The Union Cabinet has banned the production, manufacturing, import, export, distribution and advertisement of e-cigarettes after considering their impact on the youth. First-time offenders would face a prison term of up to one year and a fine of ₹1 lakh, while repeat offenders would face jail terms of up to three years, with a penalty of up to ₹5 lakh.

The owners of existing stocks of e-cigarettes in India must declare and deposit them with the nearest police station. The sub-inspector of police has been authorised to enforce the provisions of the new ordinance banning e-cigarettes. Storage of e-cigarettes shall be punishable with a prison term of up to 6 months or a fine of up to ₹50,000 or both.

Microsoft has announced that its board has approved a share buyback programme of up to $40 billion. The software giant also declared a quarterly dividend of 51 cents per share, 11% higher than the preceding quarter. It returned $7.7 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2019.

Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said all electronics companies are bullish on the Indian market, adding that Apple is going to come to India in "a big way". The government on Monday urged Apple to expand its manufacturing base and use India as an export hub. Apple is reportedly investing $1 billion to expand iPhones' manufacturing in India.

Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said that last year on his visit to Google's Silicon Valley facility, he asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai to make India a launchpad for products. Prasad said he told Pichai, "What becomes successful in India, surely the world is going to adopt it." Prasad was speaking at the Google for India event.

Sanford C. Bernstein analysts have said BMW should buy Jaguar Land Rover from Tata Motors as the German carmaker is "awash with cash". Buying JLR for $11.2 billion could add 20% to BMW's earnings but "Tata would need to swallow its pride to sell," they added. Tata Motors bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford in 2008 for $2.3 billion.

Amazon's world's largest campus opened in Hyderabad last month has 12 floors, each with a separate theme, with one of the floors having 'Bollywood' theme. The building has numerous 'work points' where employees can sit, in a group or solo, and work with their laptops. There are billiard tables, yoga rooms, and areas dedicated to cricket and wall climbing.

SoftBank Group's Founder and CEO Masayoshi Son loaned himself around $3 billion to invest in the Japanese conglomerate's first, $100-billion Vision Fund, Bloomberg reported citing sources. The 62-year-old has pledged 38% of his stake in the Japanese firm as collateral for personal loans from 19 banks, regulatory filings revealed. The loan was swapped for equity in the fund, Bloomberg added.

Several prominent startups including Ola, Lenskart and PolicyBazaar are reportedly in the process of submitting a petition to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over the regulations for listing publicly. The startups reportedly want the rule for minimum promoter holding requirement of 20% to be either be removed or be considered on a case-to-case basis.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman RC Bhargava has said youngsters would rather buy gadgets than cars as they find shared mobility like Ola and Uber economical. "So, what Finance Minister said is 100% correct," Bhargava added. "Today, a youngster wants to buy a nice smartphone and wants to meet his friends at a restaurant and have a good time," he further said.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman RC Bhargava has said that purchasing power of Indians hasn't risen in line with the increase in car prices. This had led many to postpone purchases as prices have been increased to adhere to new emission norms, he added. Bhargava further said there is "no point" in a temporary cut in the GST rate on vehicles.

The value of the government's stake in ITC surged as much as ₹1,800 crore on Wednesday following the announcement of the nationwide e-cigarette ban. The government and state-owned companies including LIC together held a 28.64% stake in India's largest cigarette maker as of June. Further, state-run New India Assurance Company holds around a 1.53% stake in cigarette maker VST Industries.

After drug-maker Biocon's head Kiran Mazumdar Shaw tweeted why Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced e-cigarette ban instead of Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Sitharaman replied that Vardhan was out of India. On Shaw's remark that Sitharaman should announce fiscal measures, she stated, "As Finance Minister...I've been...regularly speaking about measures...[taken] on matters of economy."

London has overtaken Mumbai to become the top centre for trading the Indian rupee, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The average daily volume for the rupee in the UK jumped 430% to $46.8 billion in April 2019 from $8.8 billion in 2016. In contrast, the average daily volume of rupee trading in India was $34.49 billion.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said the government will shut down state-owned trading companies such as State Trading Corporation (STC), Project and Equipment Corporation (PEC) and MMTC one by one. "It's not the business of the government to remain in such businesses. The government should not run companies only for gold imports," Goyal added.

Shares of cigarette makers surged on Wednesday after the Union Cabinet passed an ordinance banning the production, import and sale of e-cigarettes. Shares of ITC, Godfrey Phillips India, VST Industries and Golden Tobacco climbed 2.2%-9%. The Association of Vapers India said the ban would deprive millions of smokers of a safer solution to cut back on smoking.

Speaking after Cabinet's decision to ban e-cigarettes, Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said, "Why are we debating if it's more harmful or less? It is harmful. It is addictive." "The entire next generation will be going down the drain if we don't control it now," she added. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman suggested India's youth were viewing e-cigarettes as a "style statement".

Some vaping products were still listed on Flipkart and Amazon on Thursday, while several other websites discontinued their sales a day after the government's ban, according to Reuters. A Reuters reporter successfully placed an order for a vape device on Amazon on Thursday, it said. Websites such as Vapestop and Litejoy, which offered vaping products online, discontinued their operations.

India has scrapped a 5% import tax on open cell TV panels, used to make television displays. Samsung Electronics shut its TV production unit in India last year and moved production to Vietnam because of the tax. The decision will provide relief to TV manufacturers, which have been hit by cheap imports from Vietnam, Panasonic India CEO Manish Sharma said.

Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has said the kingdom will restore the oil production lost due to drone attacks by the end of September. He added that state oil giant Aramco had emerged "like a phoenix from the ashes". Aramco shut down 5.7 million barrels per day of oil output, which is over half of Saudi's production.

The GST panel is unlikely to lower tax rates for the auto sector due to large revenue losses, government officials said. A government study said that the total annual revenue loss could be as much as $6.95 billion if the panel decided to decrease tax rates. The auto sector, however, has pushed to lower tax rates to 18% from 28%.

Care Ratings has downgraded ratings of Rana Kapoor's Morgan Credits (MCPL) from A minus to BBB minus over fall in stock price of the underlying shares of YES Bank, which are held by MCPL. As of March 31, MCPL held 3.03% stake in YES Bank. Along with its entities, the company held 10.62% stake in the bank.

Ex-SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya is reportedly looking to venture into a general insurance business. She will be joined by former country head and CEO of AIG Sunil Mehta and a former Director of SBI Deepak Ishwarbhai Amin. Bhattacharya and Mehta registered their company Welmo Fintech on September 3 and the insurance firm has a paid-up share capital of ₹1 lakh.

Markets regulator SEBI barred ousted CG Power and Industrial Solutions Chairman Gautam Thapar and three ex-officials from securities market. Thapar, ex-CFO VR Venkatesh, ex-Director of finance Madhav Acharya and ex-Director B Hariharan were found guilty of misusing company's assets for illegal transactions. SEBI directed BSE to appoint a sole auditor to audit CG Power's books from FY16 to date.