Uber Gives In To Cash: Your Top India Headlines For Tuesday

Uber is going local, and how! The world’s most valued company has decided to accept cash payments from passengers in India, throwing open a huge number of potential users in one of the world’s biggest radio taxi market. It's testing this in Hyderabad, for now. This is a marked shift from Uber’s one-touch on the mobile proposition. If you’re wondering why Uber would make such a concession, consider this: Only 20 million Indians use credit cards. Mobile wallet firm PayTM has 20 million users. And 377 million Indians live in cities and are potential Uber customers. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

India has asked the tax authorities to hold off notices to foreign funds until its panel looking into the dispute completes its study. That gives foreign portfolio investors a breather from its fight over a $6 billion tax bill from profits earned in previous years. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced last week that he had asked a high-level panel to look into the dispute, a move that had sparked some hopes of an amicable resolution to a row that had led to allegations of tax terrorism. This latest move by the government will give some respite to a stock market that’s already battered by weak corporate earnings, poor global outlook and the likelihood of weak rains beating down economic growth.

That’s probably not the only place where Modi’s government will compromise. Two contentious bills under consideration in Parliament may now have to undergo further debate and analysis before they become laws. The landmark GST Bill, which seeks to bring all goods and services in India under a single tax umbrella, may be referred to a select committee of the Upper House of Parliament (where the non-allies of the government hold sway). The other bill, the controversial land acquisition bill, which was expected to clear up one big bottleneck in pushing through infrastructure projects, will also be referred to a Joint Parliamentary panel. Any hope that either or both these bills would be passed in the current session of Parliament are effectively dashed now, with only two days left to end the session. The next Parliamentary session is a couple of months away, so don’t hold your breath.

Alibaba will invest another $375 million in PayTM. The mobile wallet and e-commerce company has received board approval to raise more money from Alibaba after exceeding the performance targets set by the Chinese investor. The new round takes PayTM’s valuation to $1.8 billion, adding it to the list of Indian unicorns including Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola Cabs.

India’s biggest law firm has split into two.  Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, aka Amarchand Mangaldas, has split into two following a dispute between partner brothers Shardul and Cyril Shroff over their mother’s will. The matter was settled by a mediation panel and both brothers have set up their own firms, which began operations this week. You can find the details here and here.

And look who’s back in the news! KV Kamath, the iconic chairman of ICICI and the man behind much of its rise, has now been appointed as the head of the New Development Bank (NDB), created by the five-member BRICS group. The NDB will lend to infrastructure projects in BRICS nations and provide them with an alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Kamath has been credited with turning ICICI into a consumer bank from its previous avatar of an infrastructure lender and has worked at ABD before. Not surprising, expectations from the NDB are now sky high.

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