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• Telcos have informed the PMO that they will not pick up Jio's calls, refusing the interconnect points Jio needs to connect on other networks. Escalating the telecom war, the letter from the telecom operators pointed out they don't have the financial resources or the network to meet the Jio demand for interconnect points. They accused Jio of attempting to pass its financial burden for voice calls to its competition. ET
• The State Bank of India is raising $1 billion through the sale of dollar-denominated bonds to foreign investors. It will become the first Indian lender to raise money by selling securities overseas. These bonds are 'perpetual' and carry no maturity date. LiveMint
• In an early signal that the festival season will see a sales boost, two-wheeler sales have taken off around Ganesh Chaturthi. Retail sales rose about 10% in August, while wholesale purchases grew 26%. FE
• India is aiming to reach zero petroleum imports soon, according to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. The focus on natural gas and alternative fuels, including ethanol and bio-CNG, will he said, decentralize fuel production and enable growth in agri, he added. Firstpost
• Photo of the day: Chaos at Rahul Gandhi's 'khat sabha' as farmers in UP decamped with the cots. A 'khat' usually costs around Rs. 700-800. IE

• Queues have formed outside stores for Jio SIM cards, with stocks running out and activation issues. Speculation has grown that the large response may compel Reliance to extend the free offer beyond January 2017. ET
• Gas distributors saw a bumper quarter, and companies have seen strong sales volumes and bigger margins. Benefiting from this trend has been Mahanagar Gas. The company has seen a 21% fall in its input costs, which have helped drive up its operating margins by 20%. LiveMint
• B2B startups are also facing challenges in raising money, with the VC funding crunch reducing to less than half of what it was the previous year. Investors usually look at B2B startups more favorably due to lower customer acquisition costs. FE
• The Supreme Court, noting the stream of cases against individuals criticising the government has stated that someone making a statement to criticise the government does not invoke an offence under the sedition or defamation law. BS
• Photo of the Day: A Ganesha idol is loaded on a supply truck on the first day of the festival in Ahmedabad. Reuters/Amit Dave

A mobile bill that is lower by 50-60% for the end customer. That is the number that is unsettling telecom companies Airtel, Idea, and Vodafone about Reliance Jio.

When the news broke yesterday on the morning of September 1st at the Reliance AGM meeting, the trends in the Airtel and Idea stock charts were mirror images of each other: they both tumbled, falling on Mukesh Ambani's announcement of free Jio connections till December 31 and tariff plans that were more ambitious, and more aggressive than what the telcos had expected.

Key was Mukesh Ambani's remark that "customers should pay for data or voice, not both." The base rate of data on Jio will be 10% of current data prices, and voice calls will be free. 4G will be unlimited at night. The blows to existing operators just kept on coming, Muhammad Ali style. 

How will these companies respond? Right now Bharti Airtel offers unlimited voice only for its high-end post-paid plans. Both Airtel and Idea announced today that they will cut tariffs to keep customers. Forget growth, they are now scrambling just to retain the numbers they have. But do they have enough bandages to staunch the bleeding? The debt/equity ratio of Airtel stands at 0.5, and of Idea Cellular at 0.7, both above the ideal number of 0.4. Heavy debt on the financial statements for telecom companies mean they don't have much elbow room to respond to Jio. In May, Airtel had decided to sell over 950 telecom towers in the Congo to cut its plus Rs 80,000 crore debt. 

The silver lining: the aggressive expansion of 4G in India. Airtel hasn't been able to do much for 4G expansion, and penetration is right now at 5% nationally of subscribers. Jio's entry is likely to deepen the market very quickly. Such expansion is good for the incumbents too: if customer behavior around data consumption changes to the higher side, Idea and other telecom operators will be able to ride the benefits. But its going to be a rocky road there. 

• The mother of all telecom battles is on, with Airtel, Idea and Vodafone set to cut prices to take on Jio's aggressive marketing. Stocks of the telecom rivals fell steeply on Jio news, and companies expect customers will be comparing tariffs closely in the coming months. ET
• The L&T Technology Services IPO will open on September 12, as L&T prepares to sell 10.2% of its stake in the company. L&T Technology Services, an engineering and R&D firm, has fixed a price band of Rs.850-860 per share. This is the second IPO from L&T, whose IT unit L&T Infotech Ltd saw its Rs..1,243 crore IPO subscribed 11.69 times. LiveMint
• Tata Motorssaw a 6% growth in its commercial and passenger vehicles in August, with passenger vehicles growing faster at 16%. Caution over business growth is tamping down commercial sales, with many companies in wait and watch mode, postponing large purchases. Firstpost
• With the sale of bad loans lagging, the RBI has expanded potential buyers to include NBFCs, other banks, and financial institutions. RBI has asked banks to use the "swiss challenge" method, where bids will be published and others will be asked to exceed or match it. BS
• Photo of the Day: First graders in Ukraine at a ceremony marking the start of a new school year, express their anguish. Reuters

