The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday made a record of sorts as it took up all the Zero Hour issues and special mentions listed in the agenda for that period, Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu said.

“The Rajya Sabha today made a history. For the first time, all Zero Hour submissions, all Special Mentions were fully completed,” said Mr. Naidu amid thumping of desks by members in the House of Elders.

Bharti Airtel's fightback against its rival Reliance Jio continues. The company has come with an impressive revision in its Rs 799 plan for its prepaid subscribers.

The revised plan offers 3.5GB 3G/4G data per day, however, the plan restricts the unlimited calls, and puts a cap of 250 minutes per day and 1,000 minutes for one week for both local and STD calls.

Suzuki Motorcycle India Pvt Ltd (SMIPL) on Tuesday reported 50.16 per cent rise in December total sales at 39,786 units.

The company had sold 26,495 units in December 2016, SMIPL said in a statement.

Domestic sales stood at 32,786 units last month as against 21,362 units in December 2016, a growth of 53.47 per cent.

A demand to frame a strict law to discourage begging was made in the Rajya Sabha today.

Shwait Malik (BJP), through a Zero Hour mention, said begging has become a menace, with visitors also being hounded.

A strict law should be framed to discourage begging, he said, adding that those indulging in begging and were healthy, should take up jobs of labourers or guards and not beg.

Pakistan-based international terrorist Hafiz Saeed has openly called for Jihad against the US and even urged the Pakistani authorities to use the country’s nuclear bombs for this purpose. Saeed’s threats came on a day when US president Donald Trump denounced Pakistan’s years of “lies and Deceit” openly on the social media. “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.

Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland were trading higher by 3% each, recovering from their respective intra-day lows, after they reported a strong set of sales numbers in December 2017.

Tata Motors was up 3% at Rs 439, its highest level since November 10, 2017 on the BSE, after the company’s commercial and passenger vehicles domestic sales grew 52% at 54,627 units in December.

Oil prices posted their strongest opening to a year since 2014 on Tuesday, with crude rising to mid-2015 highs amid large anti-government rallies in Iran and ongoing supply cuts led by OPEC and Russia.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $60.61 a barrel at 0423 GMT, up 19 cents, or 0.3 per cent, after hitting $60.73 earlier in the day, the highest since June 2015.

Rejecting the reports that the subscription for the eight percent Savings Bonds Scheme will be closed on Tuesday, the Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg on Tuesday said the government will not end the existing scheme but replace it with 7.75 percent Savings Bonds Scheme.

Shares of two Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Group companies - L&T Infotech (LTI) and L&T Technology Services (LTTS) – hit their respective 52-week highs by rallying 7% each on the BSE in intra-day trade in an otherwise subdued market.

LTI, a global technology consulting and digital solutions company, rallied 7% to Rs 1,229, while LTTS which focuses on engineering and R&D (ER&D) services, too surged 7% to Rs 1,141 on the BSE. At 11:08 AM; the S&P BSE Sensex was up marginally by 0.05% at 33,829 points.

State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, made a whopping Rs 17.7 billion in charges levied on customers failing to maintain their minimum monthly average balance during the April-November 2017 period, according to media reports quoting finance ministry data.

Annual growth in the bank’s revenue on this count cannot be arrived at as SBI had collected no money from customers for not maintaining average balance during the comparable period in 2016.

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