Facebook-owned WhatsApp has reported that during the 24 hours leading up to midnight on New Year's Eve, over 20 billion messages were sent via the private messaging app in India alone.

WhatsApp has over 400 million users in India.

Worldwide, a record-breaking 100 billion messages were sent via the private messaging app on New Year's Eve.

The official announcement of the allocation of portfolios to newly-inducted ministers will be done by Friday evening as per the sources.

As per the sources, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is likely to get a finance portfolio whereas first time Cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray will have Environment and Tourism portfolios in the newly formed coalition government.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal said on Friday that it would not change its judgment in the Tata Sons matter but it will however, clarify that Mumbai Registrar of Companies was only following the order of NCLT in conversion of the company from public to private entity.

The RoC counsel told the Tribunal the judgment was highly critical of the RoC and deems them to have done illegal acts whereas they were merely following orders of the NCLT while converting the company from public to private.

The DMK continued to extend its gains in the rural local body polls over the ruling AIADMK, winning 100 seats for the post of district panchayat ward members as of 9.30 a.m. on Friday. The AIADMK had won 70 out of 191 seats announced. There are a total of 515 seats in this category.

The counting process which was slow on Thursday, which State Election Commissioner R. Palaniswamy attributed to a “transparent” process, had picked up pace at night.

Shares of FDC hit a 52-week high of Rs 222 on the BSE after rallying 5 per cent in intra-day trade on Friday in an otherwise range-bound market after the drug company received good manufacturing practice (GMP) certificate from UK drug regulator for its Goa plant. The stock surpassed its previous high of Rs 220, recorded on May 27, 2019.

The Company has received GMP certificate and it continues with its approved status from UK MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency), for two of its Oral solid Dosage form facilities situated at L-56/57 and L-121 in Verna, Goa, FDC said in an exchange filing.

The pace of year on year growth in commercial bank credit more than halved to 7.1 per cent at end fortnight (December 20, 2019) from 15.11 per cent a year ago, data released by the Reserve Bank of India revealed.

Between December 6 and December 20, lenders disbursed Rs 12,519 crore, taking outstanding of scheduled commercial Rs 99.47 trillion, according to Reserve Bank of India data.

Shares of information technology (I-T) companies surged on Friday, buoyed by a fall in Indian Rupee against the US dollar after a key Iranian and Iraqi military personnel were killed by a US airstrike that sent the oil prices soaring.

Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed early on Friday in an air strike on their convoy at Baghdad airport, Reuters reported.

Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are "mostly political" and insisted that no Indian will lose her nationality because of the legislation.

Shah also challenged Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to show one clause in the CAA under which anyone is going to lose Indian citizenship.

A group of Amazon.com employees who pushed the company to combat climate change say Amazon has threatened to fire some of them if they continue to speak out about their employer’s internal affairs.

Two were threatened with termination, a spokesperson for Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said, and a total of four were told in meetings that they were in violation of the company’s policies on workers speaking to the press and on social media.

Peninsula Land Ltd, a real estate company promoted by Ashok Piramal Group, has defaulted on repayment of a loan from the State Bank of India (SBI).

The default of Rs 2.35 crore happened on November 30, 2019 on term loan of Rs 177.7 crore. The default is on payment of interest and principal component of the loan. The rate of interest is 9.95 per cent, according to company's filing with exchanges.

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