The border between Australia's two most populous states will close from Tuesday for an indefinite period as authorities scramble to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Melbourne. The decision announced on Monday marks the first time the border between Victoria and New South Wales has been shut in 100 years. Officials last blocked movement between the two states in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic. ‘It is the smart call, the right call at this time, given the significant challenges we face in containing this virus,’ Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters in Melbourne. The move will, however, likely be a blow to Australia's economic recovery as it heads into its first recession in nearly three decades. The number of COVID-19 cases in the Victorian capital of Melbourne has surge

Government of Mauritius had promoted SBM Bank India and global payments technology major have joined hands to facilitate cross-border payments and remittances services, a statement said on Monday. The SBM Bank India customers will be able to make real-time domestic business-to-consumer transfers quickly and efficiently using 'Mastercard Send', the statement said. Remittances and payments businesses have become the cornerstone of SBM Bank India’s growth strategy. As banking evolves to become more personal, platform-agnostic and always-on the Bank has been leading the collaboration narrative to access the best-in-class solutions with its switching partner, YAP, the statement said. Neeraj Sinha, Head-Retail & Consumer Banking, SBM Bank (India), said, ‘Mastercard Send is a secured and innovative solution - cr

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is going to establish a research cell at Indian Institute of Technology here to meet the future defence technological requirements of the country. The DRDO-IITH Research Cell will undertake basic and applied research programmes in identified technology areas, a press release from the institute said on Monday. An MoU was signed during a virtual event organized at the DRDO DG-MSS Office in Hyderabad on July 3 in which officials from DRDO and IIT Hyderabad participated. Being established as an extension of the DRDO Research and Innovation Centre (RIC), Chennai, the research cell is envisaged to become a Centre of Excellence in conducting scientific and applied research in advanced technologies for defence, it said. Highlighting the role expected of DRDO

Reversing early gains, the rupee fell against the US dollar today amid volatile trade. Opening at 74.50, the rupee fell to 74.82 at day's low as compared to previous close of 74.64. So far during the day the rupee traded in the range of 74.50 to 74.82. Rupee was currently trading at 74.76. ‘RBI's forex reserves rose $1.3 billion to $506.8 billion as on week ending 26th June. Given that the RBI balance sheet date is behind us, we may see central bank buy dollars less aggressively. It may only step in to contain volatility. We are likely to see USD-INR align more closely with Dollar/Asia and Dollar/EM,’ said Abhishek Goenka, Founder and CEO, IFA Global. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.48 per cent to 96.817. On the domestic equity m

Blue Ashva Capital, an investment firm focused on SMEs and startups, said it has raised Rs 454 crore (approximately $60 million) for the initial close of its maiden fund. The capital was raised from family offices and high net worth individuals, the firm said in a statement. ‘The fund proposes to raise a sum of Rs 400 crore with a greenshoe option of Rs 200 crore. It has exercised a part of the greenshoe option at the initial close,’ the statement said. The fund will invest in businesses across sectors including financial services, technology, healthcare, consumer, manufacturing etc. through equity, debt or any combination thereof. The fund will also back professional-turn-entrepreneurs and partner with global companies to invest in India. ‘SMEs and startups play a key role in fostering entrepreneurship and

Kalpataru Power Transmission Limited (KPTL) has signed a definitive agreement to sell Alipurduar Transmission Limited (ATL) to Adani Transmission Limited for a total enterprise value of about Rs 1,286 crore, the company said in an exchange filing. ATL was set up as part of an inter-state transmission system to strengthen and transfer power from new hydroelectric power projects in Bhutan to India. The project involved design, financing, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance of 325 km of 400 KV transmission line. ATL had won the project on a build-own-operate-manage basis through a competitive bidding process from REC Transmission Projects Company Ltd for a period of 35 years. ATL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of KPTL. EY and Khaitan & Co are advisors to KPTL for this transaction. Commenting

The Sports Ministry on Saturday announced the doing away with of the Rs 2 lakh cap on the salary given to Indian coaches training elite athletes in a bid to encourage them to produce better results and attract former players to become high performance trainers. The announcement came after the ministry's decision on Thursday to extend the contracts of all foreign coaches till September 30 next year and to make all future hiring both Indian and foreign for a four-year cycle in sync with the Olympics to ensure continuity. ‘Several Indian coaches are showing very good results and need to be rewarded for their hard work. The government is also keen to attract the best coaching talent from across the country to train elite athletes and we do not want the cap on compensation to be a deterrent for good coaches to jo

Instagram had launched the trial of a new feature called Reels last year in November. With the help of this feature, users can mimic the functionality of popular short video application TikTok. The company had announced last week that it was testing the feature in France and Germany but a new report claims that the feature might have made its way to Indian users as well. The new technology has also been released to select users in India for testing. Though the company had not mentioned India in the list of countries that will be receiving the feature, they did mention that it will be rolled out to other regions, media reported. ‘We're planning to start testing an updated version of Reels in more countries. Reels is a fun, creative way for people to both express themselves and be entertained. We're excited to