The Union Minister of Steel and Heavy Industries, Shri H.D. Kumaraswamy, unveiled the official logo of Bharat Steel at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi alongwith the brochure and website of the event. Bharat Steel is the Ministry of Steel’s flagship international conference-cum-exhibition on the steel ecosystem.
Launch took place during a workshop for the secondary steel sector, underscoring the Government’s commitment to fostering growth, innovation, and sustainability across the entire steel value chain.With its vision to become the largest steel exhibition in India and beyond, Bharat Steel aims to position India as a hub for innovation and investment in the global steel industry
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, an autonomous trust under the Ministry of Culture, along with the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP), Lucknow, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at IGNCA, New Delhi.
The MoU represents the first initiative in India to integrate science and culture on a unified platform, with the aim of showcasing the nation’s scientific and cultural achievements to both domestic and international audiences. The initiative aims to preserve, interpret, and present India’s heritage through innovative programmes, fostering awareness nationally and globally.
The MoU was signed by Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi and Mahesh G. Thakkar. Dr. Achal Pandya, Head & Professor, Conservation Division, IGNCA and Dr. Shilpa Pandey, Senior Scientist, BSIP, will serve as nodal officers for the collaboration. The MoU between IGNCA and BSIP seeks to integrate science and culture through interdisciplinary research, joint events, and shared expertise.
Typhoon Podul, the 11th typhoon of the year, made landfall in eastern Taiwan’s Taitung County on 13 August, bringing severe storms to Hualien and Taitung cities. The local meteorological agency continued to issue both sea and land warnings for Podul. Land warning covers 13 counties and cities while the sea warning applies to the waters off eastern Taiwan, the Bashi Channel.
France, Germany, and the UK, collectively known as the E3, have once again threatened Iran with the reimposition of the snapback UN sanctions, unless the country resumes negotiations. They warned to impose sanctions under the tenets of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, unless Tehran resumes talks or asks for a deadline extension.
Established in 2003, when the UK was still a member of the EU, the E3 is an informal foreign and security cooperation arrangement between the UK, Germany and France. The E3 met for the first time after the US attacked Iraq in 2003 to identify a trilateral strategy towards Iraq, and manage nuclear risks coming from Iran.
In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as JCPOA or the Iran nuclear deal) with the E3/EU+3. The deal outlines monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities and a plan for lifting UN sanctions. The E3 was integral to implementation of the deal.
Ride-hailing platform Rapido has launched its standalone mobile application, Ownly, marking its entry into the food delivery segment. Currently, the app is servicing select areas, including Koramangala, HSR, and BTM Layout. The newly launched app will compete with the likes of Swiggy, Zomato, and Magicpin.
The launch comes just a few months after Rapido and the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), which claims to represent over 50,000 eateries, started conversations to finalise terms and conditions (T&C) for bringing restaurant partners on the platform.
The new platform, as a result, will be based on a zero-commission model. According to the terms that were earlier exchanged between NRAI and Rapido, the restaurant partners will pay the delivery fee for all orders in a standard radius of four kilometers or less.
ICICI Bank, India’s second-largest private sector lender, has reversed its decision to raise the minimum monthly average balance (MAB) for new savings accounts in metro and urban locations to Rs. 50,000, revising it instead to Rs. 15,000, effective August 1.
The MAB for new savings accounts in semi-urban locations has been revised from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 7,500, and for rural locations from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 2,500. Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra, earlier this week, clarified that the regulator has left it to individual banks to decide on the extent of MAB and that there is no regulatory restriction on this.
Other large private-sector lenders such as HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank, and others have a lower MAB requirement of Rs. 10,000 in metro and urban centres.In contrast, state-owned lenders such as State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, and others have recently waived the minimum account balance requirement for customer.
MAB is the simple average of day-end balances for a calendar month.
Arintra, a GenAI-powered medical coding platform for healthcare providers, has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by Peak XV Partners, with Endeavor Health Ventures, Y Combinator, and others participating. The funds will support nationwide adoption, accelerate product development, expand the team, and establish a Bay Area headquarters to meet growing demand.
Arintra said it delivers revenue assurance through a proactive, outcomes-driven approach, ensuring health systems receive accurate, efficient reimbursement. Arintra has processed over $1 billion in healthcare charges. Mercyhealth recorded a 5.1 per cent rise in revenue, 43 per cent fewer denials, and 32 per cent lower costs.
The RBI has decided to transition the Cheque Truncation System (CTS) to “continuous clearing with on-realisation settlement” in two phases, with the first phase beginning on October 4, 2025 and the second on January 3, 2026. This move is aimed at improving the efficiency of cheque clearing and reduce settlement risk for participants in the cheque clearing system.
The CTS is being transitioned from the current approach of batch processing to continuous clearing with ‘on-realisation-settlement’. CTS currently processes cheques with a clearing cycle of up to two working days. As per the modalities for continuous clearing with on-realisation settlement in CTS, there will be a single (cheque) presentation session from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Cheques received by the bank branches will be scanned and sent to the clearing house immediately and continuously during the presentation session. The clearing house will in turn release the cheque images to drawee banks on a continuous basis. The confirmation session by drawee banks will start at 10 AM and close at 7 PM.
