Tharoor put the blame for the logjam in Parliament on BJP and accused the saffron party of reducing the "temple of democracy to a rubber stamp for its agenda or worse, a notice board to announce its unilateral decisions".

A special court in Mumbai on Thursday rejected dismissed police officer Sachin Waze's plea for `default' bail in the case of the SUV with explosives found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's residence, and gave the NIA one more month to file a charge sheet.

Counsels for AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam accused Christian Michel and fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi were also the potential targets of Israeli spyware Pegasus.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd slipped 59 places to rank 155th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list released on Monday. Reliance took a beating on the rankings as revenues dropped owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is its lowest ranking since 2017. Walmart continues to top the Fortune list with a revenue of $524 billion, followed by China's State Grid at $384 billion.

The demand for Tharoor's removal comes days after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology was set to question government officials on the Pegasus spyware issue.

The development comes on a day the Supreme Court adjourned Anil Deshmukh's plea, which sought protection from any coercive action by the Enforcement Directorate in the criminal case registered under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and said it would hear his petition on August 3.

Dubey demanded the removal of Tharoor, alleging that he was using his position in a discriminatory manner.

BJP members of the panel who were present in the meeting room didn't sign the attendance register in protest leading to a lack of quorum required for holding the meeting.

The parliamentary panel on information technology will question government officials on allegations relating to suspected phone tapping of politicians, journalists and others using Pegasus spyware, the committee chairman and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday, and asserted that it is the "most important issue" for many members.

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group has struck acquisition deals worth $4.2 billion with a dozen companies in just two years to expand its retail business. The latest purchase was of a majority stake in Justdial for Rs 3,497 crore. Elaborating on his acquisition strategy a few weeks ago during the AGM, Ambani stated that one of the key planks would be to acquire businesses that enhanced Reliance's offerings and experiences to customers and that they would be both physical and digital.

Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 7 per cent drop in its June quarter net profit as retail business got hit by the second wave of COVID infections.

He said all his phones have been tapped and his friends informed by intelligence people that this is being done.

One more case has been registered against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh for allegedly extorting money from the relative of a builder and kidnapping him for ransom, the police said on Friday.

The government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have dismissed the Pegasus Project reports as concocted and evidence-less.

The FIR was registered against Deshmukh and some unidentified persons on April 24 this year on charges of corruption and misconduct following a preliminary inquiry that the CBI conducted in compliance with the high court's order.

The Mumbai police have registered an FIR against senior IPS officer Param Bir Singh, five other police personnel and two more persons for allegedly demanding Rs 15 crore from a builder to withdraw cases against him, an official said on Thursday.

'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'

The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has granted seven authorisations to companies for selling automobile (auto) fuels in the country. These new approvals are under the relaxed guidelines for authorisation to market transportation fuels that were revised in 2019. This is expected to make the competition more intense in India's petroleum retail business. According to a top oil ministry official, a fresh marketing authorisation has been granted to Reliance Industries (RIL) under these norms. This is being done since RIL's existing retail marketing authorisation has been transferred to its subsidiary Reliance BP Mobility

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd's plans for investing Rs 75,000 crore in solar, batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen could create valuation of $36 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) for the new energy business, Wall Street brokerage Bernstein Research said in a report. Reliance currently has three verticals -- oil-to-chemical (O2C) business that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business; digital services that comprises telecom arm Jio; and retail including e-commerce. New Energy will be the fourth vertical. At the company's annual general meeting of shareholders last month, Ambani announced a plan to invest Rs 75,000 crore in a new energy business over the next 3 years in the next stage in its transformation.

RRVL will make an open offer to acquire up to an additional 2.17 crore equity shares of Just Dial, representing 26 per cent stake, in accordance with Sebi Takeover Regulations, a regulatory filing said.

A provisional order has been issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) attaching a residential flat worth Rs 1.54 crore in Mumbai's Worli, and 25 land parcels valued at Rs 2.67 crore in Dhutum village in Raigad district.

'The roadmap ahead seems very difficult especially in the rural areas where there is very poor infrastructure, vaccine reach and hesitancy.' 'These are a deadly cocktail for the next wave.'

While Nifty 50 reflects changes in 40 years, it also shows what is missing: Low-cost manufacturers at one end, and deep-value players at the other. Also missing are technology players, observes T N Ninan.

More than a year of Covid-19 has pushed most businesses into gloom but Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managed to reduce its gross debt 25 per cent, enabling it to turn towards its next phase of capital expenditure that has come in the form of a Rs 75,000-crore plan for green energy and power storage. The company managed to stay afloat during the pandemic because of its large presence in the consumer-centric businesses of retail and telecommunication (see chart: "A new Reliance"). These two businesses constituted 45 per cent of its EBITDA during FY21 from 36 per cent in FY20.

Malavika Sangghvi gives us fascinating glimpses from Dilip Kumar's life.

Reliance's big-bang entry across the solar ecosystem will cut dependence on Chinese imports drastically. And Ambani's repeated emphasis that RIL's new energy foray will be 'a truly global business' points that his group is playing not just for a share of the Indian pie but to be the OEM in the larger 5,000 GW global market by 2030, points out Shailesh Dobhal.