• Jaiprakash Associates received the highest fine of Rs. 1,320 crore from the Competition Commission of India, which fined ten major cement companies Rs 6,320 crore in total for price fixing, and deliberately restricting production and distribution of cement to keep prices high in the economy NDTV
• Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani has upped the ante, offering free voice calls and data for its customers from September 5 to December 31. Jio's 4G network covers 18,000 cities and towns, and over 2 lakh villages. By March 2017, the company expects to have a network that reaches 90% of India's population. ET
• In the meantime the AP Shah Panel has indicted Reliance Industries, saying that the company tried to enrich itself unfairly, retaining the gas that flowed into its own basin from the nearby ONGC-run fields. The panel said that the government is eligible for compensation from Reliance. LiveMint
• 41 companies have rewarded shareholders with bonus shares in FY17. These include 4 PSEs, of which three are the oil marketing companies HPCL. BPCL and IOCL, which have seen good results over the past quarters. BS
• Photo of the Day: The tall and the short of it, as John Kerry and Sushma Swaraj talk before a meeting. Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images 

   

• The RBL Bank IPO took off like a rocket, listing at 21.6% premium over the issue price. The stock was trading at Rs 280 in the morning at the bourses, up 24.44%. However, analysts caution that the stock is likely to be a short-term play given the valuations - Deepak Shenoy calls the stock "a momentum story". ET
• Amazon India and Flipkart seem to have hit market ceilings, and have been attempting to drive sales and growth through generous offers such as Flipkart's "no cost" purchase of TVs and smartphones in instalments and without interest. It looks like the companies are unlikely to see a big surge without significant upcoming innovation. LiveMint
• Maruti Suzuki is on a growth upswing, reports the BS, pointing out that the company is likely to see a 40% jump in car sales by 2020. The above-normal monsoon and recent government pay hikes is likely to send auto demand up further, boosting growth despite the surge in cab usage. 
• The GST is nearing the magic number of 16 states required to pass the bill to make it law - 14 states have already ratified the GST, and Rajasthan, Kerala and Uttarakhand are expected to ratify it soon. The industry is pitching for an 18% rate, which would bring tax rates down from the current average of 27-30%. Firstpost
• Photo of the day: A nun interacts with children at the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan children's home in Calcutta Reuters

   

• 'India is in a bull market,' Jhunjhunwala claims, observing that stocks are being priced with expectations that demand will revive. Large caps, he added, tend to underperform at the start of a bull market compared to small caps. ET
• Flipkart has taken on other wallets with the launch of PhonePe, its own digital wallet. It hopes to hit $1 billion in transactions and 10 million active customers by the end of the year. For comparison, Paytm has 100 million active customers. BS
• DLF's quarterly profit doubled this Q1 to over Rs 260 crore, helped by sale of cinemas to PVR. The company observed that the housing market remains down, and expects to drive growth through commercial projects. FE
• Ratan Tata and Nandan Nilekani are coming together to start a microfinance institution. The company, named Avanti Finance, will aim to deliver capital to needy communities at affordable rates. Any profits will be reinvested into philanthropic causes. LiveMint
• Photo of the Day: Heavy rains in Delhi forced commuters to wade through knee-deep water in several parts of the city. IE

• Paytm is in talks to raise fresh funds of Rs 2000 crore ($300 million) from Goldman Sachs, MediaTek and Temasek. This round of funding would double Paytm's valuation to $5 billion. The e-commerce marketplace is also expected to enable Alibaba's launch in India. ET 
• Real estate prices are falling in Delhi NCR and Mumbai according to a Knight Frank report, due to poor demand and landowners are offering discounts as high as 30% to property developers. LiveMint
• SEBI is looking into relaxing norms for startups, real estate and investment trusts. Consultation is underway and the board is set to discuss new norms next month. Firstpost
• Disney's plans to expand its India operations, intensifying competition, and recent box office failures are forcing Balaji Telefilms to consider an exit from the films business. It has currently stopped greenlighting new movies. BS
• Photo of the Day: More than 50 robots dance in Shandong, China during a cultural industries fest. The robots are connected to cellphones which provide instructions on the different actions to perform. Guardian/Getty Images

• A peek into Rajesh Jhunjhunwala's stock picks - his portfolio has grown 5.5 times in 7 years, and with his wife remains the largest individual public shareholder in India's stock markets. His picks have included Tata Motors, Delta Corp and Agro Tech Foods. ET
• Uber's driver subsidies have driven up losses for the company, and the company has lost over $650 million outside the US in its second quarter. In seven years, Uber has lost $4 billion, and the company is estimated to have lost $2 billion in China alone. FE
• Welspun India's stock continues to take a beating for the fourth day in a row, as the company has lost its second-biggest customer, US firm Target, amid accusations of using cheaper cotton in its products over the last two years. Other clients including Walmart are now investigating Welspun-supplied products. Firstpost 
• In an effort to revive sales growth, Flipkart has put a representative of one of its largest investors, Tiger Global, in charge of more departments within the company. Flipkart is facing increasing pressure from investors to cut losses as it faces the Amazon onslaught. LiveMint
• Photo of the Day: A penguin jumps off the scales during the annual weigh-in of the animals at the London Zoo. Neil Hall/Reuters