News Wrap: RBI cuts repo rate; BJP sweep Delhi civic polls

- In our top story, the Reserve Bank of India cut the repo or repurchase rate by 50 basis points or half a percentage point today- bringing it down from 8.5 percent to 8 percent.

The RBI mandated that all banks would have to abolish pre-payment penalties on home loans on a floating interest rate basis.

More detail and a reaction from C Rangarajan, who is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister in the bulletin.

- The BJP appears to be heading for an emphatic victory over the Congress in all three Municipal zones in the Delhi civic polls. The elections were the first since the trifurcation of the massive civic body by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

Of the 128 results declared by State Election Commission out of 272 wards in all three corporations, The BJP has bagged 68 seats while Congress has won 40.

We have a clip of BJP Leader Vijender Gupta, who believes that this is the end of the Congress chapter in Delhi.

- British telecom company Vodafone Group confirms that it has served the Indian government with a notice of dispute regarding India’s proposal to retrospectively tax overseas transactions. Vodafone said in a statement that the 2012 finance bill proposals violated international legal protections granted to Vodafone and other foreign investors in India.

In a thinly veiled threat, they also said that if the government would not do so, they would take whatever steps were necessary to protect shareholder interests, including beginning treaty arbitration proceedings.

- Over to world news, and Anders Breivik justified his massacre of 77 people in Norway, insisting he would do it again. He called the bomb-and-shooting rampage the most “spectacular” attack by a nationalist militant since World War II.

- In sport, big big clash tonight as Bayern Munich host Real Madrid in the Champions League. We have in depth features on the same on our website. Also not to forget is all the live IPL action. You can follow updates of all the games on our website .

- The new iPad will be available in India from 27 April, a month after it started selling the latest version in 10 countries including the United States. The device is priced between Rs 30,500 and Rs 50,900 depending on the variant.