Life Insurance Corporation of India’s much-awaited IPO, or initial public offering, will open May 4 (May 2 for anchor investors) and close May 9 for the general public, LIC officials said at a Wednesday press briefing, adding it would list on stock exchanges on May 17. India’s biggest public issue to date, share price band in the government-owned insurance giant is selling over 22.13 crore shares between Rs 902 and Rs 949 per share. Total IPO value is set at ?21,000 crore. Policy holders will get a Rs 60 per share discount and retail employees and anchor investors will get a Rs 45 discount. “LIC IPO to open on May 4, price band at Rs 902 to Rs 949 per equity share. We will call it LIC 3.0 phase,” Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management), was quoted by news agency ANI. “LIC IPO is (the) right size given the constraints in the market (and) will not crowd out capital and monetary supply in the market,” he said. The government had planned the IPO to launch before March 31 but it was postponed due to poor market conditions following the Russia-Ukraine war.
Had Karnataka not reduced its tax on petrol and diesel, the state government would have earned additional Rs 5,000 crore in the last six months, PM Modi said on Wednesday as he addressed a meeting with the chief ministers of state. Though the meeting was to take the stock of the Covid-19 situation, PM Modi emphasised the need for Centre-state cooperation and said such cooperation is more needed in the present war situation when the country is facing many challenges because of the disruption in the supply chain. Giving an example of the petrol-diesel price, PM Modi said the Centre waived the duty last year to reduce the burden of the people and then urged all states to do the same so that the benefit can be transferred to the users. “Some states abided by, but some states did not do. In these states, petrol, diesel is still dearer. This is, in a way, an injustice to the people of the state and also detrimental for the economy of other states,” PM Modi said adding that states which have reduced the tax could have earned more money like “Maharashtra, Gujarat’s neighbour” by not reducing the burden. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi unit on Wednesday said they have changed the name of south Delhi’s Mohammadpur village in south Delhi to Madhavpuram on their own because the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government hadn’t acted on the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s proposal in this regard since December. Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta along with senior party leaders put up a board with ‘Welcome to Madhavpuram’ written on it at the entrance of the village. “After the municipal corporation approved the proposal to change the name to Madhavpuram, the renaming process was completed today. From now on, this village will be called Madhavpuram instead of Mohammadpur. Residents of Delhi don’t want any symbol of slavery to be a part of the city after 75 years of Independence,” Gupta said on Twitter and posted photographs of the board. The Delhi government is yet to approve the proposal corporation’s proposal. As per the naming process for roads, villages, the proposal has to be approved by the state naming authority. China has confirmed the first known human case of the H3N8 strain of avian flu, but health authorities say there is a low risk of widespread transmission among people. H3N8 is known to have been circulating since 2002 after first emerging in North American waterfowl. It is known to infect horses, dogs and seals, but has not previously been detected in humans. China’s National Health Commission on Tuesday said a four-year-old boy living in central Henan province tested positive for the strain after being hospitalised earlier this month with a fever and other symptoms. The boy’s family raised chickens at home and lived in an area populated by wild ducks, the NHC said in a statement. The boy was infected directly by birds and the strain was not found to have “the ability to effectively infect humans”, the commission said. It added that tests of the boy’s close human contacts found “no abnormalities”. Aung San Suu Kyi, the ousted civilian leader of Myanmar and Nobel laureate, was on Wednesday found guilty of corruption and sentenced to five years in jail, news agency AFP reported, citing sources. A Myanmar junta court accused the 76-year-old leader of accepting a bribe of $600,000 cash and gold bars. The case was the first of 11 corruption charges against Suu Kyi, each carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Sources quoted by agencies declined to be identified because her trials were being held behind closed doors. Journalists remained barred from attending the court hearings, while Suu Kyi’s lawyers were have been banned from speaking to the media.
Since a military coup deposed her government in February last year, plunging the country into a major civil unrest, Suu Kyi had been facing a barrage of criminal cases that could see her jailed for decades. The 76-year-old was already sentenced to six years in jail for incitement against the military, breaching Covid-19 rules and breaking a telecommunications law — although she will remain under house arrest while she fights other charges.
