already cost it billions of dollars. VW last September admitted to using a sophisticated secret software in cars to cheat on exhaust emissions tests. The Environmental Audit Committee, whose conclusions are not binding on the government, said VW had only just started to recall cars ...

FBI to publicly release report on Hillary Clinton email investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) expects to publicly release the report sent to the Justice Department in July recommending no charges in the Hillary Clinton email server investigation in the coming days, officials said. The release is in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests including from   CNN. Also to be released is   Hillary Clinton 's 302, the FBI agent notes from Clinton's voluntary interview at FBI headquarters,   CNN   reported on Tuesday. The report is about 30 pages, and the 302 is about a dozen pages according to the officials. Not yet being released are additional notes from interviews of Clinton aides or other investigative materials that were sent to Congress. Last month, FBI Director James Comey recommended against charges for Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, but he did describe her b...

Asus India eyes 1 crore smartphone sales in 2 years Asus India is eyeing to secure seven per cent market share with sales of around one crore smartphones in the next two years, a top company executive said on Tuesday. "The company has seen good performance in Indian market and hopes to secure seven per cent market share with sales of around one crore smartphones in next two years," the company's Regional Head (South Asia and Country Manager) Peter Chang told reporters here. Chang was in the city to unveil and showcase   Asus ' largest range of premium products in Bengaluru market. In the next one year, the company hopes to secure five per cent of India's smartphone market, Chang said but declined to divulge the five-year long-term goal. The company has had a good start and been growing at a good pace by securing 2.5 per cent since its inception in 2014, inspite of facing tough competition, with around 20 to 30 brands operating to get customers' a...

Fiat launches Jeep Wrangler, Cherokee models in India Italian car maker Fiat on Tuesday announced the India launch of two sports utility vehicles under the Chrysler-owned Jeep brand. Prices of the   Jeep Wrangler   start at Rs 71.59 lakh while that of Jeep Grand Cherokee start at Rs 93.64 lakh (prices are ex-showroom, Delhi). Both SUVs will come in as completely built units form. A third premium SUV will be made in India next year at Fiat's Ranjangaon plant, near Pune where it makes the Grande Punto, Linea and Avventura. The legendary Jeep Wrangler comes to Indian customers with four-door, single trim version called Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. The Jeep Grand Cherokee line-up will include the aggressive, fast and athletic Grand Cherokee SRT, the luxurious Grand Cherokee Summit and the classy and refined Grand Cherokee Limited. Fiat Chrysler India to open 10 new distribution outlets in nine cities by the end of this calendar year to sell Jeep products here.   R...

Flipkart finally launches own digital wallet Flipkart, the country’s largest e-commerce entity, has launched its own digital wallet, PhonePe. This plugs a crucial gap in its payments game against rivals Snadeal and Paytm, backed by Chinese giant Alibaba. Flipkart   says it hopes for over $1 billion (Rs 6,600 crore) in transactions by the year-end from this move. PhonePe is integrated with the new Unified Payment Interface (UPI), allowing users to directly transact from their bank account and not store funds in their mobile wallet. Flipkart had actually acquired PhonePe in April and then adopted UPI, which aims to make individual wallets irrelevant. Since then, it has redesigned the product and entered into a strategic tie-up with YES Bank, to convert PhonePe into a bank-backed wallet that allows users to do peer to peer transactions, buy goods or pay bills. “We have some very very aggressive plans right now,” said Sameer Nigam, chief executive officer of PhonePe, in a...

New a/c rules to hit FMCG firms' revenues Ind-AS, the new accounting standards that came into effect from April 1, might squeeze the revenues of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies by up to eight per cent in 2016-17. The key cause is deduction of sales promotion expenditure from the revenue figure, hitherto part of the profit & loss (P&L) statement under the earlier   IGAAP   accounting norms. In the just-concluded June quarter, for instance, the top line of the country's largest consumer goods company,   Hindustan Unilever   (HUL), was affected by 2.6 per cent or Rs 214 crore under Ind-AS. Godrej Consumer Products’ revenue was squeezed 10.4 per cent. Sunil Duggal, chief executive, Dabur India, said six to seven per cent of its FY17 revenue would be hit. “Some part of promotional expenditure, mainly below-line expenses, will be deducted from revenue, expected to be around Rs 600 crore,” he said. Vivek Karve, chief financial officer, Mari...

Scorpene leak: New set of documents out, gives details on sonar system of submarines Australia's The Australian newspaper on Thursday uploaded a fresh tranche of leaked documents relating to information about operating instructions of underwater warfare system of the six   Scorpene submarines   which are being built in India by French firm   DCNS . However, a top defence analyst allayed fears that it could compromise the security of the strategically important combat vessels. Like in the previous case, the newspaper has blacked out all details which it felt would compromise India's security interests. However, the new set of documents, with Indian Navy insignia on it and marked "Restricted Scorpene India", gives details about the sonar system of the submarines which is used to gather intelligence underwater. It talks about a wide range of technical specifications of the sonars and at what degree and frequency it will function. It has a System Technical M...

