NEW DELHI: The equity markets followed suit with the last two days of trading, as both Sensex and Nifty opened firmly in the green.

30-share BSE Sensex jumped 41.36 points to open on 33,889.39 while the broader 50-share NSE Nifty started trading on 10,492.35, up by 14.45 points. Sensex extended gains in the first 30 minutes of trading with the index surging by more than 100 points. Nifty too saw an uptick as the broader index was up by more than 0.30 per cent at 9.50 am.

NEW DELHI: On Friday, finance minister Arun Jaitley will convene a meeting with financial sector regulators to chalk out decisions to be made for the Union Budget 2018. Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) is a high-powered body, whose members include RBI Governor, Sebi Chairman, IRDAI chief and heads of other regulatory bodies. Besides, top Finance Ministry officials would be attending the meeting.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of government deciding to borrow an extra Rs 50,000 crore from the market, a move that has raised alarms of a fiscal slippage.

Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Friday was trading marginally higher against US dollar, tracking gains in its Asian peers.

The rupee opened at 64.07 a dollar. At 9.15am, the home currency was trading at 64.03 a dollar, up 0.08% from its Thursday’s close of 64.08.

In response to news reports that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will have to defend itself in the US in an anti-American bias case, the company said there are no discriminatory practices in any part of the company, and it is confident of defending its position at the trial. “In vindication of our position that TCS is an equal opportunity employer, the District Court in California has denied class certification on a litigation against the company alleging a pattern and practice of discrimination in hiring against people of non-South Asian origin.

SBI has introduced a special leave for employees who have suffered a bereavement in the family. This will be a one-week paid leave on the loss of a family member.

SBI deputy MD Prashant Kumar said that besides leave, the bank also took a decision to provide 75% subsidy on mediclaim premium for retired employees earning pension up to Rs 20,000. For those earning Rs 20,000-30,000 pension, the subsidy would be 60%. The bank has also expanded scope of mediclaim cover for employees' family to 100% of claimed amount as against 75% earlier.

Shares of Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications (RCom) zoomed 35% to Rs 41.77, also its 52-week high on the BSE in early morning trade after Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio said it will acquire RCom's mobile business assets including spectrum, mobile towers and optical fibre network of the company. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the stock rallied 30% to Rs 40.15 in intra-day trade.

"Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, today announced signing of definitive agreement for the acquisition of specified assets of Reliance Communications Limited and its affiliates," Reliance Jio said in a statement.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday said exchanges would be allowed to deal in both equities and commodities from October 2018, a move that would benefit the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the BSE, and the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), which currently trade in either of the two categories.

The capital markets regulator also announced easier access norms for foreign investors and capped cross-holdings in credit rating agencies (CRAs) as well as mutual funds (MFs) to safeguard investors’ interest.

MANGALURU: Slowdown in economy coupled with high stress level in the banking sector is expected to restrict credit growth at around 8 per cent during the current fiscal despite government's thrust on loan expansion, reveals the ASSOCHAM study.

However, this would be slightly better than the five decade low growth of 5.1 per cent in non-food credit recorded for the financial year ended March 2017.

NEW DELHI: For the second day in row, the equity markets witnessed profit booking towards the fag end of the trading session as the benchmark indices could not hold on to the gains made through the day.

30-share BSE Sensex lost 63.78 points to close on 33,848.03 while the broader 50-share NSE Nifty finished on 10,477.90, losing 12.85 points.

Telecom operators have gone all out to tackle the Reliance Jio freebie juggernaut that has taken the country’s fancy. Now, after Vodafone and Airtel, Idea Cellular has come up with a massive new plan. The company has upgraded its Rs 309 plan and will now offer its users 1.5 GB data per day. Previously, Idea was giving 1GB daily data at the same price. This means that in 28 days, which is the validity of the pack, the company will offer a total of 42GB instead.

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