The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Thursday approved a proposal of Axis Bank to increase the limit on overseas holdings in the lender to more than 49 per cent.
The proposal was cleared at an FIPB meeting chaired by economic affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram, sources said.
The FIPB approved raising the foreign equity holding in Axis Bank to 62 per cent from 49 per cent, subject to the condition that the holding of foreign institutional investors does not exceed 49 per cent.
At present, the FII holding in the bank is 40.7 per cent while domestic institutional investors have 8.77 per cent.
Axis Bank had approached the FIPB last month after the RBI said the limit of investments through Global Depository Receipts (GDRs), American Depository Receipts (ADRs), FDI, NRI and FIIs in the bank had breached the overall limit of 49 per cent of its paid-up capital.PTISmartphone maker Blackberry on Thursday announced it will provide its popular chat application BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on Android operation system from 21 September and for iPhone users from 22 September.
'BBM will be available as a free download for Android smartphones running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean (Android 4.0 and later version) beginning at 7 AM EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) on 21 September. BBM for iPhones running iOS 6 and iOS 7 will become available for each market on the App Store schedule of 12:01 AM local time on 22 September,' BlackBerry said in a statement.
Android users in India will be able to download BBM from their Google Play Store on their phone from 4.30 pm onwards on same day.
As per market research and analyst firm IDC, over 5 million out of 6.1 million smartphones shipped to India in January to March 2013 period were Android phones. Apple's iPhones constitute a very small number in Indian smartphone segment.
BBM, the first instant messaging application for phones, now has more than 60 million monthly active customers on BlackBerry alone, and majority use BBM an average of 90 minutes per day, the statement said.
BBM customers collectively send and receive more than 10 billion messages each day, nearly twice as many messages per user per day as compared to other mobile messaging apps, it added.
Meanwhile, Indian mobile phone company Micromax said mobile messaging service application will come pre-loaded on new Micromax smartphones from the first week of October and existing users of its Canvas phones can download the BBM from the Google Play Store.
'Bringing one of the most popular mobile messaging services with BBM on our smartphones is yet another effort to expand our bouquet of messaging services for our consumers to connect and communicate seamlessly with their loved ones,' said Micromax CEO Deepak Mehrotra.
The proposal was cleared at an FIPB meeting chaired by economic affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram, sources said.
The FIPB approved raising the foreign equity holding in Axis Bank to 62 per cent from 49 per cent, subject to the condition that the holding of foreign institutional investors does not exceed 49 per cent.
At present, the FII holding in the bank is 40.7 per cent while domestic institutional investors have 8.77 per cent.
Axis Bank had approached the FIPB last month after the RBI said the limit of investments through Global Depository Receipts (GDRs), American Depository Receipts (ADRs), FDI, NRI and FIIs in the bank had breached the overall limit of 49 per cent of its paid-up capital.PTISmartphone maker Blackberry on Thursday announced it will provide its popular chat application BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on Android operation system from 21 September and for iPhone users from 22 September.
'BBM will be available as a free download for Android smartphones running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean (Android 4.0 and later version) beginning at 7 AM EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) on 21 September. BBM for iPhones running iOS 6 and iOS 7 will become available for each market on the App Store schedule of 12:01 AM local time on 22 September,' BlackBerry said in a statement.
Android users in India will be able to download BBM from their Google Play Store on their phone from 4.30 pm onwards on same day.
As per market research and analyst firm IDC, over 5 million out of 6.1 million smartphones shipped to India in January to March 2013 period were Android phones. Apple's iPhones constitute a very small number in Indian smartphone segment.
BBM, the first instant messaging application for phones, now has more than 60 million monthly active customers on BlackBerry alone, and majority use BBM an average of 90 minutes per day, the statement said.
BBM customers collectively send and receive more than 10 billion messages each day, nearly twice as many messages per user per day as compared to other mobile messaging apps, it added.
Meanwhile, Indian mobile phone company Micromax said mobile messaging service application will come pre-loaded on new Micromax smartphones from the first week of October and existing users of its Canvas phones can download the BBM from the Google Play Store.
'Bringing one of the most popular mobile messaging services with BBM on our smartphones is yet another effort to expand our bouquet of messaging services for our consumers to connect and communicate seamlessly with their loved ones,' said Micromax CEO Deepak Mehrotra.