IndiGo's Aditya Ghosh gets Rs 21-cr incentive after record profit IndiGo’s President and whole-time Director   Aditya Ghosh   took home Rs 27 crore in salary, including Rs 20.9 crore in one-time incentive for the financial year ended March 31, 2016. India’s most profitable airline was also generous in rewarding its 12,000-plus employees who received an average 42 per cent rise in remuneration in FY16. Ghosh received the incentive “in recognition of his efforts towards the growth and success of the company during the financial year ending March 31, 2016,” the airline said in its annual report. Ghosh earned Rs 27 crore in gross salary and 700,000 shares in stock options in FY16. In FY15, he had received a gross remuneration of Rs 3.7 crore, according to the airline’s initial public offering prospectus.   (more)

The leak contains more than 22,000 pages outlining the secret combat capability of six submarines that DCNS has designed for the Indian Navy. File photo of Malaysia's first submarine, "KD Tunku Abdul Rahman", a Scorpene-class diesel-electric submarine, docks in Port Klang outside Kuala Lumpur September 3, 2009. REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad/Files The French shipbuilder which earlier this year won a A$50 billion ($38.06 billion) contract to build Australia's next generation of   submarines   has suffered a massive data leak, raising doubts about the security of one of the world's biggest defence projects. France's DCNS Group beat out Germany's ThyssenKrupp AG and a Japanese-government backed bid by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, in a blow to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to develop defence export capabilities as part of a more muscular security agenda. The leak, which was first reported in The Australian o...

Waterways is game changer, mass rapid transport on electric to be India's future The Centre has accorded top priority to cost-effective, pollution free and import substitute transport. Besides, integrated transportation to reduce logistic cost and increased road safety. Union Minister of Roads, Highways, Ports and Shipping   Nitin Gadkari   explains the government’s strategy In an interview with   Sanjay Jog . Q: What will be the government's approach for integrated transport since transportation is a major part of industry cost? A:   Our effort is for cost effective, pollution free and import substitute transport. This means implementation of roads, highways, railways, ports, waterways, shipping, and airports in a time bound manner. The plan to connect them, integrate them. Shipping industry will be made LNG-based which is pollution-free and cost effective. The ministry will encourage operations of sea planes, catamarans, hover crafts and cruise ships. A...

Pfizer nears agreement to buy Medivation for $14 billion US pharmaceutical giant   Pfizer   is nearing a deal to buy US biotech firm Medivation, which specialises in   cancer treatments , for nearly $14 billion, US media reported. Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal said the deal could be made public as early as today. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said it could be an all-cash transaction. Pfizer's offer for the San Francisco, California-basedMedivatio n goes far beyond the company's market value of $11.1 billion. Medivation shares closed at $67.16 in Friday trading. By purchasing Medivation, Pfizer would add to its portfolio the drug Xtandi, a promising treatment against prostate cancer that analysts estimate will generate some $1.33 billion in annual sales by 2020.   Visit Here

At townhall, Sachin Bansal concedes that Flipkart missed targets India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has seengrowth stagnate and has come under pressure from global rival Amazon for the past year and a half. While the company has on many occasions tried to bury media reports on layoffs and high-level exits, in a rather frank discussion with employees on Friday co-founder   Sachin Bansal   admitted that the company has indeed missed targets. Bansal, in a townhall meeting with around 200 employees at Flipkart’s headquarters in Bengaluru, addressed their concerns over recent layoffs by saying that even the top management was not exempt from scrutiny over performance, including himself. Bansal who stepped down as the CEO of Flipkart in January this year, said that the move was “performance linked”. The frankness of the co-founder might be a rare occasion where top executives at large companies news   admit to their failures, but it’s also the first time ...

Ola shuts down TaxiForSure business; lays off 700 employees India’s largest taxi aggregator, Ola, has shut down its   TaxiForSure   (TFS) business and has laid off 700 employees in the process, as it looks to consolidate its presence and reduce   cash burn   to fend off an attack from Uber. Ola   had acquired smaller rival TFS in March 2015 for $200 million to help it maintain market leadership against Uber. While Ola had said it would maintain TaxiForSure as an independent entity, the company soon began moving drivers from TFS to its own platform. The Economic Times newspaper first reported this story on Wednesday. Ola declined to comment on the story. While the TFS   Android   app was still functional, apart from the Ola Micro category, which the company cross-sells, no cabs were available in the Nano, Hatchback and Sedan categories. Since the acquisition, Ola has been pursuing drivers on TFS to join its own platform. Apart from cross-s...

Google launches Duo to take on Apple's FaceTime, Skype Knock, knock, Google's video chatting app has arrived. The app, dubbed Duo, represents   Google Duo   response to other popular video calling options, including Apple's FaceTime, Microsoft's Skype and Facebook's Messenger app. Duo   isn't much different from the other video chatting services, except that it gives a glimpse at who is making the call, helping the recipient decide whether to answer.   Google   calls this feature, "Knock, knock." The new app, announced in May, is being released Tuesday as a free service for phones running on Google's Android operating system as well as Apple's iPhones. Like   FaceTime   for iPhones, Duo only requires a person's phone number to connect. Many other services require both participants to have account logins to use their video calling options. Google has been offering video calling through its Hangout feature for several years, b...

Is it a good time to buy Infosys? Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS’) last week’s decision of not pursuing its plan to separate and list a new bank – Williams & Glyn   (W&G) – hit   Infosys   in trade on Tuesday with the stock plummeting 3% in intra-day deals to its eight-month low of Rs 1,028 levels on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Click here to track Infy's stock price movement Since then, it has recovered and is trading at Rs 1,046 levels, down nearly 1.5% around noon deals. By comparison, the Nifty 50 index was trading lower by 0.7% at 8610 levels, while the Nifty IT index slipped 1.3% to 11,029 levels. Also Read:   I am disappointed, says Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka in a letter to employees Given the RBS’ decision, Infosys would see a ramp down of around 3,000 resources. The likely impact on revenue could be around $50 million, reports suggest. This comes at a time when Infosys recast its annual revenue guidance for FY17 while announcing its ...