Housing.com, PropTiger merge to create India’s biggest online real estate firm, Union Budget date is up in the air and other news

Merged: News Corp-backed online real estate brokerage firm PropTiger has merged with Housing.com. Giving rise to one of India’s largest digital platforms for property listings, the deal takes the valuation of the new entity to close to $300 million. Mumbai-based Locon Solutions (company behind Housing.com) and its largest investor SoftBank had been looking for a suitable buyer (or at least investor) for six months. The brand Housing.com will be retained and there will be “minimal impact on headcount during organizational integration.” However, Housing.com’s Jason Kothari will now serve as an adviser while the company will be headed by PropTiger's co-founder and CEO Dhruv Agarwala.  This is a strategic move by News Corp which is trying to strengthen its position in the real estate sector in India and turn a strong competitor - SoftBank - into an ally. See the image below for more details on the deal (Pic credit: Economic Times):

After-effect: The monthly Aadhaar enrolment for the country during December 2016 rose a massive 60% compared to the previous month.In fact, over 3.63 million people enrolled for Aadhaar by the first week of January itself. The sudden surge in the number can be seen as an after-effect of the demonetization drive, kickstarted in November 2016. With the government stressing on its need, people may have realized that the Aadhaar card could come in handy for financial transactions or to present as an identity proof. On a related note, the government may soon make Aadhaar number necessary even to file a police complaint. It seems only natural that people are rushing to get enrolled for it.

With guns blazing: The legal battle between Bharti Airtel and the telecom regulator has intensified after the carrier filed an additional affidavit with the telecom appellate tribunal. Airtel has alleged that by acting as a "mute spectator," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is "tacitly" allowing Reliance Jio to break rules and offer free services, thereby wiping out competition.  

Total ban: Cyrus Mistry and Ratan Tata had a disagreement in 2013 - within a year of the former taking charge as the Tata Sons chairman - over transactions between Tata Group Companies and Shapoorji Pallonji Group. Tata repeatedly sought a total ban on transactions between the two groups and even raised that the issue might become "public" if not resolved soon. But Mistry kept looking for legal safeguards for such transactions, but eventually relented. It seems difference of opinion between the two existed from the very beginning and it was only a matter of time before it became public. (Pic credit: Economic Times)

Uncertain: The suspense of the date for presentation of the Union Budget continues. The government has responded to the Election Commission's query on the budget date clashing with the poll schedule. The opposition had been lobbying for postponing the budget, arguing that budget sops may hinder fair elections. But Finance Minister said that the idea behind an early budget was "to pass the Finance Bill by March 31, so that next year’s expenses could start from April 1." Now, the ball is in the poll watchdog’s court which is now examining the government’s response.

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