Union Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said the Central government is fully committed to media freedom.

"The government is fully committed to freedom of the press as well as to maintaining security and sanctity of Aadhaar for India's development," Prasad tweeted a day after various press bodies condemned the lodging of an FIR against a Tribune reporter who exposed Aadhaar data's vulnerability.

State-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp, and Hindustan Petroleum Corp are looking for a solution to the high card transaction fees for petrol and diesel purchases.

OMCs want banks to cut the card transaction fees on petrol and diesel purchases by half, Livemint reported while citing four people aware of the development.

With foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) continuing to buy Indian bonds and stocks, the rupee could strengthen further, hitting levels of 63 to the greenback, say market watchers. On Friday, the local currency touched a near-three-year high to close at 63.37 against the dollar. While the immediate reason for the rupee’s strength is the weakening of the greenback, over the past year foreign inflows of more than $30 billion into the equity and debt markets saw the rupee steadily strengthen against the dollar, notching up gains of over 7%. Close to $25 billion came in by way of FDI equity flows between April and September 2017.

Global research firm CLSA reiterated its bullishness on the shares of India’s second-largest software exporter Infosys, and upped its target price on the shares to Rs 1,230 from Rs 1,140 earlier. Infosys shares were trading at Rs 1,025.55 on NSE this morning, up by more than 1.3%. CLSA’s target price implies an upside of more than 20% from the current market prices. “Infosys just saw through one of its worst recent years but the company has the potential of completing strategic retooling and improve capital allocation,” CLSA said in its report.

A parliamentary panel report has revealed that Complimentary passes, less occupancies in Indian Railways luxurious traons including Maharaja's Express and Palace on the wheels are negatively impacting Railwats' balance sheets.

According to the Panel's report, Free passes to luxurious trains are among one of the most problematic reasons due to which losses have been incurred to the Indian Railways.

Baba Ramdev owned Patanjali has been planning to make a stronger online presence to sell its product on the digital platform. According to a PTI report, Patanjali Ayurved is likely to partner with eight leading etailers and aggregators to give a big push to online sales of its swadeshi range of FMCG products, a company official told the news agency.

Throwing a spanner in the government’s plans to privatise Air India, parliamentary panel on transport, tourism and culture has recommended that the national carrier should be given at least five years to revive and write-off its debt. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture concluded that the government should review its decision to privatise or disinvest Air India and explore the possibility of “an alternative to disinvestment of our national carrier which is our national pride”, reported PTI.

India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki is all set to unveil its new design concept and come Auto Expo the company will showcase its Concept FutureS, an all new compact car design language. From the looks of the it the new concept is a uniquely styled compact car with aggressive styling and expect SUV stance and characteristic s on this compact car which is likely to be sub-4-meter. In a statement, Maruti Suzuki said, "compact is beautiful, #ConceptFutureS beautifully carries forward this Suzuki slogan and creates its own positioning by breaking away from the conventional proportions of a compact car."

Key indices on Monday touched lifetime high in opening trade on huge profits in IT and banking shares. The gains come ahead of the optimistic wave over quarterly earnings by profits.

The 30-share Sensex soared by 178 points, or 0.52 per cent, to 34,331.85 points, breaching its previous record high (intra-day) of 34,188.85 hit on January 5.

Domestic and newer credit-rating agencies (CRAs) have said certain practices in the industry need to be addressed even as the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sought to streamline the processes and create a level playing field.

On December 28 last year, after its final board meeting for 2017, Sebi amended the regulations related to CRAs in the country.

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