Airlines under scanner for fixing fares, the best and worst cities for commuters, and more top news

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The Competition Commission of India is probing cartelisation among airlines in fixing fares, PTI reports. CCI chief Sudhir Mital said the watchdog is examining the algorithms used by the carriers to determine fares and investigating allegations of a simultaneous increase in ticket prices during the 2016 Jat agitation in Haryana and the 2015 Chennai floods, among other instances. Airlines claim the similarity in airfares is on account of the demand-based dynamic pricing generated by their software. Earlier this year, the CCI penalised Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet for concerted action in fixing fuel surcharge on cargo transport.

Kolkata is India’s best city for commuters while Mumbai and Bengaluru are the worst, Business Standard reports (paywall), citing Ola’s Ease of Mobility Index. New Delhi and Chennai snagged the second and the third spot, respectively, in the survey that covered 35,000 people and analysed the cities on 50 parameters. The study also found that 80% of the respondents would switch to public transport if it became more comfortable and offered better connectivity. Transport minister Nitin Gadkari, who released the report, said he would like “hundreds of companies” in the cab-aggregation space so that there’s greater competition.

Private firms will soon be making weapons for the country’s armed forces. Economic Times reports the defence ministry has come up with new guidelines that allow it to select private players for arms-production contracts following the purchase of technology from global vendors. The eligibility criteria include a turnover not less than 10% of the estimated project cost, at least two years’ experience in the sector, and control in the hands of Indian citizens, among others. India was the world’s biggest importer of major arms between 2012 and 2016, accounting for 13% of global sales, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Googlers around the world walked off the job on Thursday, protesting against the company’s perceived leniency towards sexual offenders. Employees in Tokyo, Singapore, London and Dublin were seen staging walkouts. In India, around 150 staffers joined the movement across the company’s Mumbai, Hyderabad and Gurugram offices. The protests are a response to a New York Times article that reported Android OS creator Andy Rubin receiving a $90 million severance despite charges of sexual misconduct. Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in an email to employees that the company has sacked 48 people for sexual misconduct in the last two years, none of whom received an exit package.

The US has scrapped duty-free privileges on import of at least 50 Indian products, mostly from the farm and handloom sectors. The removal of these items, which qualified for the concession under the US’ Generalized System of Preferences, is likely to impact a large number of small and medium-sized businesses. (India's duty-free exports to the US under the GSP exceeded $5.6 billion in 2017.) But India has postponed tit-for-tat tariffs on American goods for a third time to December 17, in response to a unilateral duty hike by the US on Indian steel and aluminum to 25% and 10%, respectively.

Also: Mastercard complained to the US government in June that India was promoting the RuPay payment network at the expense of foreign players, Reuters reports. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly backed RuPay, pointing out that transaction fees generated from the domestic payment system remained in India instead of flowing to foreign firms. RuPay services more than half of India’s 100 crore debit and credit cards.

Idea of the Day: Future-proofing your career could involve a pivot, says career coach Karen Schmidt.

“Your pivot could allow you to stay with your current employer and simply move to a different part of the organisation. Once you learn the skills of pivoting you can use them again and again as you need them.

This article was updated. From earlier: SEBI has directed Sahara India Commercial Corporation, its chief Subrata Roy and other former directors to return to investors over ?14,000 crore raised between 1998 and 2009.

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