In any other year, this month would have been the occasion to wonder if ITC Ltd would face a hike in duties on cigarettes in the Budget. Under the goods and services tax (GST), that has changed as the rate fixing decision now rests with the GST Council. Not that it has made life easier for ITC. The surprise hike in cess on cigarettes in July has hit ITC’s performance for the second quarter now.

Bengaluru: Wipro Ltd’s chief executive officer (CEO) Abidali Neemuchwala says his nearly two-year effort to bring about a turnaround at India’s third largest information technology (IT) company is almost complete and it is just a matter of time before the Bengaluru-based firm starts reporting industry-matching growth.

Automotive electricals manufacturer Lucas TVS will launch traction motors designed for electric vehicles by next year in what the 55-year-old TVS Group company believes is a key de-risking strategy to align with the global transition towards electric vehicles.

The company will set up a trial production line dedicated to its EV journey inside one of its seven plants, with room to scale up, based on demand.

MUMBAI: State Bank of India (SBI) will be hiring nearly 9,500 junior assistants for customer support and sales functions. This is one of the largest recruitment drives by the lender since 2013.

It comes at a time when the bank's employee headcount has gone down by over 10,000 during the current fiscal owing to attrition and a voluntary retirement scheme following the merger of associate banks with itself.

The key stock indices Sensex and Nifty jumped to new highs in early session on foreign fund inflows and persistent buying in bluechips like RIL that posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings.

The 30-share index rose by 152.43 points, or 0.42 per cent, to hit a new high of 35,664.01, surpassing its previous intra-day record of 35,542.17 hit on Friday (January 19).

The Indian rupee neared 64 level against US dollar on Monday after falling as much as 14 paise in the early trades. The Indian rupee lost 14 paise against US dollar at 63.9987 against the US dollar at the interbank foreign exchange market on Monday. The domestic currency lost 5 paise in the opening session to start the day at 63.89 apiece US dollar on Monday. The Reserve Bank of India had fixed the reference rate of the rupee at 63.7183 against the US dollar on Friday.

Global brokerages Jefferies and CLSA cheered for the shares of Reliance Industries, after India’s most valued company by market capitalization reported a 25% increase in quarterly profit, beating analysts’ estimates, buoyed by profits from Reliance Jio and petrochemical business. Consolidated net profit rose to Rs 9,423 crore in the quarter ended December from Rs 7,533 crore for the comparable period last fiscal. Notably, revenue rose to Rs 1.1 lakh crore, an increase of 30.5% from Rs 84,189 crore last fiscal, on account of doubling of sales in retail operations and the addition of Reliance Jio’s numbers.

The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India plans to introduce around four new products in the next 12 to 18 months to build further on five years of successive double digit sales growth.

The company expects to close the ongoing fiscal with double digit sales growth. Its sales in the domestic market during the April-December period grew by 15.5 per cent at 12,26,418 units as against 10,61,873 units in the year-ago period.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has surged 6% to Rs 206 on BSE in early morning trade after the state-owned oil exploration company announced that it will acquire the 51.1% government stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) at a cost of Rs 369.15 billion.

ONGC will acquire the government stake in HPCL by paying Rs 473.97 per share which works out to a 14% premium to HPCL’s closing market price of Rs 417 on Friday, 19 January.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday leave for Davos, Switzerland to attend the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

The Prime Minister will be accompanied by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu among others.

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