Benchmark stock indices opened on a negative note on Friday following weak global cues after the US Federal Reserve left key interest rates on hold last night, but hinted a rate hike next month.

The BSE Sensex was trading 114.08 points, or 0.32 per cent, lower at 35,123.60. It had dropped 226.45 points in opening trade.

Amazon is betting big to sell its voice-activated artificial intelligence assistant Alexa in the country and woo Indian consumers. The online retail giant said that Alexa had acquired 20,000 skills such as telling cricket score, conducting quizzes and doing utilities to serve Indian customers since last October when it launched Alexa-powered Amazon Echo line of speakers in the country.

That a large part of NTPC’s reported under-recoveries of Rs210 crore in Q2FY19 was due to unavailability of coal exacerbated the coal supply crisis in the country. The company had reported Rs 1,400 crore of under-recovery in FY18, of which Rs800 crore was due to coal shortage.

The company’s net profit slipped 1.1% year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs2,417.6 crore in the quarter. Fuel stock at NTPC’s power plants remains low with current coal stock of 3.7 MT from a high of 6.9 MT.

Tightening its fist on project financing, the road ministry, which aims to construct 30 per cent more roads each day this year, will focus on executing contracts where all requisite clearances are in place. Now, its construction wing — the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) — is focusing on judiciously planning its expenditure for the current financial year.

The Donald Trump administration wants to make changes in the existing H-1B provisions for it to play a better role in attracting highly skilled foreign workers as opposed to the what it has now evolved into an "outsourcing" role, the White House said Thursday.

"The president's overall instinct -- and he said this publicly a number of times -- he wants to find ways to make sure that people who graduate in a highly skilled area like technology stay in the country.

Market regulator Sebi has barred Narendra Singh Tanwar, proprietor of Capital True Financial Services, from acting as an investment adviser in order to prevent him from further misleading investors on false pretense.

The market watchdog has also restrained Tanwar from diverting any funds raised from investors until further orders. Also, he has been directed to submit a list of clients and fee collected from them to Sebi within 21 days.

Activists blame government for opening up green belt for commercial use. After a series of land diversions in the Aarey forest in the last few decades, more applications are coming up for land allotments from private organisations and government.

Documents obtained by this newspaper under the RTI Act show that Larsen and Toubro has asked for land for a labour camp in Aarey.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has launched an alternate digital KYC process for issuing new connections across various circles, a top official has said. The telecom PSU has informed the Department of Telecom (DoT) about the new system which has been rolled out, Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI. “We have conveyed that we have launched the new system across all our circles and it has stabilised,” Shrivastava said.

Management consultant and author Kate Zabriskie hit the nail on the head when she said: The customer’s perception is your reality.

In the digital age, an organization's biggest challenge is its customer. More specifically, it’s the way customer expectations are changing rapidly.

BENGALURU: Shriram Properties has raised Rs 125 crore from non-banking financial arm of LIC Housing Finance to develop a residential project in Bengaluru.

The funds will be used to construct Shriram Greenfield, a two-million sq ft residential project being developed across two phases in Whitefield, Bengaluru.

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