Newsmakers: Reliance Jio soft launch, LIC to auction Unitech's land and more

Key business news events for the day

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LIC to auction Unitech's Noida land to recover dues Insurance firm LIC will next month auction Unitech's 14 lakh sq meter plot of land in Noida if the real estate company does not repay the entire dues of Rs 184 crore before that date. Unitech had borrowed money from LIC by mortgaging the plot but with the real estate company defaulting on repayments, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) issued an e-auction notice for sale of the plot on May 6 at a reserve price of Rs 2,660.56 crore.

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Reliance Jio soft launch this month: UBS Amid speculation over the actual date of the roll-out of Reliance Jio 4G telecom services, a top global financial services firm, UBS, said while soft launch was expected by the end of this month, the full commercial offering was expected by December. "Contrary to market belief that Jio has started rolling out 4G SIMs commercially, our channel checks in Mumbai and Delhi suggest that although SIMs have been shipped to the retail outlets, they are not yet available for sale," the consultancy said in a report.

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RBI to stay on hold until 2016-end, says Nomura Reserve Bank is likely to hold the pause button until the end of this year, largely owing to inflationary pressures, a Nomura report has said. However, domestic ratings agency India Ratings has said the central bank will deliver another rate cut of 0.25 per cent this fiscal. Nomura in a research note today said that it "expects RBI to stand pat until end-2016, as we do not see inflation undershooting 5 per cent on a sustained basis as the cyclical factors driving disinflation (oil price falls, a slowdown in rural wage growth and the large negative output gap) are behind us."

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Tata Motors to resize diesel engines to skirt ban Tata Motors is reducing the size of its diesel engines to skirt a temporary ban on the sale of large diesel-powered cars in New Delhi as the government seeks to reduce toxic smog in the capital city. The Delhi government ban on the sale of cars with diesel engine capacity higher than 2 litres was imposed in December and has hurt carmakers such as Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Toyota Motor Corp.

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Tata Motors launches Tiago at Rs 3.2 lakhTata Motors on Wednesday launched its Tiago hatchback at base price of Rs 3.20 lakh (ex showroom, Delhi). The car will compete with Maruti Suzuki Celerio, Honda Brio, Chevrolet Beat and Hyundai's Grand i10. The base price of car's diesel version starts at Rs 3.94 lakh (exshowroom, Delhi). The firm promises 27.28 kmpl for diesel and 23.8 kmpl for the petrol version of the car.