Buoyed by higher margins from its core refining and petrochemical businesses, oil-to-telecoms conglomerat Reliance Industries today reported a 12.5% increase in second-quarter consolidated net profit at Rs 8,109 crore as compared with last year’s figure of Rs 7,206 crore.

Consolidated revenue increased by 24% to Rs 1,01,169 crore during the quarter ending September as against Rs 81,651 crore in year-ago period.

The Supreme Court, on Friday, referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the matter pertaining to a ban on the entry of women at Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan passed the order.

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court by the Indian Young Lawyers Association challenging the custom of the temple to bar entry of women in the 10-50 age bracket (of menstruating age), saying it was discriminatory. The Kerala High Court had upheld the custom in 1991.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has given the green light to a test championship and one-day international league, while countries are also welcome to experiment with four-day tests, the world governing body said on Friday.

A test championship has long been mooted as a means to make the longest form of the game more relevant for fans who have increasingly turned towards limited-overs matches.

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday released a discussion paper on foreign exchange trading platform for retail participation seeking comments from stakeholders. The central bank proposes that Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL), which operates an interbank USD/INR spot trading platform named FX-CLEAR, would develop an electronic spot trading platform for retail customers modelled on their existing platform. The paper proposes to extend the existing FX-CLEAR platform to retail customers of the FX-CLEAR member banks through an internet based application.

The Indian business process management industry is expected to nearly double its size to $50-55 billion by the end of 2025, IT industry body Nasscom has said. Revenues of the Indian BPM industry stood at $29.8 billion in FY17, as against $28 billion in the previous year, registering growth of 6.4%.

Nasscom said the BPM sector has created direct employment for about 1.2 million people, an increase of over 100,000 jobs when compared to the previous year. As per industry estimates in the last fiscal, the IT industry, including the BPM sector, had created about 170,000 jobs.

Lenders to Reliance Communications (RCom) recently turned down a proposal by the telco to sell 17 properties across the country to repay Ericsson Rs111 crore, bankers said. RCom’s move to partly repay Ericsson’s dues, bankers said, was an attempt at settling the insolvency petition filed against it at the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal. The proposal needs to be ratified by banks as they have initiated a strategic debt restructuring scheme for the company.

We upgrade FY18-19ii EPS for OMCs by 10-25% on the back of: 1) firm GRMs; 2) sustained product sales; and 3) strong outlook for marketing margins. OMCs trade inexpensively, offering earnings yield of 10-11% and dividend yield of 3.5-5% on FY18ii, assuming 40% payout (>45% in FY17). We maintain ‘buy’ on all the three OMCs. HPCL is our top pick, given its net long marketing portfolio and lowest embedded value in SoTP.

Global research and brokerage firms CLSA and Deutsche Bank are bullish on the shares of Tata Consultancy Services, after India’s IT bellwether posted its second quarter (July-September) earnings yesterday, which beat analysts’ expectations as consolidated profit rose, backed by robust volume growth and operational performance. CLSA has retained a buy call on the stock, increasing the target price to Rs 2,970, from the previous target of Rs 2,880. TCS shares continued to rise on Friday morning, and were trading at Rs 2,580.75 on NSE, up by more than 1.2% since the previous close.

KOLKATA: Coal India workers may be celebrating the 20% salary increase they won after a hard bargain, but with every such hike, the monopoly state-owned company may be rendering itself uncompetitive in terms of production cost just when the sector is set to be opened soon for private commercial mining.

Following the salary revision, labour accounts for 55% of the cost of production at Coal India compared with 50% previously and about 22% for most private coal miners.

The benchmark Sensex went up 113 points and the NSE Nifty seized control of 10,000 level today as domestic investors raised the bar ahead of key industrial output numbers to be released later in the day. Another record close on Wall Street after the release of the US Fed minutes fuelled the uptrend.

The 30-share Sensex was higher by 112.53 points, or 0.35 per cent, at 31,946.52. Healthcare, realty, IT, capital goods, oil and gas and auto stocks were in the pink of health, rising by up to 0.86 per cent. The gauge had lost 90 points yesterday.

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