Mumbai Market benchmark BSE Sensex extended losses for the third straight day by shedding over 66 points in early trade today on selling by domestic institutional investors and foreign funds amid mixed Asian cues.

Also, selling pressure in oil & gas, FMCG, metal, PSU, bank and power stocks amid a depreciating rupee to weighed on market sentiment.

Global software major Infosys on Thursday said it will soon open a technology and innovation hub in the US state of Connecticut and hire about 1,000 American workers by 2022. “We will open our next technology and innovation hub at Harford in Connecticut and hire 1,000 American workers in the state by 2022,” said the IT major in a statement here.

The tax rates under the Goods and Services Bill are among the world's second highest, said World Bank in its report.

The GST was implemented by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government on July 1, 2017.

Wipro, India's third largest IT services firm, has signed a definitive agreement to divest its hosted data centre business to Illinois-based hybrid IT services provider Ensono for $405 million (Rs 26.26 bn). The data centre business of the company consists of Wipro Data Centre and Cloud Services, Inc in the US and a portion of datacenter business in Germany and the UK.

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has developed refining processes that may help it save at least $1.5 billion in costs as well as challenge global giants in the technology-leasing business. The state-run company, which controls nearly half of the country’s refineries, has created its own processes using catalysts and hydro-cracking to convert crude oil into fuels such as gasoline, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas, according to the company’s head of research & development. That means it won’t have to license technology anymore from the likes of major manufacturing companies such as Honeywell International.

Yes Bank Ltd on Tuesday acquired more than 17 percent stake in Fortis Healthcare Ltd post invocation of pledge on the equity shares subsequent to default by the promoters group companies. 89,781,906 equity shares were acquired i.e. 17.31 percent of the paid up share capital of Fortis Healthcare Ltd, having nominal value of Rs 10 per share, Yes Bank said in a regulatory filing to exchanges.

A leading global payments and technology company will provide its Indian customers cutting edge innovations to help them tackle rapidly growing online frauds, a top company official has said. Mastercard’s Executive Vice President for Asia Pacific Rama Sridhar said artificial intelligence, biometric, authentication were among other risk-assessing and managing solutions being used to tackle frauds across the globe including in India.

Two-wheeler major TVS Motor expects sales of its Apache series of motorcycles to hit 500,000 units at the end of this fiscal. This would translate into a 25 per cent growth in volume sales over the previous year. The company launched its new Apache RTR 160 4v on Wednesday.

"This (premium motorcycle) industry is growing very fast. We are estimating to sell 500,000 units in the Apache series, which is a growth of around 25 per cent," said K N Radhakrishnan, president and chief executive officer, TVS Motor Company.

Markets regulator Sebi is considering linking retail investors' exposure to derivatives with their income, a move aimed at preventing them from taking unreasonable positions in risky instruments.

The issue is expected to be discussed at the board meeting of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) this month, officials said.

Even as HDFC Bank, India's largest bank by market capitalisation, banned its customers from using debit, credit and prepaid cards to purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, stakeholders in the crypto universe are not unduly bothered by the move.

In an email sent out to customers on March 13, the bank noted that "the Reserve Bank of India has also cautioned the public regarding the potential economic, operational, legal and security related risks associated in dealing with such currencies".

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