Given faster and more nuanced settling of commercial disputes is a pressing requirement for improving India’s showing on the ‘ease of doing business’ front—out of 189 economies in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business 2015 rankings, it ranks 178th and 136th  respectively, for ‘enforcing contracts’ and ‘resolving insolvency’—it is welcome news indeed that the country will have a blueprint for commercial courts by as early as end of April.

Small and payments banks have not yet devised a business model which can be termed viable, SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said today. 

"Neither the payments banks nor small finance banks seem to have as yet devised a business model that can be said as viable," said Bhattacharya, whose bank has tied up with Reliance Industries for a payments bank venture. 

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country increased by 37% to $39.32 billion during 2015. The foreign investment inflows stood at $28.78 billion in 2014, according to data by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

With the government having put ease of doing business in India at the top of its agenda, VistaJet bossThomas Flohr knows one change he'd like to see happen — get the aviation regulator to work on weekends so that overflight approvals don't need to take three days

Given its 7517 Km long coastline, 14,426 Km of navigable inland waterways and rich and ancient maritime traditions, Indian Maritime Sector offers immense development potential. Sea borne trade is growing at twice the global growth rate. The Indian Government has brought in policies to promote ease of doing business and give incentives for investment. 100 percent FDI has been allowed under automatic route for port development projects. 

When asked about support for Gulf NRIs wanting to set up small scale industries in India, he said assistance will be provided to them. 
"We have simplified the process of registration and the process of procuring loans under the ease of doing business programs. We have started Udyog Aadhar Memorandum registration process, which is just one page and is available online. Once filled and clicked, you can get your registration number within three minutes," said Mishra. 
 

To improve ease of doing business for foreign entities, the government today relaxed approval process for setting up of their branch, liaison and project offices in the country.

Except for defence, telecom, private security, information and broadcasting and non-government organisation sectors, such approvals can now be given by certain banks, as against the earlier requirement of RBI approval for the same, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

Even as the government expects the country to clock optimistic growth rate of close to 8 per cent, the newly elected CII President, Naushad Forbes believes that it might not be sufficient to create enough productive jobs to keep the gears of the economy well oiled. In an interview with Pranav Mukul and Sandeep Singh, Forbes said that while job creation is a concern, 9-10 per cent growth rate is desirable as a lot of employment is created when the economy grows at that rate.