Indian Government has issued Notification for extending refund of service tax paid by exporters on three more taxable services in addition to existing 13 taxable services, as part of efforts to help firms hit by the rise of the rupee.

The finance ministry said in a statement the government was extending the refund of service tax paid by exporters on 16 items including,

· Custom House Agent service.
· Banking and other financial services in relation to collection of export bills and export letters of credit.
· Commission agent service under business auxiliary service provided by a commission agent, located outside India subject to the conditions prescribed.

In September 2007, India made the first-ever move to refund service tax paid by exporters on non-input services like those offered by ports and goods transport agency and in February 2008, the Finance Ministry had extended tax refund scheme for three more taxable services, taking the total number to 13. Now comes another three more taxable making 16 in total.

For the notification, click www.cbec.gov.in.   - Press Release

Indian telecom service provider Airtel has announced the launch of an all-in-one Internet portal called Airtel Live .

airtellive.com, is powered by Airtel broadband and Google. Both Google and Airtel Broadband will co-brand and power the services offered by the portal.

This initiative is said to mark the first time a telecommunications firm in India has made Google products officially available on its portal.

Airtel has signed up a partnership deal with some of the content leaders such as shaadi.com, 24×7guru, naukri.com and many others.

India’s Inflation soars to 13-month high of 6.68 % for the week ended March 15, 2008. In the prior week, the rate of inflation stood at 5.92%. Economists had expected the rate to increase to 5.96%.

Indian entertainment and media (E&M) industry will touch $27 billion by 2011 at an annual growth rate of 16.7 %.

According to the report by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (FICCI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Indian Entertainment industry will grow faster than its counterparts in Brazil, Russia and China (BRIC countries)

BRICs economies, Brazil, Russia, India and China( BRIC ) could become larger economy by 2050, according to Goldman Sachs research report.

Projected Indian entertainment and media (E&M) growth of BRIC countries

Russia - 8.3 %
Brazil - 7.7 %
India - 16.7 %
China - 13 %