In a rare collaboration, Microsoft and Amazon have come to an agreement wherein Cortana users will have access to Alexa and vice-versa. According to a report in the New York Times, the two rival tech firms have been coordinating behind the scenes for the past year to make artificial intelligent assistants Alexa and Cortana communicate with each other. The partnership will allow people to summon Cortana using Alexa, and vice versa, by the end of the year. In simpler words, someone using an Alexa device will have to say “Alexa, open Cortana” to get to talk to Microsoft’s digital assistant, and someone using Cortana will have to say “Cortana, open Alexa” to talk to Amazon’s.

Shares of NTPC slipped over 2% on Thursday following a dull response from the retail investors to its planned Rs 14,000 offer for sale. The government’s stake sale of up to Rs 14,000 crore in the India’s biggest power producer NTPC was subscribed for only 73% by the retail investors of the quota allocated to them of the extended issue including greenshoe option. Initially, the government was intended to sell over 41.22 to 82.44 crore shares which can raise up to Rs 7,000 to Rs 14,000 crore at a floor price of Rs 168 per share, through the two-day offer for sale (OFS), including a greenshoe option to sell a further 5% equity in case of over-subscription.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to spend a record $60 billion on infrastructure this fiscal year has started trickling into company earnings, giving analysts a reason to turn optimistic about Indian construction stocks. Larsen & Toubro Ltd., the nation’s largest engineering firm, has rallied 27 percent this year, beating the benchmark gauge which has risen 19 percent. Gayatri Projects Ltd. and KNR Constructions Ltd., which build roads, and Simplex Infrastructures Ltd. have also surged.

Demonetisation has caused net loss to RBI’s seigniorage — the profit accruing from currency issuances and liquidity operations — besides increasing the cost of printing notes, says an SBI Research report. On November 8 last year, the government had banned old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in an attempt to weed out black money in the country. The old notes were allowed to be deposited in banks, with unusual deposits coming under income tax scrutiny.

“The demonetisation exercise has resulted in net loss of seigniorage to the RBI,” SBI’s research report Ecowrap said.

KOLKATA: Vodafone India and Idea Cellular appear to be trying to rapidly conform to the subscriber market share cap rules as their merger process gathers speed after recent key clearances, analysts said, pointing to their combined loss of 3.7 million customers in July.

The country’s No. 2 carrier Vodafone India lost nearly 1.4 million customers last month, while No. 3 Idea lost over 2.3 million, according data collated by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Aiming to tap the digitally savvy customers, country’s largest car maker on Wednesday announced a revamp of its retail network across India with a new brand name -- Maruti Suzuki Arena.

The new showrooms will be a part of Maruti Suzuki India’s "Transformation 2.0 initiative" and is part of the company’s strategy to meet its target of selling two million cars by 2020.

At least seven people were killed and 15 others were injured after a ground plus five-storey Hussain building collapsed in South Mumbai on Thursday morning.

The incident took place at around 8:30 am in Bhendi Bazar area. At least 20 more people are feared to be trapped under the debris.

Fresh from winning its biggest defense contract in May, Larsen & Toubro Ltd. is planning to bid for $28 billion of orders including warships and submarines in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi breaks with tradition to embrace private, local suppliers. India’s new defense purchase policy that allows non-state local firms to compete for orders from the military is helping the nation’s biggest engineering firm to become more ambitious, Jayant Patil, head of Larsen’s defense business, said in an interview. The company is building on its success with a $700 million order for artillery guns in May, unprecedented in size for a local contractor, he said.

India's third-largest software services firm Wipro today said its shareholders have approved the company's Rs 11,000-crore buyback proposal.

Last month, the Bengaluru-based firm had said it will purchase up to 343.75 million shares at Rs 320 ($4.95) per scrip. The total size of the offer will be up to Rs 11,000 crore ($1.7 billion).

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has sent commercial banks a second list of at least 26 defaulters with which it wants creditors to start the process of debt resolution before initiating bankruptcy proceedings, three bankers aware of the development said.

In a letter, the central bank said these accounts should first be resolved through any of RBI’s schemes before 13 December, failing which cases should be filed against these companies under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) before 31 December.

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