Newsmakers: India-Iran ties, India's GDP, Nokia, Bajaj Finance and more

Newsmakers of today

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India seeks rights to operate Iran oil fieldIndia has sought a discovered oilfield from Iran for raising crude oil imports from the Persian Gulf nation as part of efforts to widen economic and energy ties post lifting of sanctions. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest oil firm, has proposed to Iran that it be given rights to operate and produce crude oil from the discovered field to help move away from buyer-seller relationship to a strategic partnership, sources privy to the development said. The oil produced from the field can then be shipped home, the IOC has said.

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Deutsche Bank sees India's GDP growth at 7.8% next yearDeutsche Bank sees India's gross domestic product growth at 7.8 per cent in 2017, up from this year's 7.5 per cent, noting that the economy seems to have bottomed out. "We see an economy that looks like it has bottomed out... some indicators have been improving in the last 18 months... may be it has reached the bottom," said Michael Spencer, the German Bank's Chief Economist, Asia Pacific. But for this year, the growth is flattish, forecast at 7.5 per cent, the same as last year.

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India aims to be among top 30 in 'ease of doing biz': Amitabh KantThe government is focussed on improving infrastructure and driving innovation to ensure that India ranks among the top 30 countries in terms of 'ease of doing business' in the next 3-4 years, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Tuesday. Speaking at an IAMAI event here, Kant said the ecosystem of innovation is just "beginning to blossom" and one is seeing a resurgence of young Indians starting new businesses.

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Nokia could cut 10,000-15,000 jobs worldwideTelecom network equipment maker Nokia is likely to cut 10,000 to 15,000 jobs globally as part of a cost-cutting programme following its acquisition of Franco-American rival Alcatel-Lucent, a Finnish union representative said. Nokia kicked off the programme in April with a target to slash 900 million euros ($1 billion) of operating costs by 2018, but it has yet to give a figure for how many jobs will be reduced in total.

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Bajaj Finance Q4 net profit up 36% to Rs 315 croreBajaj Finance reported a rise of 36.4 per cent in its standalone net profit to Rs 315.04 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2015-16 on Tuesday. Its net profit stood at Rs 230.98 crore in the corresponding January-March quarter of 2014-15. The company said its loan losses and provisions for the quarter rose by 37 per cent to Rs 156 crore as against Rs 114 crore a year ago. It also made an additional provision of Rs 43.9 crore in one of its infrastructure lending account.