New Delhi: Coal India Ltd’s sales rose to a record in January as customers of the world’s biggest producer of the fuel continued to refill their inventories.

The miner, which accounts for more than 80% of India’s coal production, has increased output year-on-year every month since August, helping power plants, its biggest customers, replenish their inventories.

Dilip Pawar, president of the Bajaj Auto labour union, Vishwa Kalyan Kamgaar Sanghatana (VKKS), on Friday withdrew his indefinite hunger strike after the company agreed to extend the wage hike given to the workers at Chakan to the staff of Akurdi plant.

Pawar’s hunger strike had entered the fifth day on Friday.

The country’s largest mobile broadband services provider, Reliance Jio, topped the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) 4G mobile data speed test in November, its 11th consecutive month at the pole position.

Jio clocked mobile data speed (download) of 25.6 Mbps during November, which is also its highest so far in 2017 calendar year, the latest Trai data showed.

Buoyed by an impressive performance on M&HCV sales as well exports, Hinduja group flagship Ashok Leyland (ALL) has reported a 178% growth in its profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 to Rs 449.71 crore, compared with Rs 161.72 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.

Analysts expected the company to report a profit of Rs 407 crore.

Cryptocurrencies plunged on Friday, with bitcoin at one point sliding below $8,000 and headed for its biggest weekly loss since December 2013, amid worries about a regulatory clampdown globally. The currencies have come off their lows but analysts said the sell-off was probably not over. This week’s slump brought the total market value of cryptocurrencies down to around $400 billion, half the high it reached in January, according to industry tracker Coinmarketcap.com.

Amazon.com Inc’s shares surged on Friday, pushing its stock market value above $700 billion and threatening to eclipse Microsoft Corp, a day after the online retailing behemoth reported blockbuster results. Amazon’s stock was up 3.7 percent at $1,441 per share in afternoon trade, on track for a record high close and putting its market capitalization at $701 billion. The stock traded as high as $1,498. Microsoft fell 2.2 percent to $92.97, trimming its market capitalization to about $711 billion.

NEW DELHI: Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd has offered its Nigrie power project to NTPC for acquisition while State Bank of India has proposed stake sale in three stressed plants of Bajaj Lalitpur, Jaypee Infratech and Jindal India Thermal to the state-run firm.

NTPC had invited bids from promoters, lenders and financial intermediaries offering their domestic coal-based power plants in November last year.

Investors wealth was today eroded by Rs 4.6 lakh crore amid massive selling in the stock market where the BSE benchmark index plummeted 840 points. The 30-share Sensex crashed 839.91 points, or 2.34 percent, to end the day at 35,066.75. Following the sharp decline in stocks, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies tumbled Rs 4,58,581.38crore to Rs 148,54,452 crore.

Daimler's new Mercedes A-Class, unveiled on Friday, includes the German automaker's own machine-learning and voice recognition technology in one of the industry's boldest attempts so far to take on Silicon Valley's finest.

The Mercedes "MBUX" dashboard system to be rolled out across the lineup is about as capable at understanding what you say - and more importantly what you mean - as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri or Alphabet's Google Assistant.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday once again cancelled its scheduled auction of dated securities, signalling its discomfort with yields.

The cancellation of Rs 110 billion worth of bonds was a good enough reason for the 10-year bond yields to cool down by a steep 17 basis points from its day's highs. The yields topped 7.67 per cent at noon and then corrected to 7.50 per cent by the afternoon after rumours of potential secondary market bond purchases by the RBI, but the yields rose again to close at 7.56 per cent.

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