For every cheque presented, the drawee bank will generate either positive confirmation (for honoured cheques) or negative confirmation (for dishonoured cheques). Processing of cheques by drawee banks is to be done continuously throughout the day and on a real time basis as soon as cheque images are received.
Starting from 11 AM, settlement will be done every hour till the end of confirmation session, based on the positive confirmations received from drawee banks and cheques considered deemed approved. The presenting bank must process confirmations and release customer payments within 1 hour of successful settlement, subject to usual safeguards.
SEBI has allowed investment advisers and research analysts to use liquid mutual funds and overnight mutual funds for meeting their mandatory deposit requirements, providing an alternative to scheduled bank deposits. Overnight mutual funds are a type of debt mutual fund that invests in overnight securities -- debt instruments with a maturity of just one day.
Currently, Investment Advisers (IAs) and Research Analysts (RAs) are mandated to maintain a specified deposit with a scheduled bank, marked as a lien in favour of the Investment Adviser Administration and Supervisory Body (IAASB) or the Research Analyst Administration and Supervisory Body (RAASB), as applicable.
Based on the representations from industry participants and feedback received during public consultations, Sebi's board approved the proposal in its June 2025 meeting. The amendments to the Research Analysts rules and Investment Advisers norms were notified by the regulator on August 6-7, respectively.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has directed banks and payment apps to halt all peer-to-peer (P2P) Unified Payments Interface “collect requests” from October 1 to curb frauds, according to a circular. The “UPI collect” feature allows users to request money from another UPI user by sending a payment request through their UPI app.
Instead of initiating a transfer, the user sends a request to the recipient, who then needs to approve the payment for it to be processed. The P2M collect feature, however, remains unaffected due to the change. At present, the maximum amount a UPI user can collect per transaction is Rs. 2,000. The number of successful P2P credit transactions is capped at 50 a day.
The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has revised charges on fund transfers through the IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) effective from August 15. Although there is no change in charges for fund transfer through IMPS done via branch, fund transfer above Rs. 25,000 would attract charges through the online channel from August 15.
Transactions above Rs. 25,000 done through online channels will now attract nominal charges ranging from Rs 2-10 plus Goods and Services Tax (GST). Transfer of funds above Rs. 25,000 but less than Rs. 1 lakh would attract a service charge of Rs. 2; for amounts of Rs. 1-2 lakh, ₹6, and for amounts of Rs. 2-5 lakh, Rs. 10.
Salary package account holders continue to enjoy full waivers for online IMPS transfers. For corporate customers, revised service charges are going to be effective from September 8, 2025. IMPS transaction charges waived for current account (Gold, Diamond, Platinum, Rhodium, Govt Departments, Autonomous/Statutory bodies etc,) for online transactions
HDFC Bank’s latest update to its SmartWealth app has made investing more inclusive, accessible and personal than ever before. The app now supports 9 languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali—allowing users to invest, track and manage their portfolios and receive personalised financial insights in their own language
The rollout makes SmartWealth one of the first wealth platforms in India to offer full-feature access in regional languages. Users can change their preferred language anytime. The update is designed to make investing and wealth services more personal and intuitive, especially for investors in Tier-II and -III cities, where language remains a key barrier to participation.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve banking operations in India by up to 46 per cent, according to a report by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The central bank noted that AI can help financial institutions better understand customer behaviour, improve efficiency, and offer more personalised services at scale.
GenAI is poised to improve banking operations in India by up to 46 per cent". The report said AI is increasingly being adopted across the financial services sector. The RBI report said that AI is expected to directly contribute to revenue growth for the industry in the coming years.
The generative AI segment alone is projected to exceed Rs 1.02 lakh crore (about USD 12 billion) by 2033, growing at an annual rate of 28-34 per cent. RBI also stated that in India, where millions of people still do not have access to formal banking, AI can help assess the creditworthiness of potential borrowers using non-traditional data sources.
Regulated entities (REs) can enter into a lending arrangement with other REs for extension of credit to the borrowers, subject to compliance with the extant prudential regulations. These Directions shall come into force from January 1, 2026, or from any earlier date as decided by a RE as per its internal policy (“effective date”).
These Directions are issued in exercise of the powers conferred by the Sections 21 and 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, read with Section 56 of the Act ibid; Chapter IIIB of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934; and Sections 30A, 32 and 33 of the National Housing Bank Act, 1987.
Non-fund based (NFB) facilities like guarantees, letters of credit, co-acceptances etc. facilitate effective credit intermediation and smooth business transactions. In order to harmonize and consolidate guidelines covering these facilities across the entities regulated by the RBI and to broaden the funding sources for infrastructure financing, the RBI had issued guidelines
on NFB facilities for public comments on April 9, 2025. In exercise of the powers conferred under sections 21 and 35A read with section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, sections 45JA, 45L and 45M of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, and sections 30A, 32 and 33 of the NHB Act, 1987, the RBI, being satisfied that it is necessary and expedient in the public interest.
World Lion Day was first established in 2013 by Big Cat Rescue, the world’s largest accredited sanctuary dedicated to lions, and was co-founded by Dereck and Beverly Joubert. In 2009, they approached “National Geographic” and formed a partnership to create the Big Cat Initiative (B.C.I.).
Later in 2013, they began an initiative to unite National Geographic and the Big Cat Initiative under a single banner to protect the remaining big cats living in the wild.
