India and Oman have signed eight agreements, including on cooperation in the field of defence, health and tourism, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held wide-ranging talks with the Sultan of the country.

Modi, who arrived here from Dubai on the last leg of his three-nation tour, led delegation-level talks yesterday with Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said.

A mid-air disaster was averted in the Mumbai airspace when a Vistara aircraft came perilously close to an Air India plane, prompting the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) to launch a probe.

On February 7, the Vistara's UK 997 Pune-bound aircraft from Delhi, carrying 152 passengers, was just 100 feet away from the Air India's AI 631 flight for Bhopal which had 109 passengers on board.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was trading 3% higher at Rs 195 on BSE in early morning trade after reporting a strong operating performance led by higher gas volume and oil realization for the quarter ended December 2017 (Q3FY18).

The company’s natural gas production saw an increase of 4.2% during the quarter under review to 6.277 billion cubic meter (BCM) as against 6.025 bcm during the same quarter in 2016.

Bank of Baroda has rallied 7% to Rs 166 on BSE in intra-day trade after an improved operating performance in December quarter (Q3FY18).

The state-owned bank said its operating profit was Rs 36.50 billion during quarter ended Dec’17, thereby registering year-on-year (YoY) growth of 40.66%, driven by growth both in interest and fee income. The bank’s domestic credit registered YoY growth of 16.38% driven by retail loans growth of 33.37% and within retail loans, home loan growth of 44.33%.

The Reserve Bank will soon have greater flexibility in terms of managing its liquidity operations with the addition of one more tool 'Standing Deposit Facility Scheme' to its kit.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget has proposed to amend the RBI Act to empower the central bank to come up with an additional instrument for liquidity management.

The country's largest lender SBI wrote off bad loans worth Rs 203.39 billion in 2016-17, the highest among all the public sector banks, which had a collective write off of Rs 816.83 billion for the financial year.

The data pertains to the period when the associate banks of State Bank of India (SBI) were not merged with it.

Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday said that they rely on India's role for peace in the region as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ramallah.

President Abbas received Modi, who is the first Indian Prime Minister to make an official visit to Palestine, in the official ceremony at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah before starting official talks.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today exuded confidence that there will be no more fiscal slippages as the financial position is likely to be comfortable from the next fiscal. Brushing aside any immediate need to worry about rising global oil prices, Jaitley said an assessment should not be made based on hypothetical situation concerning crude prices as the trend in the last three days has been the opposite (with prices falling again). He added that at this stage he was not worried about any slippages on the fiscal front.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is a worried man these days as girls have started consuming alcohol.

RBI Governor Urjit Patel on Saturday said the stock market bubble should not "lead to a very major problem" even has he stressed on the need for the regulators to be cognisant of the risks going forward.

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