BADSHAHPUR, India/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – On the evening of December 26, as an Indian government-chartered jet was heading to Singapore with a critically injured New Delhi gang rape victim on board, the teenage survivor of another gang rape was taking her own life.

After writing a suicide note on a page torn from a notebook that named her alleged attackers and accused them of destroying her life, the 17-year-old schoolgirl drank pesticide typically used on the wheat fields surrounding her village in Punjab.

BADSHAHPUR, India/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – On the evening of December 26, as an Indian government-chartered jet was heading to Singapore with a critically injured New Delhi gang rape victim on board, the teenage survivor of another gang rape was taking her own life.

After writing a suicide note on a page torn from a notebook that named her alleged attackers and accused them of destroying her life, the 17-year-old schoolgirl drank pesticide typically used on the wheat fields surrounding her village in the northern state of Punjab.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The government will delay by two years implementation of controversial rules on tax avoidance to 2016, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Monday, a decision which earned a positive market reaction and is likely to help attract more capital inflows.

The General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR), aimed at companies and investors routing money through tax havens such as Mauritius, had been scheduled to be implemented from April 2014. They will now come into effect from April 1, 2016.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The government will delay by two years implementation of controversial rules on tax avoidance to 2016, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Monday, a decision which earned a positive market reaction and is likely to help attract more capital inflows.

The General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR), aimed at companies and investors routing money through tax havens such as Mauritius, had been scheduled to be implemented from April 2014. They will now come into effect from April 1, 2016.

NEW DELHI, Jan 14 (Reuters) – India will delay by two years
implementation of controversial rules on tax avoidance to 2016,
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Monday, a decision which
earned a positive market reaction and is likely to help attract
more capital inflows.

The general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR), aimed at companies
and investors routing money through tax havens such as
Mauritius, had been scheduled to be implemented from April 2014.
They will now come into effect from April 1, 2016.

NEW DELHI, Jan 7 (Reuters) – The Indian government is likely
to approach parliament next month to water down retrospective
tax rules that damaged investor confidence, two finance ministry
officials said on Monday, a move that may help settle
British-based Vodafone Group Plc’s long-runnning $2
billion tax dispute.

Vodafone, the largest overseas corporate investor in India,
has repeatedly clashed with Indian authorities over taxes since
it bought Hutchison Whampoa’s local mobile business in
2007.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The coldest weather in northern India for at least 44 years has killed more than 100 homeless people, an aid group said on Thursday.

The capital New Delhi saw a maximum temperature of 9.8 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday – the lowest since records began in 1969. Fog forced cancellation of flights and trains. Low temperatures over the next several days are expected to be 3 to 4 Celsius (37-39 Fahrenheit).

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – India is considering raising the cost of gold imports, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Wednesday, in a bid to control a record high current account deficit that could further dent shipments to the world’s biggest buyer of the metal.

Worried by the ballooning deficit, the government in March doubled the import duty on gold to 4 percent. Gold is the biggest contributor to the import bill after crude oil.

DUBAI/NEW DELHI, Dec 20 (Reuters) – India’s tiny Islamic
finance industry is hoping to expand by developing products that
would work around the country’s ban on sharia-compliant banking.
But political and legal obstacles mean progress is likely to be
slow.

An estimated 177 million Muslims in India, the largest
Muslim minority population in the world, are unable to use
Islamic banks because laws covering the sector require banking
to be based on interest, which is forbidden in Islam.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian parliament passed a bill on Tuesday aimed at drawing foreign investment to the banking sector by increasing shareholders’ voting rights, after dropping a controversial clause allowing banks to trade in commodity futures.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is in a race against the clock to pass reforms economists say are needed to breathe life into Asia’s third-largest economy, which is headed for the worst year of growth in a decade.