Embattled Jet Airways halted all flight operations indefinitely on Wednesday after its lenders rejected its plea for emergency funds, potentially bringing the curtains down on what was once India’s largest private airline, Reuters reported. The carrier, saddled with roughly $1.2 billion of bank debt, has been teetering for weeks after failing to receive a stop-gap loan of about $217 million from its lenders, as part of a rescue deal agreed in late March.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) on Tuesday invited comments from stakeholders on “pre-packaged” insolvency resolution and insolvency resolution for group companies among other issues related to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy (Application to Adjudicating Authority) Rules, 2016, the Indian Express reported. In March this year, the government had reconstituted the Insolvency Law Committee as a standing committee, chaired by MCA Secretary Injeti Srinivas, to analyse the functioning and implementation of IBC.

Jet Airways pilots announced on Sunday that they would go on strike over unpaid salaries, heaping more pressure on the cash-strapped Indian carrier to find a new owner to bail it out, the Financial Times reported. The airline is saddled with more than $1.2bn debt and has not been able to pay pilots their salaries for over three months. It left passengers around the world stranded on Thursday when it cancelled its international flights. The carrier is down to fewer than 10 operational aeroplanes out of a fleet of 123, raising fears of an imminent shutdown.

ArcelorMittal’s plan to buy a bankrupt Indian steel company for $6 billion was halted temporarily by the nation’s top court, further delaying tycoon Lakshmi Mittal’s efforts to enter the world’s second-biggest market, Bloomberg News reported. The Supreme Court ruled that Essar Steel India Ltd.’s current status has to be maintained, pending a review by a bankruptcy tribunal hearing appeals related to the sale. The company is currently being managed by a court-appointed administrator.

India will probably see more bank mergers as digital technology transforms the industry and non-bank financing companies seek to avoid a cash crunch, according to a senior official at the nation’s largest lender, Bloomberg News reported. Finance firms that don’t take deposits “need a stable source of capital and banks can help with that,” said Dinesh Kumar Khara, a managing director at State Bank of India who has overseen about 10 mergers. “Banks also want to expand their liabilities and NBFCs can help with that,” he said in an interview.

Faced with high borrowing costs and a sustained shortage of liquidity in India’s money markets, shadow banks are increasingly pitching bonds with high coupon rates to the public, who may not be aware of the risks they’re taking on, Bloomberg News reported. Still roiling from the shock of defaults at Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., non-bank financing companies are exploring this relatively expensive funding channel.

In a first, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has constituted an ‘Insolvency Issues Committee’ to examine how it can protect its interest in cases where telecom operators are undergoing insolvency proceedings, BusinessLine reported. The moves comes as two operators – Aircel and Reliance Communications (RCom) – are undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. As per rules under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) rules, DoT is an operational creditor when telecom companies initiate Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP).

Five major stressed power producers are preparing to oppose insolvency proceedings on the grounds that lenders filed petitions against them as per a central bank circular on debt resolution that was recently quashed by the apex court, people familiar with the plans said, The Economic Times reported. The five power projects of Lanco Amarkantak, Avantha Power, KSK Mahanadi, Rattan India Power (Amravati project) and Rattan India Nashik Power (formerly Indiabulls) account for over Rs 50,000 crore of unpaid dues.

The government is soon expected to put in place a framework for insolvency resolution in case of personal guarantors to corporate debtors, and take up the issue of debt resolution in case of proprietorship and partnerships in the second phase, the Indian Express reported. As the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has already finalised the norms for individual bankruptcy resolution in case of personal guarantors, the government is expected to notify these within a month, sources familiar with the matter said.

An entity set up to finance affiliates of Etihad Airways PJSC said Jet Airways India Ltd. has become the third carrier in the group to fall behind on interest payments, Bloomberg News reported. EA Partners I, a vehicle created in 2015 to allow Etihad to provide funds to airlines in which it owned stakes, said in a statement that the Indian carrier failed to make a payment on March 19 on account of "temporary liquidity constraints." Etihad set up two vehicles, EA Partners I and II, which sold $1.2 billion of bonds to raise funds for several airlines.