Mumbai: The rupee declined 25 paise to hit a fresh 16-month low of 68.29 per dollar in early trade on Wednesday ahead of the minutes of US Federal Reserve's last policy meet scheduled to be released later in the day.

The greenback strengthened against most global currencies as investors await hints on the pace of further US monetary tightening amid sustained capital outflows, forex dealers said.

Total expenses rose 13.8 per cent to 646.21 billion rupees, while income from operations rose 13 per cent to 663.51 billion rupees.

State-owned refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd on Tuesday posted a nearly 4 percent fall in fourth-quarter net profit, hurt by higher expenses.

Reliance Communications on Tuesday said it has moved appellate tribunal NCLAT challenging the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) decision on beginning insolvency proceedings against it on a plea filed by Swedish telecom equipment major Ericsson.

Anil Ambani-run RCom's plea is expected to be heard by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in the coming week.

NEW DELHI: Equity markets on Wednesday once again got off to a negative start as Sensex and Nifty were losing 0.20 per cent in early trade, a day after the Street managed to shrug off a five-day losing street.

30-share BSE Sensex opened with a minor 5-point gain but failed to hold on to it and was down more than 50 points at 9.30 am. The broader 50-share NSE Nifty too was in the red, testing the psychological mark of 10,500.

NEW DELHI: Tata Motors would soon scrap its first passenger car platform Indica and Indigo sedan, two decades after it helped the company launch into the booming car market, as the models have lost appeal with consumers being lured by trendier ones sold by its rivals.

A Tata Motors dealer said, “The company has stopped the production of both the cars and it is now supplying the last few cars.”

Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey on Tueday said the government could decide against selling state-run Air India if it does not get "adequate" price for it.

"The government has the right to sale or not to sale Air India if the bid price is found to be inadequate," Choubey told reporters here, even as he expressed confidence that ailing airline will fetch a good price.

Tight security arrangements are in place for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's scheduled visit to Odisha on May 26 to mark completion of four years of his government, officials said.

Modi is scheduled to address a public meeting at the historic Baliyatra ground to Cuttack.

Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu: As many as 9 people were killed on Tuesday and 20 others injured in Tamil Nadu's Tuticorin, as a protest against Vedanta's Sterlite Copper unit, going on for 100 days since the company announced its plans to invest Rs 25 billion in doubling the capacity of its existing facility to 800,000 tonnes per annum, turned violent. The protesters claim that the plant is causing harm to its employees and increasing the capacity of the plant would aggravate the problems.

Mumbai: The markets shrugged off SBI’s massive quarterly loss after the bank’s chairman, Rajnish Kumar, said the worst on bad loans was behind the lender. The bank’s stock went up 3.7 per cent. While some financial parameters worsened, other key data points showed an improvement.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is probing suspected insider trading by some institutional investors and other regulatory lapses at Fortis Healthcare amid a takeover battle and boardroom upheaval at the hospital chain, officials said.

Apart from the Sebi probe that also includes investigation into suspected disclosure lapses, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and registrar of companies are also looking into alleged financial irregularities at Fortis and other promoter group entities including Religare, they added.

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