The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will hear on July 20 the Amazon plea against the Delhi high court verdict which stayed the directive by its single-judge and paved the way for the multi-billion dollar deal to amalgamate Future Retail Ltd (FRL) with Reliance Retail. A bench of Justices R F Nariman, K M Joseph and B R Gavai was informed by senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the Future group, that a Singapore tribunal will commence hearing on the issue from July 12 and requested that the proceedings on the appeals be adjourned for a week. Senior advocate Gopal Subramanian, appearing for the US-based e-commerce giant, said he had no problem if the hearing on the appeals was adjourned by a week, as they will be busy next week before the tribunal.

Reliance Infrastructure Ltd on Wednesday said its shareholders have approved raising funds up to Rs 550.56 crore through issuance of shares on a preferential basis. The funds raised would be utilised for long-term resources, for general corporate purposes and to fund future growth, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has signed a pact to invest an undisclosed amount in a giant petrochemical hub being built in the UAE. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate will join the recently-formed Ta'ziz joint venture of Abu Dhabi state energy giant Adnoc and state holding company ADQ for developing the Ruwais Derivatives Park in western Abu Dhabi. A company statement said an agreement has been signed for Reliance to invest in the project but did not give details. Unconfirmed reports put the investment at about $1.5 billion.

Mukesh Ambani-owned RIL's JioMart is set to launch a slew of new products including financial services, electronics to airline tickets to take on the competition from upcoming rivals like the Tata Super app and other established players including PayTM, Amazon and Flipkart. This comes at a time when RIL's e-commerce revenues are set to grow by 35 per cent to $15 billion within four years and its core retail revenue is expected to grow at the same pace to $44 billion, as per a forecast by Goldman Sachs. "The Tata vs JioMart war will be the next big corporate battle to watch. "While Tata has an upper hand like in-house products and brands, RIL has the backing of global biggies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft," said head of a rating firm asking not to be quoted.

The central agency arrested his personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde late Friday night after it had carried out raids against them and Deshmukh in Mumbai and Nagpur.

The ED case against Deshmukh and others is borne out after the CBI first carried out a preliminary enquiry followed by a regular case being filed on the orders of the Bombay High Court.

The ED case came about after the CBI first carried out a preliminary enquiry followed by filing a regular case on the orders of the Bombay high court that asked it to look into the allegations of bribery made against Deshmukh by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh.

Reliance Industries Ltd's focus on the next hypergrowth opportunities in clean tech and its path to decarbonisation has the potential to spur re-rating, raises clarity on investment cycles and reduces investor worry, brokerages said. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company's 'Green AGM' on Thursday committed Rs 75,000 crore over the next three years to set up an integrated Green Energy Giga Complex across 5,000 acres in Jamnagar, Gujarat which will contain four giga factories. The complex, which would be one of the world's largest renewable manufacturing facilities, would have an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory, an energy storage battery factory, electrolyser manufacturing for hydrogen production, and manufacturing of fuel cells so that hydrogen can be used in transportation.

Reliance Jio, together with partners, has tested its 5G solutions in India, successfully demonstrating speeds of over 1 GBPS, and its 'Made in India' solution is "globally competitive", RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Thursday. Ambani also exuded confidence that the company will be the first to launch full-fledged 5G services in the country. Jio is not just working to make India '2G-mukt' (free from 2G) but also '5G-yukt' (5G empowered), he added. Jio's engineers have developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution that is fully cloud native, software defined, and digitally managed.

Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday announced a Rs 75,000 crore investment in new energy business over the next three years as the operator of the world's largest oil refinery pivots towards a greener and cleaner version. Reliance will build solar manufacturing units, a battery factory for energy storage, a fuel cell-making plant and an electrolyzer unit to produce green hydrogen as a part of the business, chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual general meeting with shareholders on Thursday. It will also set up 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar power generation capacity by 2030 and invest in setting up a carbon fibre plant.

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said Jio and Google have jointly developed a power-packed and affordable smartphone 'JioPhone Next', which will be available in the market from September 10. Ambani promised that JioPhone Next will be the most affordable smartphone not just in India but globally. Speaking at RIL's annual general meeting, Ambani asserted that an ultra-affordable 4G smartphone is essential to make India '2G-mukt' (free of 2G).

Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.

Fitch Ratings has upgraded Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) rating to 'BBB', one notch above India's sovereign rating, as the company benefits from cash flow generation across diversified business segments and continuation of deleveraging. In a statement, Fitch said it has upgraded RIL's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) to 'BBB', from 'BBB-', with a negative outlook. At the same time, the agency has affirmed RIL's long-term local-currency IDR at 'BBB+' with a stable outlook.

In spite of Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, the Poonawallas and many other Indians seeing a jump in their net worth in the pandemic-hit 2020, overall wealth of the country's super-rich dipped 4.4 per cent to $12.83 trillion in the year due to the rupee's fall, and so did their tally, says a report. The number of dollar millionaires in India fell from 7,64,000 in 2019 to 6,98,000 solely because of the rupee's fall, while their cumulative wealth stood at $12.833 trillion, down $594 billion or 4.4 per cent from the previous year, according to the report by Credit Suisse Research Institute. The country is home to just 1 per cent of the global rich, whose number rose by 5.2 million to 56.1 million in the COVID-hit year. However, the report expects the number of millionaires in India to soar 81.8 per cent to 1.3 million by 2025.