India's government has signed a deal with the central bank to set formal inflation targets for the first time, seeking to end damaging price volatility in the country of 1.2 billion people.

Rising food prices cause huge hardship for India's millions of poor and central bank governor Raghuram Rajan has made controlling inflation a priority since taking the helm of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), resisting calls to reduce interest rates.

Australia on Tuesday ordered China's Evergrande Real Estate Group to sell a Sydney mansion worth Aus$39 million (U.S.$30 million), saying it was bought illegally under foreign investment rules.

Cashed-up foreigners, many from China, have been blamed for driving up prices in Australian property markets, particularly Sydney and Melbourne, and placing home ownership out of reach of many locals.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates kept his spot as the world's richest man, a rank he has held for 16 of the past 21 years, Forbes magazine said Monday.

The Microsoft co-founder's fortune increased $3.2 billion since last year to $79.2 billion, the business magazine said, despite a $1.5 billion gift of Microsoft shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in November.

Electrical equipment giant Schneider has set up a fund to finance projects aimed at boosting access to energy in sub-Saharan Africa, the French group said Monday.

Some "625 million inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity," Schneider said in a statement announcing the 54.5 million euro ($61 million) Energy Access Ventures Fund.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis called Monday for "intelligent" restructuring of Greece's debt, while acknowledging that a write-down would be unacceptable for the country's creditors.

"A 'haircut' is a dirty word. I've learned that," Varoufakis told the German business daily Handelsblatt. 

The EU said it hoped for a "positive outcome" in talks in Brussels on Monday between the Russian and Ukrainian energy ministers aimed at resolving a gas supply dispute threatening deliveries to Europe.

Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom threatened last week to cut deliveries to Ukraine and divert supplies instead to eastern parts of the country controlled by pro-Kremlin rebels.

Oil prices stabilized in Asia Monday following sharp gains in the previous session as dealers predicted the end of volatile trading and the beaten-down commodity bottoming out, analysts said. 

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for April delivery fell 36 cents to $49.40 while Brent crude eased 41 cents to $62.17 in afternoon trade. 

China's manufacturing activity in February improved more than initially thought, HSBC said Monday, but weakening foreign demand and declining prices signaled the world's second-largest economy still faces multiple woes.

The British bank's final purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the month came in at 50.7, up from its preliminary reading of 50.1 and the highest since July's 51.7, the firm said in a statement.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Sunday called on his Greek counterpart to get "serious" about his country's debt-wracked economy, after Alexis Tsipras accused eurozone partners of undermining its negotiations with Brussels.

Rajoy was reacting to comments by Tsipras on Saturday, who said that during talks that earned Greece a four-month extension to its bailout, pressure from certain other European countries "had the character of blackmail" -- pointing especially to Spain and Portugal.

After unemployment and deflation, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen finds herself in her toughest battle yet, fighting a push by Congress to assert itself over monetary policy.

Newly in control of both houses on Capitol Hill, Republicans accuse the Fed of misguided policies and political bias, saying the world's most powerful central bank is too autonomous and unaccountable.